PI Brief Update

Keep It Simple, Sheriff: Simple Procedure in the Sheriff Court - Peter Demick & Ben Bestgen, Brodies LLP

29/06/16. Riding on the winds of change in Scotland’s civil courts reforms (with our special focus on personal injury), we have already seen the creation of the All-Scotland Sheriff (Personal Injury) Court, a new Sheriff Appeal Court and the increase of the jurisdictional limit for bringing cases in the Court of Session – our High Court - to £100,000.

Readers may recall that on 22 March 2016 our colleague Sarah Donaldson gave a quick introduction to the planned introduction of the Simple Procedure Rules. Now that the official consultation has ended and the Scottish Civil Justice Council published its Report, November 2016 will see the introduction of the new Simple Procedure for claims of up to £5,000 in the Sheriff Courts, Scotland’s equivalent to the County Courts.

This means that the Summary and Small Claims procedures, in force since 2002, will soon be replaced by the Simple Procedure. For complex claims, including those relating to personal injury, we will need to wait until early 2017 for the implementation of the Simple Procedure (Special Claims) Rules.

“What is simple about Simple Procedure?” you might ask. After all, the present rules seem to work ok. Here is why the change is introduced:

In the 14 years that the current rules have been in operation, it was found that even though they were originally aimed at making the use of the courts in small value claims easier, they did not always do so. This is especially the case for party litigants (known as “litigants in person” south of the border) who often wish to argue low-value cases themselves instead of hiring a lawyer at a cost disproportionate to the claim’s value.

The rules and language to date have been...

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