Latest Cases

Costs – Summary assessment of costs. In a costs application for summary assessment, where the interested party had failed to comply with the practice direction, the claimant submitted that the sanction for late failure to comply should be no costs. The Technology and Construction Court held that there was no sanction specified in CPR PD 44 and in any event having decided that in principle that the interested party should have its reasonable costs. To punish the interested party for its failure in effect to the tune of some £40,000 would be wholly disproportionate. 

Immigration – Detention. The claimant sought a declaration that the defendant Secretary of State was not entitled to make a second deportation order or an order quashing the order, following the revocation of an earlier order. He further sought damages and/or compensation for false imprisonment and for violation of art 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Administrative Court, in allowing the application, held that the second deportation order had been unlawful when made absent a sufficient change of circumstances. Accordingly, the claimant had been falsely imprisoned and imprisoned in breach of art 5 of the Convention. 

Building contract – Adjudication. The proceedings concerned an application by the claimant building contractor for an injunction to restrain the defendant property developers from proceeding with a reference to adjudication. The claimant submitted that the adjudicator did not have jurisdiction to decide the dispute, because that dispute was the same or substantially the same as that which had already been decided in a previous adjudication. The Technology and Construction Court, in dismissing the application, held that, if the first dispute raised more than one issue or, as in the present case, raised issues that had been put in the alternative, a decision by an adjudicator in the first adjudication only on a party's primary case did not prevent a second adjudicator from determining the alternative case. 

Pension – Pension scheme. In the course of the administration of a bank, which ran a pension scheme, the claimant trustee sought a declaration that a debt owed to the pension scheme was assignable. The Chancery Division considered whether the trustee of a pension scheme was able to assign the debt owed to the pension scheme which was created by s 75 of the Pensions Act 1995. It held that, among other things, a declaration to that effect would be made. 

Crown – Proceedings against. The proceedings concerned claims in tort and applications for judicial review against the defendant Ministries and Secretaries of State involving mistreatment in Iraq and Afghanistan by United States forces following transfer of custody from the hands of British forces. The Queen's Bench Division held that the claims in tort were not barred by reason of the doctrines of state immunity or foreign act of state. The claims in tort would be barred by the doctrine of Crown act of state if the defendants were able to show that the arrest and detention by British forces had been authorised pursuant to a lawful policy. The applications for judicial review were given permission to proceed where there was no reason to refuse such permission. 

Immigration – Asylum seeker. The claimant Eritrean national contended she was a former relevant child and, as such, the defendant local authority owed duties to her, even though she had never been a looked after child on account of her age having been assessed as being over 18. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, held that the claimant had not been a former relevant child, even if she had been 16 when she had entered the United Kingdom, as she had not, in fact, been looked after by the authority. However, her age was relevant, as the discretion to provide her with accommodation might arise if the authority had acted unlawfully in failing to accommodate her, if she had been 16 when she had arrived in the UK. 

Employment – Contract. The judge found that the defendant Foreign and Commonwealth Office's (the FCO) withdrawal of the claimant as British High Commissioner in Belize had been a breach of his contract and the common law duty of care. He awarded damages, including for his depressive illness. The FCO appealed. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division dismissed the challenge to the judge's findings of breach of contract and causation. However, it found that the judge had erred in finding that it had been reasonably foreseeable that the FCO's conduct might lead him to develop psychiatric illness. 

Practice – Stay of proceedings. The question in the appeal was whether the judge had been wrong to stay a claim by which the claimants had challenged the defendant company's entitlement to recover legal fees in circumstances where, as they contended, the court itself had and should have exercised its supervisory jurisdiction over solicitors and others in relation to the matters of which they complained. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, in dismissing the appeal, held that there had been nothing unsatisfactory in the court having ordered a stay and that the court was bound to stay the claims, unless the claimants established that the arbitration agreement was null and void, inoperative or incapable of being performed. 

Sale of goods – Delivery. The proceedings concerned a claim against the defendant for alleged non-payment of a series of invoices relating to the sale of pharmaceutical goods by the claimant to the defendant. Judgement was given against the defendant and it appealed. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, in dismissing the appeal, held that the appeal had amounted to no more than an attempt to re-litigate the issues of fact and credibility which had been decided by the judge at trial. 

Town and country planning – Permission for development. The claimant challenged the decision of the first defendant Secretary of State to dismiss his appeals against the second defendant local planning authority's refusal to grant planning permission and its issue of an enforcement notice. The Planning Court, in allowing the appeal, held, amongst other things, that the Secretary of State's conclusion about flood risk had been unreasonable and/or had failed to take account of material considerations.