This site uses cookies.

Fundamental Dishonesty: Blind Men and Elephants? - Patrick West, St John's Chambers

21/06/17. Me I'm dishonest, and a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest. Honestly it's the honest ones you have to watch out for, you never can predict if they're going to do something incredibly stupid” - Jack Sparrow, Pirates of the Caribbean.

Joking apart, Johnny Depp’s line rings true when it comes to QOCS cases and fundamental dishonesty. These cases come in two varieties:

  1. The sort of case where the dishonesty is blindingly obvious (e.g. the Claimant caught out by a surveillance camera).

  2. All the others.

A quick reminder of what we are talking about:

CPR 44.15 states that:

"(1) Orders for costs made against the claimant may be enforced to the full extent of such orders without the permission of the court where the proceedings have been struck out on the grounds that—

(a) the claimant has disclosed no reasonable grounds for bringing the proceedings;

(b) the proceedings are an abuse of the court's process; or

(c) the conduct of—

Image ©iStockphoto.com/firebrandphotography

Read more (PIBULJ subscribers only)...

All information on this site was believed to be correct by the relevant authors at the time of writing. All content is for information purposes only and is not intended as legal advice. No liability is accepted by either the publisher or the author(s) for any errors or omissions (whether negligent or not) that it may contain. 

The opinions expressed in the articles are the authors' own, not those of Law Brief Publishing Ltd, and are not necessarily commensurate with general legal or medico-legal expert consensus of opinion and/or literature. Any medical content is not exhaustive but at a level for the non-medical reader to understand. 

Professional advice should always be obtained before applying any information to particular circumstances.

Excerpts from judgments and statutes are Crown copyright. Any Crown Copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of OPSI and the Queen’s Printer for Scotland under the Open Government Licence.