Latest Cases

Human rights – Right to fair hearing. The European Court of Human Rights held that there had been no violation of art 6(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights by reason of the refusal to award legal aid in relation to the applicant's appeal to the Supreme Court in family law proceedings. 

Pension – Pension scheme. The Chancery Division construed an amendment to pension provisions governing the FDR Limited Pension scheme in the light of a proviso to the scheme rules which prevented amendments that would prejudice members of the scheme. 

Housing – Homeless person. The appellant, whose entire income comprised state benefits, had unsuccessfully applied for homelessness assistance from the respondent local authority. The review decision upheld the determination and concluded that, given the household income, there should have been sufficient flexibility to meet the shortfall in rent. The county court dismissed her appeal. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, dismissed the appeal and held that benefits income did not have any special status or treatment in the exercise of establishing whether accommodation was affordable, nor was the starting point that benefits were set at subsistence level and were not designed to give a level of flexibility to spend outside maintaining a very basic standard of living on expenditure such as additional housing costs. 

Building Contract – Adjudication. The Technology and Construction Court considered an application by the claimant company to enforce a decision of an adjudicator. The court held that the adjudicator had been validly appointed and that the decision had been made on a valid basis. However, it would not be appropriate for the court to make an order that certain documents sought by the claimant should be disclosed. 

Family proceedings – Orders in family proceedings. The Family Division heard an application by the wife under s 27 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 for financial provision and decided that despite a pre-nuptial agreement and unsatisfactory evidence from W, H was to provide her with £1,500 per month while the marriage was being untangled and a criminal charge brought by W against H dealt with. 

Copyright – Infringement. The Chancery Division considered a claim that eleven distinct bed linen products sold by the first defendant company infringed copyright with respect to eleven original works created by a director and employee of the claimant. The court held that, among other things, the action for copyright infringement would be dismissed, as the products complained of had been imported before the claimant had produced its corresponding designs, and the registered design was invalid. 

Medical practitioner – Negligence. The judge held that the claimant had demonstrated that the defendant NHS Trust, by one of its consultant surgeons, had been negligent in his conduct of her total hip replacement and that she had suffered injury as a result. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, dismissed the defendant's appeal. Among other things, it rejected the grounds of appeal by which it was contended that the judge's decision had been wrong on the evidence and held that there had been no procedural irregularity at all. 

Minor – Removal outside jurisdiction. A father had applied for the return of his children to France after they had been wrongfully removed by the mother and taken to London. The mother applied to strike out the father's application, or for summary dismissal, as there was an order of the French court in favour of the father that the children should live in London with him. The Family Division dismissed her application, but stayed the father's application until the conclusion of the father's proposed proceedings to seek the recognition and enforcement of the French order. 

Immigration – Leave to enter. The appellant had succeeded in an out of country appeal against deportation, but was refused entry clearance to re-join his partner and child in the United Kingdom. His appeal to the First-tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) (FTT) was dismissed, as was his appeal to the Upper Tribunal (UT). The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, refused him permission to appeal. The UT had identified an error of law made by the FTT and had not, itself, erred in using the findings of fact made in the deportation appeal as a starting point for drawing its own conclusions on the issue of entry clearance. 

Patent – Application. The Chancery Division held that an application brought by the defendant pharmaceutical company,Boehringer Ingelheim Pharma GmbH & Co KG, to introduce new claims to a patent dispute would be dismissed, where the proposed use of a drug, to be used in a dry powder inhaler for the delivery of tiotropium bromide to the lung of a patient suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or asthma, was obvious and the new claims revealed no inventive step.