Latest Cases

Negligence – Duty to take care. The defendant executive agency of the Department of Transport had doubts which it had decided to investigate about the age or identify of a registered historic vehicle which it knew had been advertised for sale. However, no duty of care was owed by the defendant to prospective purchasers to inform the seller of its concerns. Accordingly, the Court of Appeal, Civil Division, dismissed the claimant vehicle purchaser's appeal against the decision that he could not recover financial loss of £150,000 arising from the fall in value of a vehicle no longer classified as historic.

Local government – Housing. On the claimant's application for judicial review of the defendant local authority's decision that it did not have power to provide the claimant with accommodation, the Administrative Court dismissed the application on the basis that: (i) the authority's decision not to provide accommodation under the Care Act 2014 was lawful; (ii) the authority would not be able to provide accommodation to the claimant under s 1 of the Localism Act 2011; and (iii) the claimant was excluded from such provision pursuant to Sch 3 to the Nationality Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 on the ground that such support was not necessary for the purpose of avoiding a breach of his rights under the European Convention on Human Rights or his EU rights.

Contract – Breach of contract. The Queen's Bench Division found that while the defendant had been in breach of contract by unlawfully terminating the claimant's membership of the defendant's organisation, the claimant had failed to show a causative link between the loss of her membership and her failure to progress or any loss of opportunities for earning.

Family proceedings – Costs. There had been no, let alone any serious, procedural or other irregularities which undermined the judge's decision to assess the costs arising from financial remedy proceedings summarily. Accordingly, the Court of Appeal, Civil Division, dismissed the appellant husband's appeal against the judge's decision that the husband should pay the respondent wife £30,000 as a contribution towards her costs of £127,000.

Police – Disclosure of information. In response to the respondents' submissions regarding the current scheme of disclosure under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, as amended, and the Police Act 1997, as amended, and the corresponding legislation in Northern Ireland, the Supreme Court held that, they were in accordance with the law for the purposes of art 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights and, that the categories employed in that scheme were not disproportionate, subject to two exceptions, namely the multiple conviction rule and warnings and reprimands administered to young offenders. Against that background, the Supreme Court dismissed: (i) the appeal brought by the Secretary of State (Northern Ireland) in the case of LG; and (ii) the appeals brought by the Secretary of State for the Home Department in the cases of P and G. However, the Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeal, Civil Division's judgment in W's case on the basis that it was legitimate to include assault occasioning harm among the offences which were sufficiently serious to require disclosure.

Estoppel – Proprietary estoppel. There were a number of serious difficulties with the judge's approach to the first defendant's equity and with the regime which he had put in place to implement it, such that his order could not stand. However, the Court of Appeal, Civil Division, dismissed the first claimant's challenge to the judge's findings of fact, namely, that the first defendant had been promised a farm and business.

Practice – Disclosure and inspection of documents. The collateral purpose rule under CPR 31.22 related to documents already disclosed and produced, not to the preceding process of disclosure and production, and it was based on different policy considerations. The Financial List ruled that none of the objections to the disclosure of documents (including third party material) which the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) had provided to the defendant, Tesco plc, had been such as to warrant an order preventing their production in proceedings brought by the claimants for compensation concerning losses allegedly suffered due to Tesco plc's alleged false accounting. The documents had been provided to Tesco plc for the purpose of negotiations about a deferred prosecution agreement eventually concluded between the SFO and Tesco plc's subsidiary in 2017. The court ruled that, in circumstances where disclosure and production were sought from an existing party to the proceedings, the test of necessity, expressly retained in CPR 31.17(3)(c), and the test in CPR 31.22 (concerning restrictions on collateral use), did not apply. It held that the question was whether, in the particular circumstance, the objective of dealing with the case justly and at proportionate cost could be achieved without disclosure of the relevant documents, and that, on the facts, it would not be just to deny the claimants production of the documents, which were likely to be of considerable litigious advantage to them.

Town and country planning – Development in green belt – Refusal of planning permission. Court of Session: Allowing an appeal against a decision of the Scottish Ministers, dismissing an appeal against Stirling Council's decision to refuse planning permission for a development in the green belt comprising, inter alia, 600 housing units, the court held that the respondents had failed to take into account a relevant consideration and had purported to take into account an irrelevant one, notably in connection with the outcome of a local development plan process which had occurred between the date of a reporter's recommendation to the respondents and their decision, which was taken about a year later.

Environmental protection – Waste on land – Knowingly permitting controlled waste to be deposited on land – Restoration costs. Court of Session: Dismissing an action in which the pursuer, who had leased a site to two directors of a waste management company who subsequently pled guilty to a charge of keeping controlled waste at the site in a manner likely to cause pollution of the environment and harm to human health, sought to impose liability on the defenders, one of about 38 third-party users of the company's services, for the whole restoration costs in relation to the site, averring that in March 2011 they entered into an arrangement with the company for the disposal of their waste, which subsisted until they ceased to deliver waste to the site in June 2012, the court held that the pursuer had failed to aver a relevant case that the defenders 'knowingly permitted' unlawful deposits of waste on the site, and in any event his case was largely extinguished by the operation of prescription.

European Union – Value added tax. Articles 17(2), (3) and (5) and 19(1) of Sixth Council Directive (EC) 77/388 and arts 168, 169 and 173 to 175 of Council Directive (EC) 2006/112 should be interpreted as meaning that, in relation to the expenditure borne by a branch registered in a member state, which was used, exclusively, both for transactions subject to VAT and for transactions exempt from that tax, carried out by the principal establishment of that branch established in another member state, it was necessary to apply a deductible proportion resulting from a fraction the denominator of which was formed by the turnover, exclusive of VAT, made up of those transactions alone and the numerator of which was formed by the taxed transactions in respect of which VAT which would also be deductible if they had been carried out in the member state in which that branch was registered, including where that right to deduct stemmed from the exercise of an option, effected by that branch, consisting in making the transactions carried out in that state subject to VAT. The Court of Justice of the European Union so held in proceedings brought by Morgan Stanley & Co International plc concerning the deduction of VAT paid by its Paris branch.