I am grateful to barrister Ethan Riley for sending me a copy of the transcript of the judgment we are looking at today. This relates to whether the court has power to award a party pre-allocation costs that are occurred…
If ever a judgment showed how difficult litigation can be it is the costs decision we are looking at here. A defendant made an application to strike out a case on the grounds of inadequate pleadings. That application would, without…
There are changes coming into force at 11.00 tomorrow. There are changes to PD 51R and PD51ZB. (Set your alarm clocks early tomorrow – these changes come into force – at 11.00 am…) THE CHANGES TO TO THE PRACTICE DIRECTION:…
We are continuing with looking at the consequences of a party failing to call witnesses, or, as in this case, give no evidence of fact at all. In this case the judge had no difficulty in stating his views as…
Today we are looking at a case where the judge considered whether adverse inferences should be drawn when a relevant expert was not called to give evidence at trial. This issue of what matters the court can properly conclude when…
It is always interesting when we get to see “round 2” of a decision in relation to an application and appeal. It is even more interesting when we see the costs orders made and the figures involved. This case has…
Cases about breaches of embargos on draft judgments keep appearing with surprising frequency. We have another one here. The judgment emphasises the nature of the advice the lawyer must give to the client. Not only must be draft judgment not…
Here we are looking at a case from the family jurisdiction. Slightly different rules apply, however the overall principles are the same as in the CPR. The judge had to consider whether to grant permission to an applicant to rely…
We are continuing to examine the case looked at in the previous post. The claimant, faced with an application that the amended Particulars of Claim did not comply with the requirements of a court order, or the rules, made an…
Anyone drafting, or contemplating drafting, a pleading in a clinical negligence claim (indeed any type of claim) would be best advised to read, in detail, the judgment we are considering today. The judge went through an amended Particulars of Claim…
Today I attended the funeral of District Judge George Branchflower. I have written briefly about him before. At his funeral we heard tributes from those who knew him best including a touching tribute from his daughter and a wonderful song…
Here we have a consideration of what the court’s approach on summary assessment when it considers that leading counsel should not have been instructed. (Silk worms at work. They did not weave their magic when it came to the assessment…
Here we look at a judgment relation to proportionality and the assessment of costs. The claimant’s costs had been substantially reduced after a three day assessment but the judge found that the total sum was still disproportional. The judge could…
Here we look at a decision not about the conduct of experts but the way in which the experts were instructed and failure to comply with pre-action protocols. On the face of it this is a decision of major importance…
There are limits on the length of skeleton arguments. These are often exceeded. Here the judge observes that if skeletons are going to be lengthy then the advocates should assist the court by providing an index or list of contents. …
Yesterday I had an enquiry about the internal search function on this site. In particular whether it used Boolean operators. It doesn’t but there is a “work around” discussed below. On a separate issue I also recorded a webinar on…
We are looking at a case where a defendant successfully defended an application to commit, was awarded indemnity costs and yet ended up considerably out of pocket. It shows the importance of a well judged Part 36 offer by the…
Here we have a case that could well bring tears to the eyes of any litigator who works on a conditional fee basis. For the second time, on appeal, the claimant solicitor’s costs have been unsuccessful. The defendant former client…
It is possible to apply to set aside a previous judgment when the applicant’s case is that that judgment was obtained by fraud. However here we look at an almost textbook example of how not to go about this. The court…
Here we look at a case where the claimant spent a lot of time money and effort obtaining a world wide freezing order but failed to notice that the time for service of the claim form had expired. This led…
To end the week I am looking at another decision about expert witnesses (it has been a theme this week). This time we are looking at accident reconstruction experts. One expert was found wanting, the judge favoured the other. The…
Yesterday I imposed a 24 hour respite on this series “unless something really interesting comes up”. I have broken that promise, it lasted 22 hours. However the cases on experts keep coming in and, I think, readers need to know…
Here we are looking at some interesting arguments on Part 36 put forward by an, obviously disappointed, defendant. The claimant had beaten its own Part 36 offer and defeated the defendant’s counterclaim totally. Nevertheless, the defendant argued, this was not…
It is rare to see costs issues, initially suitable for summary assessment, referred for detailed assessment. We have such a case here. The judge decided that the issues, and in particular the hourly rate for solicitors sought by the receiving…
I feel almost bound to apologise for adding another post to this series today. I am not going looking for cases on experts – they just keep coming up. Here we have a judgment given today in a clinical negligence…
We have seen a trend in a number of recent cases of advocates cross examining experts and referring to judicial criticism made in previous cases that experts have been involved in. The judgment here goes one further and indicates that…
We are returning (and not for the last time) to a recent decision where the court considered the expert evidence in detail. Here we look at the judgment in relation to an expert who failed, until prompted, to inform the…
Here we are looking at a judge’s assessment of witnesses who gave evidence as to foreign law. Some of the witnesses were found to be less then helpful. (This case appears to have taken up several months of court time….
Yesterday we looked at a case where, on appeal, the judge indicated that he would set aside a costs order made against the claimants who had brought an action against the police. The claimants had QOCS protection. Today we look…
This webinar looks at what to do when things go wrong in civil litigation. There is a continual flow of reports that deal with errors made in relation to limitation, service or someone falling foul of the rules or court…
Here we are looking at issues relating to costs in an action that included a claim for personal injury but also included other elements. The question the appellate judge had to decide was whether the trial judge had applied the…
It may surprise people to know how important bundles are to the conduct of civil litigation. It is even more surprising how problematic they can become. Posts about bundles, and the problems they can present in civil litigation, have always…
Here we are looking at the award of costs following the judgment considered in the previous post. The applicants had, they said, incurred £435,000 in costs, the respondents sought £181,374.28. For the most part the judge rejected the applicants’ submissions…
Here we look at a case where the court refused thee applicants’ application for permission to amend its particulars of claim. There are many points of interest to litigators. The application was made too late and, in any event, did…
The 187th Update Practice Direction Amendments come into force today. These make changes to the Online Civil Claims Pilot. These make important changes and should be read in conjunction with the letter from HMCTS dated 25th July 2025 which is…
Here we look at the latest statutory instrument which makes changes to the rules. We are starting by looking at the changes in relation to the rules relating to costs. These provisions come into force on the 1st October 2025….
Here we look at a case where an expert reported without having all the relevant evidence to hand. In fact he only saw the claimant’s witness statements a few days before the trial. This, added to other issues, led to…
This is the start of a series examining cases where expert evidence is considered by the courts. As matters stand there are already dozens of posts on this site where the conduct of experts has been considered (and often criticised)…
Here we look at a Court of Appeal decision last week on inadequate reasons given in judgments. This has major practical implications for judges and practitioners. Appeals because of “inadequate” reasoning are those that are the most unfair to all…
Litigators and litigants are always particularly interested in knowing what the costs consequences of a hearing was. We get an opportunity to consider this here, looking at the costs order of a judgment we have already considered. What should the…
The principles relating to clinical negligence cases are well known. The major problem is usually determining the facts. In cases that involve a disputed recollection of what was said and asked in medical consultations this gives rise to major issues. …
It is always interesting to look at the awards that are actually made following an assessment of costs. Whilst each case is fact specific it is possible for litigators to pick up important points. Here we have a consideration of…
Today we are looking at a highly unusual solicitor and own client costs assessment. After hearing evidence over five days the judge decided that there was no retainer between the “client”and the solicitor. The client was not liable to pay…
We are looking again at the significance of matters not mentioned in a witness statement. This is another case where the judge found that there had been significant omissions in the claimant’s evidence. Again it is a case where these omissions…
We are looking at a case where the judge found that an applicant should have accepted a suggestion that their application be withdrawn. Because they did not take up that application the applicant was ordered to pay costs on the…
The theme for several of the posts today is how important it is to put information, that could be viewed as adverse to the witness, into a witness statement. If such information is left out, but revealed in cross-examination this…
An earlier post looked at a case where the court struck out large parts of a witness statement of a solicitor who was proposing to give evidence at trial. Here we look at what happened to the remaining parts of…
MEMBER NEWS: THE BACK CATALOGUE 3: THE COST BITES SERIES – 258 POSTS SO FAR AND NO SIGN OF STOPPING…
We can wager a bet (for charity of course) that 99.9% of litigators and 100% of litigants who read a judgment think – who paid the costs? The aim of this series, started in July 2022, was to enable practitioners…
Here we are looking at a case where claimants brought an action claiming that their data protection rights had been breached by a defendant firm of solicitors. The defendant had collated a list of claimants who had relied on a…
The first question the lawyer must ask when being presented with a report for use in proceeding is – is this report CPR 35 compliant? If it is not then it may have little, if any value. There is a…
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