Updates and Commentary on Civil Procedure, by Gordon Exall, Barrister, Kings Chambers
When a party obtains an injunction they, usually, have to give an undertaking as to damages. There are now a number of cases where litigants have been found liable to pay damages as a result of that undertaking. We have...
Here we have a case where it was argued that the defendant's delay in bringing an application to strike out for abuse of process was an abuse of process in itself. The case points to authorities that "acquiescing" in an...
Man of the posts in August 2020 concerned the impact of Covid. This post is the exception. It arose out of a Court of Appeal decision that month that reviewed the principles relating to similar fact evidence in civil cases....
This is a case where the judge found the conduct of a firm of solicitors "utterly extraordinary". However there were, in fact, a number of errors by both sides. This may (and probably would) have led to a wasted costs...
This is another case where a party attempts to "revisit" preliminary issues/a statement of issues that have been agreed and approved by the court. That application did not get very far. Further the judge observed that, although the parties were...
Back in the dim and distant days of 2018 this site ran its third series on "Advocacy: the Judge's View". A new series will start shortly. However before that we are "recapping" on the guidance given in the four previous...
The need to provide evidence and not simply make bare assertions is as important in applications as at trial. Here we see a case where the claimant obtained summary judgment in the face of a "paucity of evidence" from the...
We are continuing our consideration at the appeal case where the defendant's appeal against a decision to vary the claimant's budget. The first reason the appeal was successful was because the first instance judge found that there were no "significant...
This case reiterates the essential point that the court has no freestanding discretion to vary a costs budget. An essential prerequisite of variation is that there must be a "significant development" that warrants a variation. There was no such development...
Here we look at a case where both parties required an extension of time in order to raise very significant arguments in relation to costs. The claimant had been late in filing essential documents for his own costs protection, the...