This is the first in the promised series about avoiding problems in civil litigation. The most obvious place to start is with limitation issues. These sometimes prove particularly problematic for personal injury and clinical negligence lawyers. However there is no…
There have been a number of cases now where the courts have considered the obligations on a party filing Points of Dispute to a bill of costs. In particular the need to be particular. Those obligations are considered in detail…
I am here encouraging lawyers and experts to read the speech of Lord Justice Birss’ speech to the Expert Witness Institute. It was the keynote speech to the Expert Witness Institute’s Annual Conference. I have extracted highlights. (The science teacher’s…
The post earlier today on the need for MI5 operatives to give the source of their information and belief has a ring of “intrigue” about it. James Bond, we now know, cannot simply declaim something to be true. However, as…
Here we have a case about MI5, spies and lies. However this is a site about civil procedure and evidence so we are largely bypassing the intrigue and lies (but not the potential of a finding of contempt of court) …
It is now three weeks and a day since this site took up the membership subscription model. It has been an interesting time. Not least it has enabled me to fully appreciate the full range of the site’s readership ,…
We are looking again at the implications of serving a notice of discontinuance. The judgment here leaves open the question of whether a claimant who has served a notice of discontinuance in circumstances that are to their detriment can, in…
There have been some interesting cases on this site recently relating to the substitution of parties. However none of them are as peculiar as the case we are looking at here – where the claimant’s problems were primarily self-inflicted. The…
The preparation of witness statements is an essential part of the stock in trade for most litigators. It is surprising how often statements are ill prepared, they are a regular feature of this site. We see examples here when the…
We are looking at a decision made on appeal in relation to the very common issue of the percentage of a success fee and the taking out, and subsequent deduction from damages, of an After the Event Insurance policy. The…
We are looking at this case for the third time. There were issues in relation to witness evidence and expert evidence. The problems continued after trial when the judge realised that neither party had addressed her on a mandatory requirement…
We are considering here a very, very, late application by a defendant to call expert evidence. Unsurprisingly the application did not find favour with the court. The judge then went on to consider the consequences given that the claimant had…
The “Current Importance of Pleadings” series has developed far quicker than I had anticipated. There have been manifold cases where problems have occurred because of issues to do with statements of case. This webinar takes a close look at the…
Earlier we looked at a case where a party was not allowed to recover the costs of obtaining non-compliant witness statements. Here we are looking at a case where both sides did not comply with PD57AC. The claimant, aware of…
Here we have a case where a claimant was seeking to recover the costs of preparing defective witness statements. The court had ordered that compliant witness statements be filed. Should the claimant be entitled to recover the costs of preparing…
Continuing with the aim of looking at what is going on “on the ground” in relation we look at a short but interesting judgment that encompasses many aspects of costs. Should the court order a stay pending a possible appeal?…
Here we look at the assessment of damages in a professional negligence/breach of contract case. The facts are unusual in that damages were assessed in a case where a solicitor had counterclaimed for losses due to inadequate work done by…
Here we are looking at a case where defendants, debarred from defending an action, made consecutive (and ultimately fruitless) applications to vary the orders that caused them to be debarred and several applications for relief from sanction. The court was…
There are so many judgments concerning late applications to amend pleadings that, often, I decide not to write about them. There are applications to amend that are late, very late, very, very late or “door of the court” late. The…
We have seen plenty of cases where the courts have not been slow in their criticism of expert witnesses. Here we have a different situation where the judge was critical of the attacks, by each party, on the credibility of…
When should the court grant a party a stay because that party asserts there may be external developments which are relevant to the issues the court has to consider? That was a question considered in this case. There is a…
A few days (sometimes even a day) can be a long time in civil procedure. I wrote about the updated Guidance to the Damages Claim Portal at the end of last week. Today I am writing to tell you it…
There is much to be said for starting a new (and what may well be a long running) series looking at professional negligence cases, in particular the procedural and practical issues that arise. Firstly, if (as here) it is a…
In a recent case the court observed the importance of working from the established cases when considering how fatal accident damages should be assesessed. When allowing an appeal from an “unconventional” means of assessment by the trial judge it was…
Somewhat counterintuitively the move to a membership subscription model has led to new, and a wider range, of readers to this site. It is for their benefit I repeat a point made recently that the purpose of this series is…
Having determined that the court does have jurisdiction to case manage actions issued under Part 8 the Court of Appeal went on to make some trenchant observations in relation to avoiding the possibility of delay. (Applications to extend a stay…
Here we are looking at an important decision of the Court of Appeal. On the face of it it is about a defendant’s failure to prove a statutory defence. However, perhaps more significantly, it is about evidence, the impact of…
It is relatively rare for litigators to get a detailed insight into the court’s approach to an award for pain and suffering. We see any example here. Of course every case is fact specific, but practitioners have to be aware…
Here we are looking at another round in the solicitor-own client assessment war of attrition. The question was whether a solicitor, in a solicitor and own client assessment, should reply to Part 18 requests for further information about premiums paid…
The issue of whether the costs of obtaining probate are recoverable as costs in fatal accident, or Law Reform Act, claims is one that regularly arises. The principles involved are clear. Here we have the Senior Costs Judge considering the…
The precise legal status of Practice Directions is interesting. Here we have a case where a judge considered their status and came to a firm view that a statement made in the PD should not be followed as it was…
HMCTS has, this month, issued an updated version of the Guidance to using MyHMCTS. THE GUIDANCE The updated guidance is available here. Damages Claims Portal Issue to Respond Guidance June 2025 V1.6 THE OVERVIEW “Overview The Damages Claims Portal…
CONTRIBUTORY NEGLIGENCE CONSIDERED: CASES IN THE COURTS IN THE PAST 12 MONTHS: WEBINAR 1ST JULY 2025
It is commonplace for defendants to make allegations of contributory negligence against an injured claimant. Litigators working in this field need to know the basic law and principles relating to contributory negligence and also how these are being applied in…
Here we have a case where the defendant unsuccessfully appealed against the striking out of its counterclaim. The claimants had consented to the claim being struck out, on the defendant’s application, due to undue delay in the action. The defendant…
We are looking at a judgment from today where a bank has brought a claim against a firm of solicitors arguing that they have caused the bank loss because of the number and nature of complaints made by the solicitors’…
We are looking at this Court of Appeal decision for the second time. Here we look at the Court’s consideration of an argument that an appeal should not proceed because the arguments were “academic”. There are important points considered here…
For those who have missed the email from HMCTS it is important to note that the HMCTS platform is not working at the moment. The email from HMCTS below makes practical suggestions as to what should be done if uploading…
The Court of Appeal considered, on the face of it, a very simple question in this case as to the courts powers proceedings issued under Part 8 in a claim within the Pre-Action Protocol for Low Value RTA Claims. For…
The reaction of many professional litigators to reading many of the cases on this site is (if truth be told) “who paid the costs” and “how much did all that cost? For that reason it is always of interest to…
There are relatively few cases in which the Court of Appeal looks at civil claims for injuries caused in the course of sporting activity. We are looking at such a case here. The Court addresses the question of what standard…
When the parties jointly instruct an expert how far is the judge “bound” by the views that the expert reaches? This is an issue we are looking at for the second time within 6 days. We have an interesting consideration…
When is the best time to determine the costs of a split trial when the case will go forward to a further hearing? This is an issue considered in the case we consider today. There are quite specific rules and…
Today we are looking at a case where a successful claimant’s cost were halved because of its “vague and expansive” pleadings, coupled with a failure to “specify with clarity and precision” what its case was. (Half a sixpence…
The law on adjournments sought for health reasons is relatively clear. Knowledge of the principles (or at least where to find them easily) is an essential part of the litigator’s toolkit, not least because applications tend to come “out of…
Anyone attempting to appeal against an order for costs faces an uphill battle. This may be doubly so if the costs order is made presumptively because they have discontinued an action. Here we consider a case where the difficulties of…
What should the court’s approach be if a party serves a Part 18 request but, for various reasons, it does not comply with the rules? The respondent to the request in this case took the point. The Master had to…
Cases relating to the wrongful sharing or disclosure of embargoed judgment have become a surprisingly common feature of litigation in recent times. Here we look at another High Court decision where this has happened. The judge states that there are…
I am grateful to Express Solicitors for sending me a transcript of a judgment that marks another round in the fee note/medical agency/provide a breakdown conflict. Here we have the judge considering whether a breakdown, incorporating the percentage taken by…
We have had an example earlier this month of things going badly wrong in a fatal claim, that led to a wasted costs order against the solicitors. This webinar looks at the potential problem areas of fatal accident litigation and…
There have been a number of cases where litigants have run into difficulties because they have not complied with the requirements for witnesses who give evidence remotely from abroad. We see an example of this case where there a conflict…
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