News Category 3
Akhtar v Boland: Costs Game-Changer - Matthew Hoe, Jaggards & Taylor Rose Law
15/08/14. The Court of Appeal’s decision in Akhtar v Boland [2014] EWCA Civ 872 is at first blush only about the appropriate track for a low value claim. But it has wider implications. In confirming that ‘any amount not in dispute’ when determining the value of a claim for allocation purposes is wider than expressed in PD26, the Court of Appeal has also confirmed that paying parties have a valuable mechanism for further limiting the recoverable costs of claims. Potentially, the judgment will also have the effect of making litigation in low value claims uneconomical for receiving parties’ solicitors.
Background to the decision
In Akhtar, the court had allocated the claim to the small claims track on the strength of admissions made by the defendant. They were partial admissions of distinct heads of claim set out in the defence. The claimant applied to re-allocate to the fast track. The district judge at first instance dismissed the application. The circuit dismissed the claimant’s appeal, as did the Court of Appeal (save as to costs, holding the allocation to the small claims track also prevented allowance of appeal costs).
The allocation to the small claims track was made on the basis that after the admissions, for which judgment was entered, the amount in dispute by the time of allocation was...
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Costs Management - Nicholas Lee, Managing Director of Paragon Costs Solutions
14/08/14. By now many readers will have prepared or seen a costs budget and experienced a Costs Management Conference (CMC). With little by way of reported decisions, I take this opportunity to share some of our experiences and the lessons learned.
Agreeing costs budgets
There is concern among the legal profession that by agreeing a costs budget you may be restricted when it comes to disputing those costs at detailed assessment. Readers may find some comfort in Lord Justice Moore-Bick’s decision in Foods v Manton [2013] EWCA Civ 615 when granting permission to appeal. In paragraph eight, he says: “In Henry v News Group Newspapers [2013] EWCA Civ 19 at paragraph 16, I expressed the view that an approved budget was not to be taken as a licence to conduct litigation in an unnecessarily expensive way. It follows that I do not accept that costs judges should or will treat the court's approval of a budget as demonstrating, without further consideration, that the costs incurred by the receiving party are reasonable or proportionate simply because they fall within the scope of the approved budget.”
Our approach, adopting a belt and braces attitude, is to agree budgets with the appropriate caveat that the agreement should...
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Doctor! Doctor! Can I Have a Second Opinion? - Ruwena Khan, Zenith Chambers
12/08/14. At a time when the law of medical negligence is under particular scrutiny with the second reading of the Medical Innovation Bill (the ‘Saatchi Bill’) having taken place on 27th June 2014 and the government requiring significant amendments to be made to ensure that doctors are not at risk of additional liabilities and patients are not put at risk, research findings from Plymouth University published on 21st July 2014i are particularly shocking in revealing the significant rise of complaints to the General Medical Council (‘GMC’).
Handling fitness to practise complaints is one of the core functions of the GMC, as it works to regulate the medical profession and to protect the public by ensuring that only those doctors who meet the standards set out in Good Medical Practice are allowed to work in the UK. However, complaints about doctors’ fitness to practice rose from 5,168 in 2007 to 10,347 in 2012, an increase of 100 percent within just 5 years.
Is the medical profession really getting so clumsy?
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Mitchell Misunderstandings - Bill Braithwaite QC, Head of Exchange Chambers
11/08/14. The Court of Appeal gave judgment in a way which has caused a lot of critical discussion amongst practising lawyers. They said that “the judgment in Mitchell has been misunderstood and is being misapplied by some courts. It is clear that it needs to be clarified and amplified in certain respects. The important misunderstanding that has occurred is that, if (i) there is a non-trivial (now serious or significant) breach and (ii) there is no good reason for the breach, the application for relief from sanctions will automatically fail. That is not so and is not what the court said in Mitchell.”.
This is a reference to the long-running saga following the declaration by the Court of Appeal that courts should be much stricter in enforcing compliance with court orders and timetables.
Interestingly, both claimant and defendant lawyers seem to have agreed that, even if one side benefits from a bad decision of the court in one case, the positions are likely to be reversed in the next one. In other words, litigation is even more of a lottery now that it was before.
Another interesting aspect is that both sides seem to agree that the Court of Appeal’s original decision has soured the relationships between lawyers, because each side is waiting for the other to make a procedural mistake, so that they can pounce on it, and persuade a judge, who has to follow the ridiculous guidelines set down by the Court of Appeal, to make a poor decision resulting in a windfall to one side and injustice to the other.
I suppose, rather than be critical, we should just be glad that the legal scene has only been damaged for seven months, which is the time between the two Court of Appeal decisions. That’s not much consolation, though, for those who have suffered injustice during that time as a result of the “misunderstandings” of the judges.
Bill Braithwaite QC
Head of Exchange Chambers
This article was first published at http://billbraithwaite.com/blog/
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Fighting Fraud: Paying Off for Motor Insurers and Their Customers? - Thomas Crockett, 1 Chancery Lane
09/08/14. Recent growth has been seen in the litigation market in the field of allegations of fraud in road traffic accident cases. Insurers (particularly certain insurers) have latterly been far more confident in fighting claims where there is good evidence of something untoward: dishonesty, such as contrived accidents, phantom passengers or exaggerated medical symptoms...
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More Articles...
- Exit Mitchell, Enter Denton - Ian Miller, 1 Chancery Lane
- Gray v Botwright - Paul Oakley, 1 Essex Court
- Jet2.com Limited v Huzar and the Extraordinary Circumstances Exception - Frances Mcclenaghan, 1 Chancery Lane
- Less of the Male, Pale and Stale? Judicial Appointment Statistics Published - Thomas Crockett, 1 Chancery Lane
![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)
