PI Brief Update

31 December 2009 - PI Practitioner

Asia Pacific (HK) Ltd & ORS -v- (1) Hanjin Shipping Company Ltd (2) Owners of the MV Hanjin Pennsylvania (2005) EWHC 2443

When a claim form was delivered to the recipient in a manner provided for by the rules it was served unless it was made clear by the person who delivered it that whilst he was delivering the form by such a method he was not in fact serving it.

Susan Horn -v- Dorset Healthcare NHS Trust (No 2) (2004)

The power of the court to dispense with service under CPR r. 6.9 was exceptional and only to be used in the rarest of cases

Jon Olafsson -v- Hannes Holmsteinn Gissurarson (No 2) (2006) EWHC 3214 (QB)

It was appropriate to make an order dispensing with service of the claim form and particulars of claim where there had been a technical failure to comply with foreign rules concerning service of documents and the defendant accepted he had received the appropriate documents

(1) Nutifafa Kuenyehia (2) Doris Enyonam (as Executors and Trustees of the Estate of Emmanuel Kwame Ashiagbor, Deceased) (3) Lartisan Services Inc -v- International Hospitals Group Ltd (2006) EWCA Civ 21

It required an exceptional case before the court would exercise its power to dispense with service under CPR r.6.9 and the power was unlikely to be exercised save where the Claimant had either made an ineffective attempt to serve by one of the methods permitted by r.6.2 or had served in time in a manner which involved a minor departure form one of the permitted methods of service. The failure to comply with the requirement to obtain written consent to serve by fax in para. 3.1(1) of the CPR Part 6 Practice Direction could not fairly be characterised as no more than a minor departure from the provisions of CPR r.6.2(1)(e).