Latest Cases

Immigration – Deportation. None of the claimant serving prisoner and Irish national's grounds of challenge to the decision of the defendant Secretary of State, refusing to deport him to the Republic of Ireland, were made out. Accordingly, the Administrative Court dismissed his application for judicial review of that decision.

Disclosure and inspection of documents – Order for disclosure. The defendant media organisation's appeal against a judgment refusing permission to vary a disclosure order failed, in the phone hacking litigation brought by various claimants for misuse of private information as a result of the unlawful interception of voicemail messages left on their mobile phones. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, held that the judge had not erred in considering an alternative arrangement to be unworkable, and had not wrongly equated what was in the interests of justice with what had been needed by the claimants to bring the claim.

Particulars of claim – Amendment. The defendant's application to amend her particulars of claim to include a claim for rectification of two trust deeds failed. The Chancery Division held that, on the evidence, it was not persuaded that the trusts had been wrongly recorded. In particular, there had been no intention, common or single, to exclude the property from the trusts of either deed. There was no mistake that the court could rectify.

Sentence – Community order. On the plain reading of s 200 of, and para 20 of Sch 8 to, the Criminal Justice Act 2003, a court, which had made a community order imposing an unpaid work requirement, had the power to extend the period during which the work had to be performed after the end date specified in the order as the date by which all the requirements in the order had to have been complied with (pursuant to CJA 2003 s 177). The Divisional Court so ruled in allowing the National Probation Board's appeal by case stated.

Medical practitioner – Negligence. The widower of a deceased Jehovah's witness, who had refused a blood transfusion on religious grounds, failed in his claim alleging negligence against the defendant NHS trust. The claim arose out of the death of the deceased, following an emergency caesarian section (C-section). The Queen's Bench Division held, among other things that, while there had been a breach of duty on 16 September 2013 (when the deceased had been re-admitted into hospital) in failing to tell her that she was at a significantly higher risk than the average woman of having to have a C-section or that she could have the option of a planned section, had the deceased been properly advised, she probably would not have chosen to have a planned C-section on the relevant day, and that there had been no breach of duty thereafter.

Company – Charge. The appellant liquidators' appeal succeeded, in a dispute concerning the valuation of sums owed to the respondent solicitors following the liquidation of a company for which the solicitors had carried out work. The Court of Appeal held that the judge's approach to the construction of the Insolvency Act 1986 (IA 1986) and its application to the present case could not stand. The whole concept of provision of services in return for a fixed fee had to be disregarded in the present case, because such a concept was incompatible with the exercise which IA 1986 s 245(6) required to be performed. The question of valuation of the services would be referred back to the High Court.

Practice – Civil Procedure Rules. The claimant company's application for summary judgment failed, and the defendant company's application for an order that the claim against it should continue as a CPR Pt 7 claim succeeded, in a dispute concerning a contract to maintain the claimant's aeroplanes. The Chancery Division set out steps that ought to be followed whenever a party was contemplating commencing proceedings under CPR Pt 8 in respect of a claim which could be started under CPR Pt 7.

Bankruptcy – Sequestration – Warrant to cite. Sheriff Court: In a petition for sequestration in which the petitioner sought warrant to cite the debtor, the sum charged for being £1,997.36 and the debt referred to in the creditor's oath being £3,539.22, the increase being vouched by unpaid invoices issued subsequent to the sums due in terms of the charge for payment, as far as the court was aware there was no binding authority of the Sheriff Appeal Court or Inner House that required it to refuse warrant to cite the debtor where the sum in the decree constituting the basis for apparent insolvency was less than £3,000; as the matter was not free from doubt it would not be appropriate to refuse warrant to cite because such a decision would preclude the petition being brought into court and prevent the petitioner exercising its right of access to the court, and it would arguably have no right of appeal against that decision.

Succession law – Will – Interpretation – Validity of bequest – Ademption. Sheriff Court: In an action in which the issue was whether, properly interpreted, a clause in a will contained a valid bequest and, if so, whether the legacy of that bequest had adeemed, the testator having bequeathed to the defender's daughter his 'interest' in a property which was still within his father's estate and was on the market for sale when he executed his will, and having subsequently received his share of his father's estate, which included the net free proceeds of sale of the property, the court held that on the agreed facts it could not be said that the testator had any interest in the property as at the date of his death and the legacy had adeemed.

Family proceedings – Orders in family proceedings. On the true interpretation of s 38(4) of the Children Act 1989, as amended, no interim care, or supervision, order would endure beyond the date of a child's 17th birthday or the date of a child's marriage, if aged 16. Interim care, and supervision, orders made for a period during which the child turned either 17 or got married (if aged 16) were impermissible. Accordingly, the Family Division held that an interim care order made in respect of a child, Q, who was aged 16, would cease to have effect on the day that he turned 17.