Case Report: Thomas Morgan v (1) Arriva North West (2) Thomas Dures (t/a Sefton Motors) (2015) QBD, Mrs Justice Simler

Strike out; admission of liability; conflict of interest; solicitor default ‘Arriva applied to strike out the claim on 25 February 2014; the primary basis being the failure to deal with the conflict when it was raised at a juncture providing ample time to find alternative counsel.’ When is it appropriate to strike out a claim …
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Human Rights: Section 57? Incompatible… as decided by the Supreme Court

Steven Akerman examines the conflict between the new striking out powers and the Human Rights Act, in part one of this article he looks at the legislation ‘There is already authoritative UK case law that has determined that the legislation is not compatible with the said human rights provisions.’ The full effect of the Jackson …
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Arbitration: Settling personal injury and clinical negligence claims

With court fees going up more than 500% the time has come for insurers, the NHSLA, the MIB and personal injury firms to use arbitration to settle personal injury and clinical negligence claims, suggests Andrew Ritchie ‘The benefits of arbitration are multiple. All of the inefficiencies and the court fees of the county courts and …
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Case Management: Regal reticence

Ryan Dolby-Stevens discusses the impact of Abdulaziz v Apex [2014] ‘The Court of Appeal held that it “should not lightly interfere” with case management directions and underlined the importance of the fact that all parties to English litigation should be treated equally.’On 26 November 2014, the Supreme Court handed down a decision (Prince Abdulaziz v …
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Civil Procedure: Relief in sight

Georgina Squire investigates a recent decision dealing with relief from sanctions ‘Practitioners should be adopting a common-sense approach in relation to what amounts to a “good reason” for failing to file and serve an acknowledgment of service on time.’ The recent decision in Hockley v North Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust [2014] is an …
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Cost Budgeting: The essential guide

Nick Kitchen sets out what every practitioner needs to know ‘Where costs budgets have been filed and exchanged, the court will normally make a costs management order unless it is satisfied that the litigation can be conducted justly and at proportionate cost in accordance with the overriding objective without such an order being made.’ The …
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Costs: Trivial pursuits

Paul Jones highlights an example of an application for relief from sanctions in detailed assessment proceedings ‘The court considered the breach by reference to all the surrounding circumstances of the case. In particular, the claimant had commenced detailed assessment within the required three months.’ Relief from sanctions has been the dominant theme in the post …
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Relief From Sanctions: Denton and the misunderstanding of Mitchell

In a recent case the Court of Appeal takes a new view of Mitchell, Jim Hester discusses ‘The court’s new guidance replaces what was generally seen as a two-stage process under Mitchell (Was this a trivial breach? Was there a good reason?) with a new three-stage process.’ Hot on the heels of the seminal Mitchell …
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Procedure: Appealing news

Julia Staines reports on a significant judgment in the Court of Appeal ‘In the three cases which were the subject of the appeal, the Court of Appeal believed that two of them (Decadent and Utilise) evidenced an “unduly draconian approach” and one of them (Denton) “an unduly relaxed approach”.’ Hot on the heels of the …
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Practice: End of the line

Neil Jamieson reviews the new ‘buffer rule’ and recent Court of Appeal decisions: the end of post-Mitchell ‘zero tolerance’? ‘The old lax culture of non-compliance with rules, practice directions and orders is no longer tolerated, and compliance has to be considered in every case.’ In just a few months, we have come a very long …
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