News Category 2
Fraud Rings: How to Identify and Investigate - Andrew Mckie, Clerksroom
15/02/14. Chapter 3 of 'RTA Allegations of Fraud in a Post-Jackson Era: The Handbook' by Andrew Mckie. A fraud ring may be broadly defined as a group of one or more road traffic accidents which share a common dominator as part of the alleged fraud, and it may be the accident management company, the hire company, the storage company, the Claimant, a group of addresses. The Defendant’s insurer, will seek to investigate, a group of accidents together which have similar evident circumstances, and the links may be through one or more of the above denominators.
The last few years, this type of fraud has become more prolific and now within Defendant Solicitors and insurers, there are dedicated teams of claims handlers and Lawyers dealing with such claims. The insurers’ internal systems will often be geared towards spotting the signs of a fraud ring, and then it is often the case that more cases are brought into the fraud ring investigation, as the indicators become clearer. More often than not, a fraud ring will involve the same type of fraud, i.e. there may be a group of accidents which have all the hallmarks of a staged or contrived accident, and/or they may be a group of accidents linked through slam on or induced accident scenario. More often than not, when a fraud ring is being investigated, it will...
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The Problem With Some Uncooperative Litigation Friends - Thomas Crockett, 1 Chancery Lane
09/02/14. What happens when you are involved in litigation where a party’s interests (either your client or the other side’s) are represented by litigation friend who refuses to cooperate with you or other people involved in the case?
In many cases, surely the answer is simply to apply to the court for the recalcitrant litigation friend to be replaced for the best interests of the protected litigant. However it is clear that notwithstanding the manifest damage being caused by an uncooperative litigation friend, their removal may be anticipated to do more harm than good. Such was the case in...
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Civil Restraint Orders: Some Guidance from the High Court - Thomas Crockett, 1 Chancery Lane
07/02/14. The imposition of a Civil Restraint Order (“CRO”) is among the most draconian sanctions available to the civil courts. They prevent a party from making applications or issuing claims without the same first being vetted by a judge. There are three types of CRO (see CPR PD 3C): “Limited” – restricted to application within specific proceedings; “Extended” – restricted to applications or claims concerning any matter involving or relating to or touching upon or leading to the proceedings in which the order is made; and “General” – akin to a Vexatious Litigant Order, though limited to two years.
There is little readily-available guidance as to when courts may be prepared to order the imposition of a CRO and which of the three species of the same is appropriate in what circumstances, beyond that two, more or persistent applications which are “totally without merit” are required before an application will be entertained. It is unclear however whether this is a prescriptive test for applications formally certified pursuant to...
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Mitchell Revisited - Jeff Pedley, Whitfields Solicitors
05/02/14. The consequences of the legal Tsunami which struck in late 2013 continue to cause chaos and devastation whereby the unwary may suffer severe financial loss. This article is intended to review some recent cases, following Mitchell, and to suggest a way in which the liability for consequential losses, may be avoided.
I do not propose to rehearse the facts of Mitchell of which (hopefully) most Lawyers are now familiar. However, it is interesting to note that to some extent it was an “artificial” case. At the Cost Management Hearing (“CMH”) I understand that the Defendant’s Solicitors were themselves one day late in serving a “Schedule”. While the Claimant’s Solicitors acting for Mr Mitchell, for a number of reasons only served their schedule shortly before the CMH, the obvious solution, I suspect, in most Lawyers’ view, would have been to adjourn the CMH if that was necessary. Instead, I understand the Master decided to re-list it, at comparatively short notice, necessitating the adjournment of another case listed, whereby prejudice was caused to those Claimants by reason of the further delay.
The Master then refused relief from sanctions pursuant to the Amended CPR 3.9 relying, in part, upon the prejudice caused to the Claimants (whose case had to be vacated to accommodate the adjourned hearing). An Appeal inevitably followed which was “leapfrogged” to the Court of Appeal (“CA”) who took the opportunity of upholding the Master’s decision to refuse relief against sanction whereby Mr Mitchell (who fortunately was on a pre 1st April 2013 CFA) could not recover any costs except the Court issue fees. A harsh sanction indeed leaving Mr Mitchell’s Solicitors (or their insurers) the following options...
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Smith v Secretary of State for the Environment and Climate Change: Guidance on Pre-Action Disclosure - Cathrine Grubb, Civitas Law
22/01/14. In the recent case of Smith v Secretary of State for the Environment and Climate Change the Court of Appeal provided clear and useful guidance on the correct approach to applications for pre-action disclosure under CPR r. 31.16. When approaching an application for pre-action disclosure a two-stage approach is required whereby a court needs to firstly consider whether the jurisdictional thresholds of CPR r. 31.16 are satisfied before considering whether to exercise its discretion to make an order for disclosure.
Prior to the decision in Smith there was some debate as to whether the requirement for an applicant to show that ‘the applicant and respondent are likely to be parties to subsequent proceedings’ included consideration of the likelihood that proceedings would...
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![Appeal judge rules that credit hire company has no costs liability following a finding of fundamental dishonesty in personal injury case: RSA v. Fastrack Solutions Limited [2023] 4 WLUK 92 - David Bowden, Erimus Chambers](/content/images/resized/images/stories/carkeys_72_72.jpg)
