Latest Cases

Practice – Civil restraint order. Since 2008, the claimant serving prisoner had commenced 13 separate unmeritorious judicial review claims and six separate private civil claims on a range of subjects concerning his imprisonment. He applied to discharge an extended civil restraint order (ECRO) made against him and the Secretary of State applied for the ECRO to be converted into a general civil restraint order (GCRO). The Administrative Court held that, as the claimant was not obsessed with one theme, but several themes concerning his imprisonment, an ECRO was unlikely to be effective. Accordingly, the appropriate and proportionate response was to make a GCRO. 

Copyright – Infringement. The defendant director provided copyright software to another company whilst in the employ of the claimant company. The claimant brought proceedings for copyright infringement and breach of fiduciary duty. The Chancery Division, in allowing the claim, held that, among other things, the defendant had not acted with the claimant's permission, and the claim was no time barred. 

Will – Validity. Court of Session: In an action which concerned a testatrix who made a will in 2008 leaving most of her estate to her younger sister, but less than two weeks before her death from cancer in May 2010 executed a codicil and a new will which left a preferential legacy of £3m to the trustees of her liferent trust and reduced the legacy to the sister substantially, the court concluded that the sister's claim seeking reduction of the codicil and the new will on the grounds of (i) lack of testamentary capacity, (ii) undue influence and/or (iii) facility and circumvention failed. 

Town and country planning – Permission for development. The issue before the Planning Court was whether an obligation imposed by an agreement under s 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 entered into by the claimant had survived a second grant of planning permission identical to the first, save for that obligation. The court held that, as a matter of law, the developer had been able to elect to continue and complete the development under the second planning permission, rather than the first planning permission. Further, it had, in fact, elected to continue and complete the development under the second planning permission. 

Family proceedings – Orders in family proceedings. The appeal arose out of private law proceedings between the father and the mother in relation to their two children, BF and CF. The judge dismissed the father's applications for a residence order in respect of CF and for direct contact with both CF and BF. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, in dismissing the father's appeal, held, inter alia, that the judge had been well aware that the father had, to some extent, been marginalised by some of the professionals and it was clear that she had factored that into her assessment of his case. 

Practice – Family proceedings. The wife had applied for a judgment summons due to the husband's failure to make payments under a maintenance order. The hearing of her application had been adjourned a number of times on the husband's application. The husband had again applied for an adjournment on the ground that he was not sufficiently well enough to attend and that it would be wrong, given the criminal nature of the proceedings, to continue in his absence. The Family Division dismissed the husband's application having paid regard to the history of the wife's application, and the insufficiency of the medical evidence that had been produced which had been vague and had not explained why attendance had not been possible. 

Child – Care proceedings. The proceedings concerned a child, aged 17 months, who had been placed in foster care for just over a year because of concerns regarding the ability of her learning disabled parents. The child was eventually reunited with the parents, who issued proceedings claiming damages. The Family Division held that a delay by a local authority in issuing care proceedings had been unjustified and inexcusable and its procedural failures had been in breach of the parents' human rights. The parents were each awarded £6,000 in damages. 

Costs – Order for costs. The claimant alleged that he was the victim of a campaign of abuse and vilification by the first defendant, who had not yet been identified in the proceedings. The second defendant operated the most widely used search engine in the world and searches made on the claimant's name produced, prominently, results which led to websites where the lies about which he complained were available to be read. A trial was scheduled and the second defendant expected its costs to be in the region of £1.68m by the end of the trial, which sum will have been spent in only five months. That was approximately £1m more than the Claimant expected to incur over the same period. The claimant applied for a costs capping order or a costs management order. The Queen's Bench held that a costs management order would be the more appropriate. 

Immigration – Leave to remain. The claimant Gambian national sought judicial review of the defendant Secretary of State's decision that she had not met the requirements of para 284 of the Immigration Rules and that she had not qualified under Appendix FM to the Immigration Rules. The Administrative Court, in dismissing the application, held that there had been no error as to para 284 of the Immigration Rules. Further, despite the Secretary of State's error in having assessed the matter by reference to Appendix FM of the Immigration Rules, when that provision had not applied to the claimant's application, no injustice had been caused. 

Town and country planning – Permission for development. The claimant sought judicial review of the defendant local planning authority's decision to grant planning permission for a link road on the basis that it had failed to consider it jointly or cumulatively with a proposed urban extension. The Planning Court, in dismissing the application, held that the authority had been entitled to conclude that the link road had not been an integral part of the urban extension, requiring joint consideration. Further, the assessment of the cumulative effects of the urban extension had been sufficient to meet the requirements of the Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 2011, SI 2011/1824.