Latest Cases

Land – Purchase of land. The claimants' claim failed, in a dispute concerning a plan to fund the purchase of a property in London. The claimants alleged that there had been an oral agreement whereby the defendant had agreed to sell a 10% interest in the fund for purchase to them. The Chancery Division held that, on the evidence, the defendant had made no express and unqualified promise to transfer the 10% interest to the defendants.

Limitation of Action – Personal injury claim. The appellants appealed against a judge's decision, exercising his discretion under s 33 of the Limitation Act 1980 to permit a claim to proceed out of time. The respondent brought the claim under the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1934 and the Fatal Accidents Act 1976, following the death of her husband, who had contracted asbestosis, allegedly in the course of his employment with the appellants. The Queen's Bench Division held that the judge had not erred in his conclusions and that, having found that the delay on the respondent's side after the date of knowledge had not affected the strength of the appellants' defence, and that the delay was excusable, it could not realistically be argued that the judge had been wrong to conclude that it was equitable to allow the action to proceed.

Contempt of Court – Breach of court order. The present case was the deliberate and repeated flouting of a court order by a sophisticated defendant who had committed similar breaches of the order in contempt of court in the past. Accordingly, the Court of Appeal, Criminal Division, dismissed the defendant's appeal against his sentence of 15 months' imprisonment for a second finding of contempt of court. The contempt had arisen from the defendant's continued breaches of a restraint order made pursuant to a criminal investigation by the Financial Conduct Authority into unregulated and illegal money lending businesses operated by him.

Financial services – Financial Conduct Authority. The Financial Conduct Authority (the FCA) had been right to impose a penalty of £409,300 on the applicant company for breach of Principle 3 of the FCA's Principles for Businesses. Accordingly, on the applicant's reference to the Upper Tribunal (Tax and Chancery Chamber), the tribunal confirmed that the FCA's action was appropriate and dismissed the applicant's appeal against the penalty amount.

European Union – Employment. Articles 6(b), 16(b) and the first paragraph of art 19 of Directive (EC) 2003/88 should be interpreted as not precluding national legislation which laid down, for the purpose of calculating the average weekly working time, reference periods which started and ended on fixed calendar dates, provided that that legislation contained mechanisms which made it possible to ensure that the maximum average weekly working time of 48 hours was respected during each six-month period straddling two consecutive fixed reference periods. The Court of Justice of the European Union so held in a preliminary ruling in proceedings concerning the reference period used to calculate the average weekly working time of active officials of the French national police force.

Summary judgment – Local authority. The defendant local authority (CWCBC) had been carrying out a trading standards related investigation into allegedly fraudulent conduct by the claimant supplier companies. Following a police search of the claimants' premises, under search warrants granted to the police on an ex parte basis, the claimants brought claims against CWCBC, alleging, among other things, misfeasance in public office, trespass to goods and breach of their human rights (the HRA claims). CWCBC claimed immunity from suit and contended that the HRA claims could not be pursued, unless and until the warrants had been quashed, and that the only basis on which the claimants would have been entitled to proceed was by way of judicial review. The master allowed CWCBC's application for a strike out and/or summary judgment in respect of the HRA claims. The Queen's Bench Division, in allowing the claimants' appeal, held that the master had been wrong to categorise the HRA claims as being unarguably exclusively justiciable in the public law arena, and that it was not an appropriate case for summary disposal, either by way of strike out, or summary judgment. In particular, the public law and immunity points relied on by CWCBC were not sufficiently compelling to have justified the course which the master had been persuaded to take.

Barrister – Disciplinary proceedings. The Disciplinary Tribunal of the Bar Standards Board (the tribunal) had been entitled to consider that there had been insufficient evidence for it to proceed to a full hearing, in which the appellant barrister could put before them whatever evidence he wished and re-run whatever legal argument he wished in order to seek to persuade them that he was innocent of the offences of which he had been convicted. Accordingly, the Administrative Court dismissed the appellant's appeal against the decision of the tribunal disbarring him on account of his two criminal convictions.

Local authority – Judicial review. There was no specific representation, policy or practice which had been breached by the defendant local authority prior to the making of the decision which was challenged. Accordingly, the Administrative Court dismissed the applicant's application for judicial review of the local authority's decision to revise market pitch fees or rents at a market held in Leighton Buzzard town centre.

Negligence – Personal injury. The appellant, an employee of the respondent, Cancer Research UK (CRUK), appealed against a recorder's decision that CRUK was not liable in negligence or vicariously liable in respect of a back injury she had sustained at CRUK's Christmas Party in 2012. A visiting scientist, who was not an employee of CRUK, had picked the appellant up on the dance-floor and had dropped her. The Queen's Bench Division, in dismissing the appeal, held that the recorder had not erred in finding that the claim for negligence had not been made out, and that appellant had not made good the proposition that the demands of social justice were such as to require the recorder to determine that CRUK was vicariously liable for what had happened to her at the Christmas party.

European Union – Freedom of movement. National legislation, such as that at issue in the main proceedings in Austria, which established a difference in treatment between workers based on their seniority with their current employer could not be regarded as indirectly discriminatory against workers who were nationals of other member states and, therefore, as being contrary to art 45(2) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. The Court of Justice of the European Union so held in a preliminary ruling in proceedings concerning the merely partial account taken, for the purposes of calculating the right to paid annual leave of the respondent company's employees, of previous periods of service which those employees had completed with other employers.