Latest Cases

Copyright – Infringement. The Intellectual Property Enterprise Court struck out a claim for infringement of copyright in its entirety where it would not be appropriate to use the court's resources when the maximum damages which the claimant could claim was around £83. 

Employment – Continuity. The Employment Appeal Tribunal, in dismissing the appellant's appeal held that, applying settled law, a transferring company had not been under the supervision of an insolvency practitioner where there had been no such appointment and that, accordingly, there had been a transfer of undertakings between the appellant and the transferring company under the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006, SI 2006/246. 

Negligence – Duty to take care. The claimant lorry driver issued proceedings against his employer after suffering injury in descending the lorry's steps. The judge dismissed his claim and the claimant appealed. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, in dismissing the appeal, held that the judge had not erred in finding that the steps had not been inherently dangerous and that no training was needed because the need to take care was obvious. 

Income tax – Corporation tax. The Upper Tribunal (Tax and Chancery Chamber) dismissed the taxpayer's appeal against a decision of the Revenue and Customs Commissioners to reject the joint election pursuant to s 171A of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992 made by the taxpayer and another company within the same corporate group (GR) to deem the disposal of certain loan notes issued by a third party company to the taxpayer as having been made by GR rather than the taxpayer. 

Practice – Family proceedings. The parties had been involved in divorce proceedings where the wife had incured costs. She applied for a legal services payment order (LSPO) pursuant to s 22ZA Matrimonial Causes Act 1973. The divorce proceedings were stayed but the LSPO was not. The husband appealed and the matter came on for hearing along with the wife's application for a lump sum and the LSPO. The Family Division allowed the husband's appeal and found that the 

Practice – Pre-trial or post-judgment relief. The judge refused to vary a freezing order against the defendant so as to permit him to repay a loan made by his daughter, E and granted the claimant companies a final third party debt order with respect to the defendant's accounts. The defendant appealed. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, in allowing the appeal, held that a proper exercise of the judicial discretion, to achieve an equitable outcome, required any third party debt order in the claimants' favour to be subject to a proviso, which required repayment of the debt owed to E prior to the order becoming final. 

Freedom of information – Exempt information. The claimant journalist sought the disclosure of communications passing between the Prince of Wales and various government departments. The Upper Tribunal (Administrative Appeals Chamber) (the UT) ordered the partial disclosure of the communications (the 2012 decision) and subsequently granted the journalist's requests for lists and schedules (the 2013 decision). The government departments appealed. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, in allowing the appeal, held that the 2012 decision had disposed of the claimant's claims in respect of lists and schedules, and the UT had been wrong in law to hold that it had had power to deal with that issue in the 2013 decision. 

Claimant companies owning land – Claimants leasing land to third party. The claimant companies owned land that they leased to a company which sought to carry out preliminary drilling in preparation for 'fracking' excavations. The second and fifth defendants were individuals staying on the land as part of a protest against fracking. The claimants applied for possession of the land. The Chancery Division held that the claimants owned the land in question, and that the rights of the defendants under the European Convention on Human Rights had not been infringed by the claimants' application for possession. 

Police – Negligence. In dismissing the claimant's appeal against the recorder's findings that immunity against negligence claims applied to police officers engaged in the apprehension of criminals, the Court of Appeal, Civil Division, held that the three-stage test in Caparo v Dickman ([1990] 2 AC 605) applied. In the circumstances, it had not been fair just and reasonable to impose a duty of care, and in any event, the police had not acted negligently. 

Employment – Redundancy. The Employment Appeal, in allowing the employee's appeal in a claim for age discrimination, held that a local authority had not been required by an enactment to discriminate between the employee and younger dismissed employees in respect of redundancy pay.