Latest Cases

Trade dispute – Dispute connected with terms and conditions of employment. The Queen's Bench Division held that an interim injunction would be granted using the usual test of the American Cyanamid principles that drivers be told that the court had declared that, pending any industrial action and any agreement reached thereafter, they should operate trains on a 12-car DOO(P) basis on those services which had formerly had a 10-car DOO(P) service to Gatwick, on the Gatwick Express. 

Iqbal v Procurator Fiscal, Dumfries 

Contract – Breach. The Privy Council dismissed the appellant's appeal against, among other things, a decision that a clause in a lease of part of a resort, granted by the appellant to the respondent, did not restrict the respondent's right to claim damages for breach of contract. It held that, absent any indication in the wording of the clause in the context of the lease as a whole that the 'penalty fee' was to be in substitution for common law damages for breach of contract, the fee would be construed as an additional charge on the occurrence of an interruption caused by a breach of contract. 

Prisoner – Rehabilitation. Court of Session: Dismissing a judicial review petition by a prisoner who was subject to an order for lifelong restriction with a punishment part of 7 years' imprisonment and who sought judicial review of a failure by the Scottish Ministers to assess him for rehabilitative course work and their associated policy, the court rejected the petitioner's contentions that by failing to assess him for rehabilitative course work and by adopting policy they had in prioritising assessments for such course work the respondents had failed in their duty to provide him with a reasonable opportunity to rehabilitate himself and demonstrate to the Parole Board at point of his punishment part expiry date that he no longer represented an unacceptable danger to the public and that those failings constituted breaches of their duties at common law and under arts 5 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights. 

Insurance – Transfer of long-term insurance business. The Companies Court granted an order, among other things, sanctioning an insurance business transfer scheme to transfer the applicant company, The Copenhagen Reinsurance Company (U.K) Ltd's entire insurance business to another company in the Enstar group. 

Social security – Income support. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, determined two appeals regarding the effect of the Jobseekers (Back to Work Schemes) Act 2013. It held that, by that Act, Parliament had successfully retrospectively validated sanctions imposed on jobseeker's allowance claimants who had failed to participate in certain back to work schemes. In the cases of those claimants who had already appealed their sanctions, the Act had been incompatible with their rights under art 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. 

Partnership – Partnership agreement – Construction – Retiral from partnership. Court of Session: In a dispute concerning the sum due to a former partner in respect of his share of the partnership assets after he was compelled to retire from a solicitors' partnership in terms of a clause of the partnership agreement, having reached the age of 65, the court held that the agreement did not incorporate an agreed basis for the pursuer to obtain a share of the net partnership assets in the circumstances in which he ceased to be a partner and accordingly his entitlement fell to be determined by the general law, under which the whole net assets of the partnership should be shared equally between the partners. 

Practice – Hearing. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, dismissed an appeal against an order that the application by the claimant for a detailed assessment of the bills of the defendant, its former solicitors, pursuant to s 70 of the Solicitors Act 1974, should be held in private. It held that the authorities clearly demonstrated that there was a concept of waiver for limited purposes and that was clearly what had happened in the present case. 

Town and country planning – Permission for development. The Administrative Court dismissed the claimant's challenge to the decision of the first defendant Secretary of State, dismissing its appeal against the refusal of planning permission for two alternative developments. There had been no misinterpretation of the National Planning Policy Framework, and no error with respect to the five-year housing supply or the discount of the claimant's proposed contribution to a bridge. 

Practice – Pre-trial or post-judgment relief. The Queen's Bench Division allowed an appeal from a decision of a recorder, refusing to award a fixed-advocacy fee on the basis that the case had settled. It had not strained the language of CPR 45.29C to conclude that the case was one where the claim had been 'disposed of at trial', albeit by way of settlement rather than judgment.