Latest Cases

Costs – Estimate of costs. The Queen's Bench Division found that the approach taken by the master when making a costs order that left hourly rates open to be debated on detailed assessment, was inappropriate. The master's approach had been inconsistent with CPR 3.15 and Practice Direction 3E. It provided the parties with no certainty as to what the approved budget was, limited their flexibility when deciding how to spend the budget, and created unnecessary micro-managing. Therefore, the offending parts of the master's order were set aside and any further costs management hearings were dispensed with.

Building contract – Adjudication. The claimant company's application to challenge the decision of an arbitrator in a construction contractual dispute failed. The Technology and Construction Court held that the arbitrator's findings had not been inconsistent with the route by which jurisdiction had been conferred on him. Further there had been no approbation and reprobation as alleged.

Negligence – Causation. The first, second and fourth defendants' admitted failures, including to check the claimant's pedal pulses, had not caused her arm and leg amputations. However, the Queen's Bench Division held that the third defendant's admitted failure to refer the claimant for an urgent opinion from a vascular surgeon, who would have initiated coagulation so as to have avoided the upper limb ischaemia, had deprived her of that opportunity and awarded damages in the agreed sum of £150,000.

Practice – Family proceedings. The judge had fallen into error in her assessment of the evidence, so that her finding of sexually-motivated abuse by the appellant father of his son, S, was not safe. Accordingly, the Court of Appeal, Civil Division, allowed the father's appeal against a finding made in care proceedings brought by the first respondent local authority and remitted the matter for retrial by a different judge.

Practice – Pre-trial or post judgment relief. Upon termination of the defendant's contract, he became liable to repay the bonus that he had received from the claimant. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, came to that conclusion on the basis of the interpretation of the terms of the termination and notice requirements.

Practice – Service out. The second to the fifth defendants' application to set aside an order granting the claimants permission to serve them out of the jurisdiction, concerning a claim for declarations, was dismissed. The Commercial Court held that, applying settled law to the facts, the test for service out had been satisfied.

Contract – Terms. The claimant company's application to amend its reply and defence to counterclaim failed. The Commercial Court dismissed the application, which sought to plead the defendant bank's conduct of related proceedings as a defence to the bank's counterclaims in restitution and subrogation.

Immigration – European Economic Area nationals. The judge had been right to hold that the prohibition on systematic verification of a right of residence in art 14(2) of Directive (EC) 2004/38 had not been infringed by Operation Nexus, under which foreign nationals who had been arrested would routinely be asked questions about their nationality and the basis on which they were exercising their Treaty rights. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, in dismissing the claimant Aire Centre's appeal, further held that the judge had been correct to hold that police officers did have power at common law to ask such questions.

Employment – 'Worker'. The employment tribunal had been correct to find that each of the respondent Uber drivers had been working for the second appellant as a 'limb (b) worker'. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, in dismissing Uber's appeal, further upheld the tribunal's decision that the working time of each of the respondents started as soon as he was within his territory (London), had the App switched on and was ready and willing to accept trips, and ended as soon as any of those three conditions ceased to apply.

Shipping – Arbitration award. The claimant companies' application to set aside a judge's order, dismissing their challenge to an arbitration award on the ground of serious irregularity under s 68 of the Arbitration Act 1996, was dismissed. The arbitration arose out of the loss of cargo that had been carried on the claimants' barge. The defendant underwriters had applied to London arbitrators for a declaration that any claim by the claimants against the underwriters for an indemnity, concerning a settlement the claimants had reached with the owners of the cargo, was time-barred. The arbitrators had agreed and had further held that there had been inordinate and inexcusable delay by the claimants, under s 41(3) of the Act. In so ruling, the arbitrators had considered it appropriate to treat the claimants as a 'claimant or counter-claimant', within the meaning of s 41(3), notwithstanding that the underwriters had made the application for a declaration. The Commercial Court ruled that, applying the law to the facts, the claimants' s 68 application was hopeless, and that requiring the underwriters to defend the claim when there was a substantial risk that a fair resolution was no longer possible, as a result of the claimants' own conduct, would be a plain injustice to the underwriters.