Category: Torts – Other

Shagang Shipping Company Ltd v HNA Group Company Ltd: SC 5 Aug 2020

Allegations had been made that a contract had been procured by bribery. The other party said that the admissions of bribery had been extracted by torture and were inadmissible. The CA had decided that the unproven possibility that it was obtained by torture was to be ignored.
Held: The appeal succeeded and the judgment in favour of Shagang restored. The CA had mistakenly interfered with what were factual conclusions of the trial judge.
Lord Hodge, Deputy President, Lord Briggs, Lord Hamblen, Lord Leggatt, Lord Burrows
[2020] UKSC 34
Bailii, Bailii Summary
England and Wales
Citing:
At First Instance – Shagang Shipping Company Ltd v HNA Group Company Ltd ComC 16-May-2016
It was said that a contract had been procured only by bribery. The defendant said that the so called confessions had been obtained by torture, and were inadmissible. No one with first-hand knowledge of the alleged bribery or torture gave evidence . .
Appeal from – Shagang Shipping Company Ltd v HNA Group Company Ltd CA 23-Jul-2018
Appeal from finding that a contract award had not been obtained by bribery. The defendant said that the confessions of bribery had been extracted by torture and appealed a finding that the contract was enforceable.
Held: The appeal succeeded. . .
Cited – Rex v John Tippet 1823
Confession of a prisoner evidence against him, without positive proof aliunde of the offence having been committed. . .
Cited – Rex v Sykes 1913
. .
Cited – Assicurazioni Generali Spa v Arab Insurance Group (BSC) CA 13-Nov-2002
Rehearing/Review – Little Difference on Appeal
The appellant asked the Court to reverse a decision on the facts reached in the lower court.
Held: The appeal failed (Majority decision). The court’s approach should be the same whether the case was dealt with as a rehearing or as a review. . .
Mentioned – Datec Electronics Holdings Ltd and others v United Parcels Services Ltd HL 16-May-2007
The defendants had taken on the delivery of a quantity of the claimant’s computers. The equipment reached one depot, but then was lost or stolen. The parties disputed whether the Convention rules applied. UPS said that the claimant had agreed that . .
Cited – A and others v Secretary of State for the Home Department (No 2) HL 8-Dec-2005
The applicants had been detained following the issue of certificates issued by the respondent that they posed a terrorist threat. They challenged the decisions of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission saying that evidence underlying the . .
Cited – Simetra Global Assets Ltd and Another v Ikon Finance Ltd and Others CA 9-Aug-2019
The claimant alleged that the various defendants had been involved in dishonest assistance in the running of an investment ponzi scheme leading to substantial losses.
Held: The Court considered the considerations for an appellate court asked . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 29 July 2021; Ref: scu.652987

Reddaway and Co Ltd v Banham and Co Ltd: HL 1896

The plaintiff manufactured and sold Camel Hair Belting. The defendant also began to sell belting made of camel’s hair in the name of Camel Hair Belting. The trader claimed a right in the term ‘Camel Hair’.
Held: The term was descriptive. Where a trader uses a mark or a name which is descriptive of its products or services, the trader must show that the public understands that the products or services come from him when they see the mark so that the mark has in this way acquired a ‘secondary meaning’ in order to found a claim for a trade mark. In this case the phrase had come to be associated with the plaintiff’s business and the defendants must adopt some other device to distinguish his goods. Whether the words are descriptive of the goods or not, the true test in determining is whether, as it is commonly used, it is reasonably indicative and descriptive of the thing intended.
In order to be descriptive, within the condemnation of the Rule, it is sufficient if information is afforded as to the general nature or character of the articles and it is not necessary that the words or marks used shall compromise a clear, completes and accurate description.
Lord Macnaughten said that fraud is infinite in variety: sometimes it is audacious and unblushing; sometimes it pays a sort of homage to virtue, and then it is modest and retiring; it would be honesty itself if it could only afford it. If facts amounting to fraud are plainly alleged it is no defect in the pleading if the word ‘fraud’ is not used. ‘Cases of this sort must depend upon their particular circumstances. The facts of one case are little or no guide to the determination of another.’
Lord Herschell said: ‘In my opinion, the doctrine on which the judgment of the Court of Appeal was based, that where a manufacturer has used as his trade-mark a descriptive word he is never entitled to relief against a person who so uses it as to induce in purchasers the belief that they are getting the goods of the manufacturer who has theretofore employed it as his trade-mark, is not supported by authority, and cannot be defended on principled. I am unable to see why a man should be allowed in this way more than in any other to deceive purchasers into the belief that they are getting what they are not, and thus to filch the business of a rival’.
Lord Herschell, Lord Macnaughten
[1896] AC 199, (1895) 1 QB 286, 13 RPC 218, [1895-96] All ER 133
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Cadbury-Schweppes Pty Ltd And Others v Pub Squash Co Pty Ltd PC 13-Oct-1980
(New South Wales) The plaintiff had launched and advertised a soft drink. A year later, the defendant launched a similar product using similar names, styles and advertising, but then registered trade marks. The plaintiff sought damages, and for the . .
Cited – Marks and Spencer Plc, Ladbrokes Plc, J Sainsbury Plc, Virgin Enterprises Ltd, British Telecommunications Plc, Telecom Securior Cellular Radio Ltd v One In A Million and Others PatC 28-Nov-1997
The registration of internet domain names which would infringe trade marks and potentially facilitate passing off can be protected summarily by quia timet injunction. The defendants were dealers in domain names and the use of a trade mark in the . .
Cited – British Telecommunications Plc; Virgin Enterprises Ltd; J Sainsbury Plc; Marks and Spencer Plc and Ladbroke Group Plc v One In a Million Ltd and others CA 23-Jul-1998
Registration of a distinctive Internet domain name using registered trade marks and company names could be an infringement of a registered Trade Mark, and also passing off. It was proper to grant quia timet injunctions where necessary to stop . .
Cited – Spalding (A G ) and Brothers v A W Gamage Ltd HL 1915
The House considered the requirements for the tort of passing off. The judge has the sole responsibility for deciding whether anybody has been misled. He will hear evidence, but must not surrender his assessment to others.
Lord Parker said: . .
Cited – Cavell USA, Inc and Randall v Seaton Insurance Company etc CA 16-Dec-2009
The parties had settled terms for concluding business arrangements between them. The agreement released and referred all claims in law and in equity ‘save for fraud’ to the UK courts. The respondents now wanted to bring a case alleging breach of a . .
Cited – A and E Television Networks Llc and Another v Discovery Communications Europe Ltd ChD 1-Feb-2013
The claimants had operated the ‘History’ and associated variant TV channels and trade marks. The claimed that the defendant’s ‘Discovery History’ channels were in breach. The defendants challenged the validity of the trade marks. The court now . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 29 July 2021; Ref: scu.182306

Simetra Global Assets Ltd and Another v Ikon Finance Ltd and Others: CA 9 Aug 2019

The claimant alleged that the various defendants had been involved in dishonest assistance in the running of an investment ponzi scheme leading to substantial losses.
Held: The Court considered the considerations for an appellate court asked to set aside a judge’s findings of fact.
Males LJ said: ‘in a case where there are contemporary documents which appear on their face to provide cogent evidence contrary to the conclusion which the judge proposes to reach, he should explain why they are not to be taken at face value or are outweighed by other compelling considerations. ‘
Males LJ said: ‘succinctness is as desirable in a judgment as it is in counsel’s submissions, but short judgments must be careful judgments’.
McCombe, Peter Jackson , Males LJJ
[2019] EWCA Civ 1413, [2019] 4 WLR 112, [2019] WLR(D) 475
Bailii, WLRD
England and Wales
Citing:
Appeal from – Simetra Global Assets Ltd and Another v Ikon Finance Ltd and Others ComC 9-Oct-2018
False . .

Cited by:
Cited – Kogan v Martin and Others CA 9-Oct-2019
Dispute over the authorship of the screenplay of a film.
Held: ‘the judgment cannot stand. The judge has adopted an erroneous approach to the evidence, failed to make important findings of primary fact, failed to take account of material . .
Cited – Shagang Shipping Company Ltd v HNA Group Company Ltd SC 5-Aug-2020
Allegations had been made that a contract had been procured by bribery. The other party said that the admissions of bribery had been extracted by torture and were inadmissible. The CA had decided that the unproven possibility that it was obtained by . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 29 July 2021; Ref: scu.640510

Simetra Global Assets Ltd and Another v Ikon Finance Ltd and Others: ComC 9 Oct 2018

False
[2018] EWHC 2624 (Comm), [2019] WLR(D) 475
Bailii, WLRD
England and Wales
Cited by:
Appeal from – Simetra Global Assets Ltd and Another v Ikon Finance Ltd and Others CA 9-Aug-2019
The claimant alleged that the various defendants had been involved in dishonest assistance in the running of an investment ponzi scheme leading to substantial losses.
Held: The Court considered the considerations for an appellate court asked . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 29 July 2021; Ref: scu.625946

Shagang Shipping Company Ltd v HNA Group Company Ltd: CA 23 Jul 2018

Appeal from finding that a contract award had not been obtained by bribery. The defendant said that the confessions of bribery had been extracted by torture and appealed a finding that the contract was enforceable.
Held: The appeal succeeded. The judge failed to ask and answer the correct legal question as to what weight should be accorded to the confession evidence and failed to take all the appropriate matters into account and to exclude irrelevant matters in considering whether the alleged bribe was paid. As a matter of law, if an allegation that a statement was made as a result of torture has not been proved on the balance of probabilities, a court when estimating the weight to be given to the statement as hearsay evidence in civil proceedings must entirely disregard the possibility that the statement was obtained by torture, even if on the evidence given at trial the court considers this to be a serious possibility which it cannot rule out.
The judge’s decision was ‘unsustainable’: ‘The judge did not follow the logical steps necessary to reach a proper evaluation of the admissible evidence. He failed to ask and answer the correct legal question as to what weight should be accorded to the admissions evidence. The judge ought to have said why he was unable to place any reliance on the admissions, if that was his view. The judge also fell into legal error in failing to take all the appropriate matters into account in deciding the crucial bribery issue. As we have also said, the judge failed to exclude irrelevant matters (including his lingering doubt as to whether the admissions were procured by torture) in considering whether the alleged bribe was paid.’
Sir Geoffrey Vos, Chancellor of the High Court, Lord Justice Newey, and Dame Elizabeth Gloster DBE
[2018] EWCA Civ 1732
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
Appeal from – Shagang Shipping Company Ltd v HNA Group Company Ltd ComC 16-May-2016
It was said that a contract had been procured only by bribery. The defendant said that the so called confessions had been obtained by torture, and were inadmissible. No one with first-hand knowledge of the alleged bribery or torture gave evidence . .

Cited by:
Appeal from – Shagang Shipping Company Ltd v HNA Group Company Ltd SC 5-Aug-2020
Allegations had been made that a contract had been procured by bribery. The other party said that the admissions of bribery had been extracted by torture and were inadmissible. The CA had decided that the unproven possibility that it was obtained by . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 29 July 2021; Ref: scu.620479

Shagang Shipping Company Ltd v HNA Group Company Ltd: ComC 16 May 2016

It was said that a contract had been procured only by bribery. The defendant said that the so called confessions had been obtained by torture, and were inadmissible. No one with first-hand knowledge of the alleged bribery or torture gave evidence and the documentation available at the trial was substantially incomplete. It was agreed that, unless HNA succeeded in its defence that the charterparty was procured by bribery, Shagang was entitled to judgment on its claim under the guarantee.
Held: Torture could not be ruled out as a reason for the confessions and in any case the allegations of bribery had not been proved. The contract was enforceable and awarded damages to the claimant.
Knowles CBE J
[2016] EWHC 1103 (Comm)
Bailii
England and Wales
Cited by:
Appeal from – Shagang Shipping Company Ltd v HNA Group Company Ltd CA 23-Jul-2018
Appeal from finding that a contract award had not been obtained by bribery. The defendant said that the confessions of bribery had been extracted by torture and appealed a finding that the contract was enforceable.
Held: The appeal succeeded. . .
At First Instance – Shagang Shipping Company Ltd v HNA Group Company Ltd SC 5-Aug-2020
Allegations had been made that a contract had been procured by bribery. The other party said that the admissions of bribery had been extracted by torture and were inadmissible. The CA had decided that the unproven possibility that it was obtained by . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 29 July 2021; Ref: scu.564510

Kenneth Mackenzie, Brother of George Mackenzie of Balmuckie, Roderick Mackenzie Younger of Reidcastle, Lewis Mackenzie His Brother, Donald Mackenzie of Kilcowie, John Chisholm of Knockfin, and Archibald Chisholm His Brother v Mr Daniel Mackilligin: HL 6 Feb 1723

Spuilzie – Art and Part – Certain persons who were present with the rebels, (under the command of Lord Seaforth,) when a spuilzie was committed, are found liable in damages, conjunctly and severally, for the damages committed by the said party.
The amount of the damages ascertained by the oaths of the pursuers.
Interest allowed from the day, after the party of rebels had left the premises spuilzie
Costs and Expences – The appellants having failed to appear, on the day appointed for hearing, the respondents’ are heard, and the judgment affirmed with 100 l. costs.
[1723] UKHL Robertson – 431, (1723) Robertson 431
Bailii
Scotland

Updated: 26 July 2021; Ref: scu.553798

Olotu v Home Office and Another: CA 11 Dec 1996

The plaintiff was remanded in custody pending trial in the Crown Court and a warrant was issued for her detention which directed the prison governor to hold her until she was delivered to the Crown Court in due course of law. The custody time limit was 112 days, but the Crown Prosecution Service failed to obtain an extension of the period of detention and did not arrange for her to be brought back to court for admission to bail. As a result she was detained for 81 days in excess of the prescribed period. The first instance court held that although the plaintiff’s detention became unlawful once the custody time limit had expired, so that the Crown Court would have been bound to release her on bail if an application had been made, the governor was not liable for false imprisonment because the period of custody could only be brought to an end by an order of the court and pending such an order the governor was neither entitled nor bound to release her.
Held: The appeal against the action being struck out failed. A Prison Governor and the CPS were not liable for detention of the defendant beyond the lawful custody time limits.
Lord Bingham of Cornhill LCJ Auld, Mummery LJJ
Times 11-Dec-1996, [1996] EWCA Civ 1070, [1997] 1 WLR 328, [1997] 1 All ER 385
Bailii
Prosecution of Offences (Custody Time Limits) Regulations 1987 (1987 No 299)
England and Wales
Citing:
Appeal from – Olotu v Secretary of State for the Home Department and Another QBD 8-May-1996
A prison governor was not liable for false imprisonment on a CPS’ failure to extend the custody time limit. . .

Cited by:
Cited – Lunn, Regina (on the Application of) v The Governor of HMP Moorland CA 25-May-2006
Having committed an offence whilst on licence, the judge had sentenced the defendant to a term of imprisonment to follow completion of the original sentence. The order drawn up by the clerk recorded that it should be served concurrently. He served . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 25 July 2021; Ref: scu.84445

Khaled v The Security Service and Others: QBD 15 Jul 2016

‘The Claimant’s case is that in 2004 the Defendants, or more particularly officers of the First Defendant, sent questions to the Libyan Security Service (‘LESO’) to be put to persons detained in Libya, concerning the SRA, and the Claimant. The Claimant infers the Defendants received answers; and that the information gained was instrumental in the steps the Defendants subsequently took in relation to him. The Claimant’s case is that information gained from Libyan detainees under the Qadhafi regime was ‘tainted’, meaning that it was unreliable and that it was or would have been unlawful to rely upon it, since it was likely to have been obtained by torture or inhuman and degrading treatment. It is claimed that the Defendants knew that, and should not have sought the information in such circumstances or relied on it.’
Irwin J
[2016] EWHC 1727 (QB)
Bailii
England and Wales

Updated: 24 July 2021; Ref: scu.567066

Hourani v Thomson and Others: QBD 6 Feb 2017

Applications for inspection of documents in claim for defamation and harassment.
Warby J
[2017] EWHC 173 (QB)
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
See Also – Hourani v Thomson and Others QBD 20-Jan-2017
. .

Cited by:
See Also – Hourani v Thomson and Others QBD 10-Mar-2017
Warby J identified the three issues on which the claimant bore the burden of proof in relation to each defendant on a claim of harassment as: (1) Did the defendant engage in a course of conduct? (2) Did any such course of conduct amount to . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 23 July 2021; Ref: scu.573859

Hourani v Thomson and Others: QBD 10 Mar 2017

Warby J identified the three issues on which the claimant bore the burden of proof in relation to each defendant on a claim of harassment as: (1) Did the defendant engage in a course of conduct? (2) Did any such course of conduct amount to harassment? and (3) Did the defendant know, or should the defendant have known, that the conduct amounted to harassment? In addition (see [5] and [6]), that case involved an assessment of the merits of the defences that any course of conduct did not amount to harassment because it was (i) pursued for the purpose of preventing or detecting crime and/or (ii) in the particular circumstances, reasonable.
Warby J said: ‘There must, therefore, be conduct on at least two occasions which is, from an objective standpoint, calculated to cause alarm or distress and oppressive, and unacceptable to such a degree that it would sustain criminal liability: see Dowson v Chief Constable of Northumbria Police [2010] EWHC 2612 (QB) [142] (Simon J).
The reference to an ‘objective standpoint’ is important, not least when it comes to cases such as the present, where the complaint is of harassment by publication. In any such case the Court must be alive to the fact that the claim engages Article 10 of the Convention and, as a result, the Court’s duties under ss 2, 3, 6 and 12 of the Human Rights Act 1998. The statute must be interpreted and applied compatibly with the right to freedom of expression, which must be given its due importance. As Tugendhat J observed in Trimingham v Associated Newspapers Ltd [2012] EWHC 1296 (QB) at [267] ‘[i]t would be a serious interference with freedom of expression if those wishing to express their own views could be silenced by, or threatened with, claims for harassment based on subjective claims by individuals that they feel offended or insulted’ . .
In general it may be better to evaluate a given factual scenario in its totality, before reaching a conclusion on whether it amounts to harassment. But in this case I have no difficulty dealing, in isolation, with the question of whether it has been proved that the defendants’ conduct actually caused alarm or distress, or other emotions or impacts consistent with it amounting to harassment. To do so involves picking out for separate consideration the question of whether the claimant has proved the harm which is plainly an element of the tort. As Lord Phillips said in Thomas . . : ‘It seems to me that section 7 [(2)] is dealing with that element of the offence which is constituted by the effect of the conduct rather than with the types of conduct that produce that effect.’ On the facts of this case at least I see no great difficulty, either, in dealing in isolation with the objective aspect of the same question, namely whether the defendants’ conduct was calculated or likely to produce alarm or distress. I can also reach a conclusion on whether the conduct reached the necessary level of gravity or, put another way, whether it was objectively oppressive, having regard to the subject-matter, the claimant’s status, personality, and the other objective circumstances relied on.
But it seems to me that the question of subjective intention belongs in a different category, and is difficult to assess fairly other than in the context of the twin defences of legitimate purpose and reasonableness that are advanced in reliance on s 1(3). It seems reasonable to conclude that conduct which causes distress but might otherwise be fair and reasonable may in fact be unreasonable, if it is engaged in for an illegitimate purpose, or with malign intent. An example was given by Counsel in Thomas: ‘ . . the editor who uses his newspaper to conduct a campaign of vilification against a lover with whom he has broken off a relationship’ (see [36]). This approach would seem consistent with the requirement of the Strasbourg jurisprudence that the right to freedom of expression should be exercised in good faith. Similar reasoning applies to the defendants’ further contention that I should find against Mr Hourani on this issue because ‘For many years he benefitted to an extraordinary degree from his close connections to [Aliyev] and the elite of the Kazakh State. As a result he was able to accumulate vast wealth.’ These are disputed allegations, the truth or falsity of which cannot affect the question of whether the offending acts were likely to or did cause harm, or whether they were objectively oppressive.’
As to the use of hearsay evidence, Warby stated as a general proposition: ‘that it is unsatisfactory to introduce important evidence by means of selective extracts from hearsay written statements.’
Warby J
[2017] EWHC 432 (QB)
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
See Also – Hourani v Thomson and Others QBD 20-Jan-2017
. .
See Also – Hourani v Thomson and Others QBD 6-Feb-2017
Applications for inspection of documents in claim for defamation and harassment. . .

Cited by:
Cited – Gerrard and Another v Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation Ltd and Another QBD 27-Nov-2020
The claimants, a solicitor and his wife, sought damages in harassment and data protection, against a party to proceedings in which he was acting professionally, and against the investigative firm instructed by them. The defendants now requested the . .
Cited – Hijazi v Yaxley-Lennon (Orse Tommy Robinson) QBD 22-Jul-2021
No Valid Evidence to Support Serious Accusations
The claimant was filmed being assaulted in the school playground. The film was published on the internet, and the defendant right wing politician re-published it, but falsely said that the claimant had himself been violent.
Held: The . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 23 July 2021; Ref: scu.581312

Hughes v Twisden: ChD 1886

One partner in a firm of solicitors committed a fraud on a client by using deeds held on behalf of the client as security for a loan for his own benefit, the funds, so far as appeared, not passing through the firm’s accounts. The fraudulent partner eventually absconded and the client sued the remaining partners.
Held: They were not liable. The transaction was not within the ordinary course of the business of the partnership and was ‘not imputable to the partnership’.
North J
(1886) 55 LJ Ch 481
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Dixon Coles and Gill (A Former Firm) v Baines, Bishop of Leeds and Another CA 20-Jul-2021
Innocent co-trustee not liable for Default
Proceedings were brought by former clients against their former solicitors. One of the partners stole money held in the firm’s client account on behalf of the claimants. The other two partners were entirely innocent of, and in no way implicated in, . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 22 July 2021; Ref: scu.666145

Transco Plc v United Utilities Water Plc: QBD 25 Oct 2005

The defendant’s employee closed off a valve, cutting off the gas supply to the claimant’s customers. The claimant incurred costs investigating and restoring the gas supply.
Held: The tort of wrongful interference with goods was made out. Physical damage included wrongful interference with goods, and that closing the valve was such interference.
Butterfield J
[2005] EWHC 2784 (QB)
Bailii
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – D Pride and Partners (A Firm) and Others v Institute for Animal Health and Others QBD 31-Mar-2009
The claimants sought damages after the loss of business when the defendants’ premises were the source of an outbreak of foot and mouth disease. The organism had escaped from their premises via a broken drain.
Held: Much of the damage claimed . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 21 July 2021; Ref: scu.331087

Western Digital Corporation and others v British Airways plc: QBD 23 Jul 1999

A claim under the Convention could be brought by the consignor or the consignee, in either case as named on the waybill or by the person to whom delivery was ordered by the consignor. The owner of the goods had no standing to make a claim save to the extent that he was so named.
Times 23-Jul-1999
Warsaw Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules regarding International Air Transport 1929
England and Wales

Updated: 21 July 2021; Ref: scu.90412

London Borough of Lambeth v Grant and Others: QBD 5 Jul 2021

trespass – statutory common land – possession – Article 6, 7, 10, 11 ECHR – fair hearing – judicial independence – effect of media reports of ongoing case – effect of public profile of a party
[2021] EWHC 1857 (QB)
Bailii
England and Wales
Cited by:
See Also – London Borough of Lambeth v Grant and Others QBD 12-Jul-2021
Claim for occupation of land against trespassing demonstrators. . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 21 July 2021; Ref: scu.666043

McNally v Saunders: QBD 16 Jul 2021

The claimant a senior local authority official alleged harassment by the defendant a semi-retired solicitor publishing an online blog claiming to reveal local government actions he disproved of. The defendant now sought to strike out the claim.
Held: The claim could not succeed and was struck out.
Mr Justice Chamberlain
[2021] EWHC 2012 (QB)
Bailii
Protection from Harassment Act 1997 3
England and Wales

Updated: 21 July 2021; Ref: scu.666045

London Borough of Lambeth v Grant and Others: QBD 12 Jul 2021

Claim for occupation of land against trespassing demonstrators.
Mr Justice Chamberlain
[2021] EWHC 1962 (QB)
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
See Also – London Borough of Lambeth v Grant and Others QBD 5-Jul-2021
trespass – statutory common land – possession – Article 6, 7, 10, 11 ECHR – fair hearing – judicial independence – effect of media reports of ongoing case – effect of public profile of a party . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 21 July 2021; Ref: scu.666042

First Tower Trustees Ltd and Another v CDS (Superstores International) Ltd: ChD 20 Feb 2017

Tenancy granted, but asbestos found before occupation taken up.
Michael Brindle QC sitting as a deputy High Court judge
[2017] EWHC 891 (Ch), [2017] EWHC B6 (Ch), [2017] 4 WLR 73, [2017] WLR(D) 133
Bailii, Bailii, WLRD
Misrepresentation Act 1967 3
England and Wales

Updated: 20 July 2021; Ref: scu.583676

Globe Motors, Inc and Others v TRW Lucas Varity Electric Steering Ltd: ComC 11 Nov 2014

Trial of claims by the Claimants for breach of contract and negligent misstatement against the Defendants arising from an exclusive supply agreement
Mackie QC HHJ
[2014] EWHC 3718 (Comm)
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
See Also – Globe Motors Inc and Others v TRW Lucasvarity Electric Steering Ltd QBD 8-Nov-2012
The defendants sought to have struck out parts of the claimants’ Particulars of Claim. . .

Cited by:
See Also – Globe Motors Inc and Others v TRW Lucas Varity Electric Steering Ltd and Another ComC 23-Mar-2015
Calculation of quantum . .
Appeal from – Globe Motors, Inc and Others v TRW Lucas Varity Electric Steering Ltd and Another CA 20-Apr-2016
Globe, component manufacturers had a contract to supply TRW. The contract was exclusive. It contained a clause disallowing any amendment.
Held: (Obiter) Beatson LJ thought such clauses unenforceable. . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 20 July 2021; Ref: scu.538841

World Online Telecom Ltd v I-Way Ltd: CA 8 Mar 2002

A contract provided against it variation save in writing and signed. A claim was made relying upon an oral variation.
Held: It was a sufficient reason for refusing summary judgment that ‘the law on the topic is not settled.’
Sedley LJ
[2002] EWCA Civ 413
Bailii
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Rock Advertising Ltd v MWB Business Exchange Centres Ltd SC 16-May-2018
The parties disputed whether a contract (licence to occupy an office) had been varied by an oral agreement, where the terms prohibited such.
Held: The ‘no oral variation’ clause applied. Such clauses were in common commercial use and served a . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 20 July 2021; Ref: scu.217003

Globe Motors Inc and Others v TRW Lucasvarity Electric Steering Ltd: QBD 8 Nov 2012

The defendants sought to have struck out parts of the claimants’ Particulars of Claim.
Mackie QC
[2012] EWHC 3134 (QB)
Bailii
England and Wales
Cited by:
See Also – Globe Motors, Inc and Others v TRW Lucas Varity Electric Steering Ltd ComC 11-Nov-2014
Trial of claims by the Claimants for breach of contract and negligent misstatement against the Defendants arising from an exclusive supply agreement . .
See Also – Globe Motors Inc and Others v TRW Lucas Varity Electric Steering Ltd and Another ComC 23-Mar-2015
Calculation of quantum . .
See Also – Globe Motors, Inc and Others v TRW Lucas Varity Electric Steering Ltd and Another CA 20-Apr-2016
Globe, component manufacturers had a contract to supply TRW. The contract was exclusive. It contained a clause disallowing any amendment.
Held: (Obiter) Beatson LJ thought such clauses unenforceable. . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 20 July 2021; Ref: scu.465689

Gavin Edmondson Solicitors Ltd v Haven Insurance Company Ltd: CA 2 Dec 2015

Appeal by Edmondson against an Order dismissing Edmondson’s claim against Haven in respect of Haven’s conduct in settling on an inclusive basis personal injury claims directly with six clients of Edmondson with whom Edmondson had concluded conditional fee agreements, thereby depriving Edmondson of its costs. Haven submitted that the particular terms of the CFA Lite retainers created no contractual liability of the claimants for the charges, and there was nothing upon which an equitable security could be founded. Held The Court agreed that there was no such contractual liability, but it decided that the equitable jurisdiction to intervene could be extended far enough to enable the court to recognise and then enforce an interest of Edmondson under the RTA Protocol in receiving its fixed costs and charges as therein provided or, alternatively, an interest under an express provision in the retainers to sue in its client’s names for recovery of those charges from Haven, and that Haven knew of those interests. The Court ordered Haven to pay the charges allowable under the RTA Protocol to Edmondson, in addition to the settlement sums already paid to the claimants.
Laws, Elias, Lloyd-Jones LJJ
[2015] EWCA Civ 1230, [2015] RTR 125, [2015] RTR 125, [2016] CP Rep 11, [2015] WLR(D) 496, [2016] 1 WLR 1385
Bailii, WLRD
The Cancellation of Contracts made in a Consumers Home or Place of Work etc. Regulations 2008
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Khans Solicitor (A Firm) v Chifuntwe and Another CA 8-May-2013
C instructed the claimants to bring proceedings. They compromised those proceedings, the defendant agreeing to pay C’s costs. A bill was submitted but before it was paid C withdrew his instructions from his solicitors and accepted the defendant’s . .
Cited – In re the Estate of Fuld, decd (No. 4) 1968
The solicitor sought to exercise a lien for his costs over money paid direct to his client.
Held: The solicitor’s right exists over both the amount of a judgment in favour of the client, and the amount of an order for costs in favour of the . .
Cited – Welsh v Hole 6-Nov-1779
The plaintiff obtained judgment for pounds 20 and costs in a civil claim for assault, but then compromised the claim for a direct payment by the defendant of pounds 10. There was no collusion to defeat the solicitor’s right to payment of his bill. . .
Cited – Read v Dupper 13-Jun-1795
The defendant’s solicitor paid the plaintiff direct, after notice of the plaintiff’s solicitor’s interest, and had to pay again. Lord Kenyon began:
‘The principle by which this application is to be decided was settled long ago, namely that the . .

Cited by:
Appeal from – Gavin Edmondson Solicitors Ltd v Haven Insurance Company Ltd SC 18-Apr-2018
The court was asked as to use of the solicitor’s equitable lien, whereby equity provided security for the recovery by solicitors of their agreed charges for the successful conduct of litigation, out of the fruits of that litigation. It is a . .

These lists may be incomplete.
Updated: 18 July 2021; Ref: scu.556265

Strand Electric and Engineering Co Ltd v Berisford Entertainments Ltd: 1952

The court assessed the amount of damages for the wrongful refusal to deliver up portable switchboards which the owner would not have used anyway (detinue). The measure was a sum equivalent to the price or hire that a reasonable person would pay for such use.
[1952] 2 QB 246
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Experience Hendrix LLC v PPX Enterprises Inc and Another CA 20-Mar-2003
The claimant had obtained an interim injunction against the defendant for copyright infringement, though it could show no losses. It now sought additionally damages. The defendant argued that it could not have both.
Held: The case arose form . .
Cited – Hillesden Securities Ltd v Ryjack QBD 1983
Parker LJ discussed the case of Strand Electric and said: ‘The action in that case was in detinue and not conversion, but there will in almost all cases of detinue have been an original act of conversion also and what was in effect held in that case . .
Cited – Morris-Garner and Another v One Step (Support) Ltd SC 18-Apr-2018
The Court was asked in what circumstances can damages for breach of contract be assessed by reference to the sum that the claimant could hypothetically have received in return for releasing the defendant from the obligation which he failed to . .

These lists may be incomplete.
Updated: 17 July 2021; Ref: scu.180881

Emerald Supplies Ltd and Others v British Airways Plc and Others (3514): ChD 28 Oct 2014

Two applications in this action: 1) The Defendants’ application for the striking out and/or summary dismissal of the Claimants’ claims in the torts of unlawful means conspiracy and unlawful interference; and 2) The Claimants’ application for two contentions of law in BA’s Defence to be declared incorrect, struck out or summarily dismissed.
Those contentions in law are as follows: a) A cause of action in conspiracy cannot be based on foreign unlawful means; and b) If foreign unlawful means can be relied upon as unlawful means for the purpose of a conspiracy claim, a breach of a statute in country A would (at most) confer a cause of action in respect of loss sustained in country A and not elsewhere.
Peter Smith J
[2014] EWHC 3514 (Ch)
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
See Also – Emerald Supplies Ltd and Others v British Airways Plc and (3513) ChD 28-Oct-2014
A hearing of an Application whereby the Claimants requested the Court to review (with such judicial assistance as might be necessary) the appropriateness / lawfulness of the redactions made by the Defendant airline (‘BA’) and other airlines to the . .
See Also – Emerald Supplies Ltd and Another v British Airways Plc ChD 8-Apr-2009
The claim was for damages after alleged price fixing by the defendants. The claimants sought to recover for themselves and as representatives of others who had similarly suffered. The defendants sought that the representative element of the claim be . .
Cited – Emerald Supplies Ltd and Another v British Airways Plc CA 18-Nov-2010
. .

Cited by:
See Also – Emerald Supplies Ltd and Others v British Airways Plc and (3513) ChD 28-Oct-2014
A hearing of an Application whereby the Claimants requested the Court to review (with such judicial assistance as might be necessary) the appropriateness / lawfulness of the redactions made by the Defendant airline (‘BA’) and other airlines to the . .
See Also – Emerald Supplies Ltd v British Airways ChD 22-Jul-2015
The judge was hearing a very substantial action between the parties. He had recently travelled to Italy and came back on one of the defendant’s aircraft. The defendant lost the luggage of all passengers and had failed to deal adequately or at all . .

These lists may be incomplete.
Updated: 16 July 2021; Ref: scu.538053

Lonrho plc v Fayed: CA 1989

There had been a battle to purchase the share capital of the House of Fraser which owned Harrods. Lonrho alleged that the Fayed brothers had perpetrated a fraud on the Secretary of State, and thereby secured permission to buy the company without a reference to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission and preventing Lonrho from buying the company. Lonrho did not pursue a claim for tortious conspiracy, accepting that this required a predominant intention to injure them. They did, however, pursue a claim for unlawful interference, appealing against an order striking out this claim.
Held: The appeal succeeded. Dillon LJ held that, in relation to unlawful interference with business, it was sufficient to show an intention directed at the claimant or alternatively intent to injure the claimant. Ralph Gibson and Woolf LJJ held that intention would be shown where the defendant had deliberately embarked on a course of conduct, ‘the probable consequences of which to the plaintiff he appreciated’. In Woolf LJ’s view it was unnecessary to show that the interference was inevitable. It might be enough that the results were probable.
Dillon LJ: ‘It is submitted to us that, even with this tort, it must, as with the tort of conspiracy, have been the predominant purpose of the tortfeasor to injure the victim rather than to further the tortfeasor’s own financial ends. I do not accept that. It would be inconsistent with the way Lord Diplock treated this tort and the tort of conspiracy differently in his speech in Lonrho Ltd v Shell Petroleum Co. Ltd (No2) and in Hadmor Productions Ltd v Hamilton [1983] 1 AC 191, 228-229. No predominant purpose to injure is required where the tortuous act relied on is injury by wrongful interference with a third party’s contract with the victim or by intimidation of a third party to the detriment of the victim, nor should it in my view be required where the wrongful interference has been by the practice of fraud on a third party, aimed specifically at the plaintiff. . . ‘
Woolf LJ: ‘So far as conspiracy is concerned, there is good reason for requiring that predominant intent should be an ingredient of the tort. Great difficulty would, in my view, arise if a requirement of predominant intent to injure were to be introduced into the tort with which we are concerned here. This tort is not based upon any agreement, but interference, and frequently it will be fully appreciated by a defendant that a course of conduct that he is embarking upon will have a particular consequence to a plaintiff and the defendant will have decided to pursue that course of conduct knowing what the consequence will be. Albeit that he may have no desire to bring about that consequence in order to achieve what he regards as his ultimate ends, from the point of view of the plaintiff, whatever the motive of the defendant, the damage which he suffers will be the same. If a defendant has deliberately embarked upon a course of conduct, the probable consequences of which to the plaintiff he appreciated, I do not see why the plaintiff should not be compensated.’
Dillon LJ, Ralph Gibson LJ, Woolf LJ
[1990] 2 QB 479, [1989] 2 All ER 65
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – RCA Corporation v Pollard CA 1982
The illegal activities of bootleggers who had made unauthorised recordings of concerts, diminished the profitability of contracts granting to the plaintiffs the exclusive right to exploit recordings by Elvis Presley.
Held: The defendant’s . .
Appeal from – Lonhro plc v Fayed 19-Jul-1988
The plaintiff and defendant competed in bidding for a public company. The plaintiff having been restrained by the Secretary of State, alleged that the defendant had used a fraudulent misrepresentation to achieve this.
Held: It was not a tort . .

Cited by:
Cited – R Cruickshank Limited v The Chief Constable of Kent County Constabulary CA 13-Dec-2002
The claimant had sought damages from the defendant for unlawful interference with contractual relations, and for misfeasance in public office. It now appealed against an order striking out its claim. It claimed that the police had unlawfully abused . .
Appeal from – Lonrho plc v Fayed HL 2-Jan-1991
In a conspiracy, the intent to injure need not be the primary intent, but there must be some intent which involves the conspiring parties directing their minds towards the victim or a category of persons which would include the victim as a target to . .
Cited – Douglas and others v Hello! Ltd and others (No 3) CA 18-May-2005
The principal claimants sold the rights to take photographs of their wedding to a co-claimant magazine (OK). Persons acting on behalf of the defendants took unauthorised photographs which the defendants published. The claimants had retained joint . .
Cited – Mainstream Properties Ltd v Young and others CA 13-Jul-2005
The claimant appealed refusal of his claim for inducing a breach of contract against the sixth defendant. It said that an intention to disturb a contract could be inferred.
Held: A mere recklessness as to whether contractual rights were . .
Cited – Douglas and others v Hello! Ltd and others; similar HL 2-May-2007
In Douglas, the claimants said that the defendants had interfered with their contract to provide exclusive photographs of their wedding to a competing magazine, by arranging for a third party to infiltrate and take and sell unauthorised photographs. . .
Cited – Secretary of State for Health and Another v Servier Laboratories Ltd and Others SC 2-Jul-2021
Economic tort of causing loss by unlawful means
The Court was asked whether the ‘dealing requirement’ is a constituent part of the tort of causing loss by unlawful means; whether a necessary element of the unlawful means tort is that the unlawful means should have affected the third party’s . .

These lists may be incomplete.
Updated: 16 July 2021; Ref: scu.183223

RCA Corporation v Pollard: CA 1982

The illegal activities of bootleggers who had made unauthorised recordings of concerts, diminished the profitability of contracts granting to the plaintiffs the exclusive right to exploit recordings by Elvis Presley.
Held: The defendant’s appeal succeeded. The performer might have had an action, but the Act was directed to his rights, not those of the plaintiff distributor. Oliver LJ discussed the tort of wrongful interference by the practice of a fraud on a third party: ‘It also has to be proved by a plaintiff who seeks to rely on this tort, as Mr Beveridge conceded for Lonrho, that the unlawful act was in some sense directed against the plaintiff or intended to harm the plaintiff. The origin of those phrases is the oft quoted passage in the speech of Lord Watson in Allen v Flood [1898] AC 1,96, which was applied by the majority of this court (Buckley and Kennedy LJJ) in National Phonograph Co. Ltd v Edison-Bell Consolidated Phonograph Co. Ltd [1908] 1 Ch 335. In that case the fraud was clearly directed against the plaintiff. ‘
Oliver and Slade LJJ
[1982] 3 All ER 771, [1983] 1 Ch 135
Dramatic and Musical Performers’ Protection Act 1958 1
England and Wales
Citing:
Appeal from – RCA v Pollard ChD 1982
The defendant had sold unauthorised recordings made of Elvis Presley at his contacts and was selling them. The plaintiff had the rights to the works of Elvis Presley, and claimed under the 1958 Act. . .
Cited – Allen v Flood HL 14-Dec-1898
Tort of Malicicious Inducement not Committed
The defendant, on behalf of a group of ironworkers, persuaded their employers in Milwall to stop employing the plaintiff shipwrights. There was no breach of contract. The plaintiffs alleged that this conduct gave rise to liability in tort on the . .
Cited – National Phonograph Co Ltd v Edison-Bell Consolidated Phonograph Co Ltd CA 1908
The defendant had intentionally caused loss to the plaintiff by fraudulently inducing a third party to act to the plaintiff’s detriment. The court considered the tort of wrongful interference in contractual relations where a fraud had clearly been . .
Cited – Emperor of Austria v Day and Kossuth 1861
The defendants had printed banknotes in London. Kossuth intended to use the notes in Hungary after overthrowing the Emperor of Austria by revolution. The Emperor obtained an injunction restraining the defendants from continuing to manufacture them. . .

Cited by:
Cited – Arsenal Football Club plc and Others v Elte Sports Distribution Ltd ChD 10-Dec-2002
The claimant alleged that the respondent had unlawfully made use of photographs of its footballers in a calendar. The respondent asked the court to strike out the claim as merely speculative, and the claimant sought pre-action disclosure.
Cited – OBG Ltd OBG (Plant and Transport Hire) Ltd v Raymond International Ltd; OBG Ltd v Allen CA 9-Feb-2005
The defendants had wrongfully appointed receivers of the claimant, who then came into the business and terminated contracts undertaken by the business. The claimant asserted that their actions amounted to a wrongful interference in their contracts . .
Cited – Douglas and others v Hello! Ltd and others (No 3) CA 18-May-2005
The principal claimants sold the rights to take photographs of their wedding to a co-claimant magazine (OK). Persons acting on behalf of the defendants took unauthorised photographs which the defendants published. The claimants had retained joint . .
Cited – Lonrho plc v Fayed CA 1989
There had been a battle to purchase the share capital of the House of Fraser which owned Harrods. Lonrho alleged that the Fayed brothers had perpetrated a fraud on the Secretary of State, and thereby secured permission to buy the company without a . .
Cited – Mbasogo, President of the State of Equatorial Guinea and Another v Logo Ltd and others CA 23-Oct-2006
Foreign Public Law Not Enforceable Here
The claimant alleged a conspiracy by the defendants for his overthrow by means of a private coup d’etat. The defendants denied that the court had jurisdiction. The claimants appealed dismissal of their claim to damages.
Held: The claims were . .
Cited – Douglas and others v Hello! Ltd and others; similar HL 2-May-2007
In Douglas, the claimants said that the defendants had interfered with their contract to provide exclusive photographs of their wedding to a competing magazine, by arranging for a third party to infiltrate and take and sell unauthorised photographs. . .
Cited – Total Network Sl v Revenue and Customs HL 12-Mar-2008
The House was asked whether an action for unlawful means conspiracy was available against a participant in a missing trader intra-community, or carousel, fraud. The company appealed a finding of liability saying that the VAT Act and Regulations . .
Cited – Secretary of State for Health and Another v Servier Laboratories Ltd and Others SC 2-Jul-2021
Economic tort of causing loss by unlawful means
The Court was asked whether the ‘dealing requirement’ is a constituent part of the tort of causing loss by unlawful means; whether a necessary element of the unlawful means tort is that the unlawful means should have affected the third party’s . .

These lists may be incomplete.
Updated: 16 July 2021; Ref: scu.182460

Rhodes v OPO and Another: SC 20 May 2015

The mother sought to prevent a father from publishing a book about her child’s life. It was to contain passages she said may cause psychological harm to the 12 year old son. Mother and son lived in the USA and the family court here had no jurisdiction to grant orders protecting the child’s welfare. Instead, these proceedings were brought in his name, originally by his mother and now by his godfather as his litigation friend, alleging that publication would constitute a tort against him.
Held: The appeal was allowed, and the original order striking out the claim was restored, clearly failing to meet all but one of the requirements. ‘there is plainly a powerful case for saying that, in relation to the instant tort, liability for distressing statements, where intent to cause distress is an essential ingredient, it should be enough for the claimant to establish that he suffered significant distress as a result of the defendant’s statement. It is not entirely easy to see why, if an intention to cause the claimant significant distress is an ingredient of the tort and is enough to establish the tort in principle, the claimant should have to establish that he suffered something more serious than significant distress before he can recover any compensation. Further, the narrow restrictions on the tort should ensure that it is rarely invoked anyway.’
Lord Neuberger, President, Lady Hale, Deputy President, Lord Clarke, Lord Wilson, Lord Toulson
[2015] 2 WLR 137, [2015] UKSC 32, [2016] AC 219, [2015] EMLR 20, [2015] HRLR 11, [2015] WLR(D) 227, [2015] 4 All ER 1, UKSC 2014/0251
Bailii, WLRD, Bailii Summary, SC, SC Summary, SC Video Summary
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Wilkinson v Downton 8-May-1997
Thomas Wilkinson, the landlord of a public house, went off by train, leaving his wife Lavinia behind the bar. A customer of the pub, Downton played a practical joke on her. He told her, falsely, that her husband had been involved in an accident and . .
Cited – Wainwright and another v Home Office HL 16-Oct-2003
The claimant and her son sought to visit her other son in Leeds Prison. He was suspected of involvement in drugs, and therefore she was subjected to strip searches. There was no statutory support for the search. The son’s penis had been touched . .
Cited – In re Guardian News and Media Ltd and Others; HM Treasury v Ahmed and Others SC 27-Jan-2010
Proceedings had been brought to challenge the validity of Orders in Council which had frozen the assets of the claimants in those proceedings. Ancillary orders were made and confirmed requiring them not to be identified. As the cases came to the . .
Cited – Campbell v Mirror Group Newspapers Ltd (MGN) (No 1) HL 6-May-2004
The claimant appealed against the denial of her claim that the defendant had infringed her right to respect for her private life. She was a model who had proclaimed publicly that she did not take drugs, but the defendant had published a story . .
Cited – Cream Holdings Limited and others v Banerjee and others HL 14-Oct-2004
On her dismissal from the claimant company, Ms Banerjee took confidential papers revealing misconduct to the local newspaper, which published some. The claimant sought an injunction to prevent any further publication. The defendants argued that the . .
At First Instance – OPO v MLA and Another QBD 18-Jul-2014
A boy now sought an interim injunction to restrain his father, the defendant classical musician, from publishing his autobiography which mentioned him. The book would say that the father had suffered sexual abuse as a child at school.
Held: . .
Cited – Janvier v Sweeney 1919
During the First World War Mlle Janvier lived as a paid companion in a house in Mayfair and corresponded with her German lover who was interned as an enemy alien on the Isle of Man. Sweeney was a private detective who wanted secretly to obtain some . .
Cited – McLoughlin v O’Brian HL 6-May-1982
The plaintiff was the mother of a child who died in an horrific accident, in which her husband and two other children were also injured. She was at home at the time of the accident, but went to the hospital immediately when she had heard what had . .
Cited – Khorasandjian v Bush CA 16-Feb-1993
The plaintiff was an eighteen year old girl who had had a friendship with the defendant, aged 28. The friendship broke down and the plaintiff said she would have no more to do with him, but the defendant did not accept this. There were many . .
Cited – Bromage And Another v Prosser 1825
Bayley J distinguished ‘malice in law’, inferred from the defendant’s intentional interference with the plaintiff’s rights, from ‘malice in fact’ and Malice in common acceptation of the term means ill-will against a person, but in its legal sense it . .
Cited – Regina v Martin CCCR 1881
r_martin CCCCR
The defendant was accused of unlawful conduct in causing panic at a theatre (by turning off the lights and barring the doors) in the course of which a number of people were injured by trampling as they stampeded down a stairway. His conduct was . .
Cited – The Capital and Counties Bank Limited v George Henty and Sons HL 1882
The defendant wrote to their customers saying ‘Henty and Sons hereby give notice that they will not receive in payment cheques drawn on any of the branches of the Capital and Counties Bank.’ The contents of the circular became known and there was a . .
Cited – Mogul Steamship Company Limited v McGregor Gow and Co QBD 10-Aug-1885
Ship owners formed themselves into an association to protect their trading interests which then caused damage to rival ship owners. The plaintiffs complained about being kept out of the conference of shipowners trading between China and London.
Cited – Mayor of Bradford v Pickles HL 29-Jul-1895
The plaintiffs sought an injunction to prevent the defendant interfering with the supply of water to the city. He would have done so entirely by actions on his own land.
Held: The plaintiffs could have no property in the water until it came on . .
Cited – Allen v Flood HL 14-Dec-1898
Tort of Malicicious Inducement not Committed
The defendant, on behalf of a group of ironworkers, persuaded their employers in Milwall to stop employing the plaintiff shipwrights. There was no breach of contract. The plaintiffs alleged that this conduct gave rise to liability in tort on the . .
Not good law – Director of Public Prosecutions v Smith HL 1960
The defendant tried to avoid arrest and killed a policeman by driving off with the policeman clinging to the car.
Held: (1) The defendant committed murder because death or grievous bodily harm was foreseen by him as a ‘likely’ result of his . .
Cited – Allsop v Allsop 25-Apr-1860
Complaint was made of illness allegedly caused by a slanderous imputation of unchastity to a married woman. The woman heard the slander at third hand. It was held that the woman could not claim special damages for her illness in an action for . .
Cited – Lynch v Knight HL 17-Jul-1861
Lord Wensleydale said: ‘Mental pain or anxiety the law cannot value, and does not pretend to redress, when the unlawful act complained of causes that alone; though where material damage occurs, and is connected with it, it is impossible a jury, in . .
Cited – Victorian Railway Commissioners v Coultas PC 21-Jan-1888
(Victoria) The appellant’s gatekeeper had negligently invited the plaintiffs to cross a railway line as a train approached. There was no collision, but the plaintiff sought damages for physical and mental injuries from shock.
Held: The . .
Cited – Pugh v London, Brighton and South Coast Railway Co CA 1896
The plaintiff signalman saw that there was something wrong one of the carriages of a train approaching at full speed so that the train was in danger. He leant from the window of his signal-box and waved a red flag so that the driver might stop the . .
Cited – Dulieu v White and Sons KBD 1901
A pregnant barmaid suffered nervous shock causing her to give premature birth as a result of the tortfeasor’s horse van bursting into her bar at the Bonner Arms in Bethnal Green from the roadway. The defendant pleaded that the damages claimed were . .
Cited – Stevenson v Basham 1922
(New Zealand) The defendant made a threat to the plaintiff’s husband inside the house that she and her husband were occupying to burn it down, the threat being overheard by her when she was in a bedroom where she was lying and when she was pregnant . .
Cited – Hambrook v Stokes Brothers CA 1925
The defendant’s employee left a lorry at the top of a steep narrow street unattended, with the engine running and without having taken proper steps to secure it. The lorry ran violently down the hill. The plaintiff’s wife had been walking up the . .
Cited – Bunyan v Jordan 1-Mar-1937
(High Court of Australia) The plaintiff sought damages having been put to severe fright by a shot fired by her employer, the defendant, who had stated an intention to shoot someone, gone to a local thoroughfare with a gun, produced it and fired it. . .
Cited – Rahemtulla v Vanfed Credit Union 1984
(British Columbia Supreme Court) The plaintiff had been harassed at work, falsely accused of theft in threatening circumstances and summarily dismissed without proper cause in a humiliating fashion. The defendant submitted that to be liable for . .
Cited – Bradley v Wingnut Films Ltd 1993
(New Zealand High Court) The plaintiffs complained that a relative’s tombstone was depicted in a satiric film set in part in a cemetery, and containing a significant degree of gore and violence. The tombstone was never shown in its entirety, . .
Cited – Hedley Byrne and Co Ltd v Heller and Partners Ltd HL 28-May-1963
Banker’s Liability for Negligent Reference
The appellants were advertising agents. They were liable themselves for advertising space taken for a client, and had sought a financial reference from the defendant bankers to the client. The reference was negligent, but the bankers denied any . .
Cited – Wong v Parkside Health NHS Trust and Another CA 16-Nov-2001
The claimant had sued her former employer for post-traumatic stress resulting from alleged harassment at her place of work. The claimant appealed against an order refusing damages. The court had held that outside the 1997 Act which was not in force . .
Cited – Her Majesty’s Attorney General v Punch Limited and another HL 12-Dec-2002
A former MI5 agent, Mr Shayler, was to be prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act, and an injunction against publication was granted. The respondent published further works by Mr Shayler, and now appealed a finding that it had acted in contempt of . .
Cited – Regina v G and R HL 16-Oct-2003
The defendants, young boys, had set fire to paper and thrown the lit papers into a wheelie bin, expecting the fire to go out. In fact substantial damage was caused. The House was asked whether a conviction was proper under the section where the . .
Cited – High Parklane Consulting Inc v Lewis 16-Jan-2007
(Ontario – Superior Court of Justice) . .
Cited – Napier and Another v Pressdram Ltd CA 19-May-2009
napier_pressdramCA2009
The claimant solicitors appealed against the refusal to grant them an injunction to prevent the publication of the outcome of a complaint against them to the Law society, and of the Ombudsman’s report. They said that the material remained . .

Cited by:
Cited – Bains and Others v Moore and Others QBD 15-Feb-2017
The claimant anti-asbestos campaigners complained that the defendant investigators had infringed their various rights of privacy. They now sought discovery to support the claim.
Held: the contents of the witness statements do show that it is . .
Cited – NT 1 and NT 2 v Google Llc QBD 13-Apr-2018
Right to be Forgotten is not absolute
The two claimants separately had criminal convictions from years before. They objected to the defendant indexing third party web pages which included personal data in the form of information about those convictions, which were now spent. The claims . .
Cited – HRH The Duchess of Sussex v Associated Newspapers Ltd ChD 11-Feb-2021
Defence had no prospect of success – Struck Out
The claimant complained that the defendant newspaper had published contents from a letter she had sent to her father. The court now considered her claims in breach of privacy and copyright, and her request for summary judgment.
Held: Warby J . .

These lists may be incomplete.
Updated: 16 July 2021; Ref: scu.546914

Hargreaves v Bretherton: 1959

The Plaintiff pleaded that the First Defendant police officer had falsely and maliciously and without justification or excuse committed perjury at the Plaintiff’s trial on charges of criminal offences and that as a result the Plaintiff had been convicted and sentenced to eight years preventive detention.
Held: The claim was struck out as disclosing no cause of action. Telling lies about a defendant is not by itself tortious. Even if there was provable perjury in the proceedings, no second cause of action arises in civil proceedings from that. Lord Goddard CJ said: ‘The simple point that I have to decide is whether or not an action lies at the suit of the person who says that he has been demnified by false evidence given against him. In my opinion it is perfectly clear and beyond peradventure nowadays that such an action will not lie’.
Lord Goddard CJ
[1959] 1 QB 45
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Rex v Skinner 1772
Lord Mansfield said: ‘Neither party, witness, counsel jury or judge can be put to answer, orally or criminally, for words spoken in office.’ Where words are spoken which are opprobrious or irrelevant to the case, the court will take notice of them . .

Cited by:
Cited – Total Network Sl v Customs and Excise Commissioners CA 31-Jan-2007
The defendants suspected a carousel VAT fraud. The defendants appealed a finding that there was a viable cause of action alleging a ‘conspiracy where the unlawful means alleged is a common law offence of cheating the public revenue’. The defendants . .
Cited – Powell and Another v Boldaz and others CA 1-Jul-1997
The plaintiff’s son aged 10 died of Addison’s Disease which had not been diagnosed. An action against the Health Authority was settled. The parents then brought an action against 5 doctors in their local GP Practice in relation to matters that had . .
Cited – Total Network Sl v Revenue and Customs HL 12-Mar-2008
The House was asked whether an action for unlawful means conspiracy was available against a participant in a missing trader intra-community, or carousel, fraud. The company appealed a finding of liability saying that the VAT Act and Regulations . .
Cited – Gregory v Portsmouth City Council HL 10-Feb-2000
Disciplinary proceedings had been taken by the local authority against Mr Gregory, a council member, after allegations had been made that he had failed to declare conflicts of interest, and that he had used confidential information to secure a . .
Cited – Jones v Kaney SC 30-Mar-2011
An expert witness admitted signing a joint report but without agreeing to it. The claimant who had lost his case now pursued her in negligence. The claimant appealed against a finding that the expert witness was immune from action.
Held: The . .
Cited – Marrinan v Vibert QBD 1963
The plaintiff brought an action claiming damages for conspiracy against two police officers alleging they had conspired together to make false statements defamatory of him as a barrister.
Held: The claim was struck out. Even a conspiracy to . .

These lists may be incomplete.
Updated: 16 July 2021; Ref: scu.248357

Crofter Hand Woven Harris Tweed Co Ltd v Veitch: SCS 1940

Lord Justice Clerk Aitchison said: ‘When the end of a combination is not a crime or a tort in the accepted sense, and the means are not in the accepted sense criminal or tortious – cases which give rise to no difficulty – the question always is – What is the real purpose of the combination? If it is to injure, without reference to anyone’s lawful gain, or the enjoyment of one’s rights, or the furtherance of one’s legitimate interests, then what is done may become a wrongful act and be actionable. If, on the other hand, the real purpose of the combination is to further the lawful interests of the parties to it- these not necessarily being identical interests – no wrong is committed even when the means, employed not being in themselves illegal, are calculated, and even intended, to injure the persons against whom they are directed.’
dissentiente Lord Mackay
Lord Justice Clerk Aitchison, Lord Jamieson
Unreported 1940
Scotland
Citing:
Cited – Allen v Flood HL 14-Dec-1898
Tort of Malicicious Inducement not Committed
The defendant, on behalf of a group of ironworkers, persuaded their employers in Milwall to stop employing the plaintiff shipwrights. There was no breach of contract. The plaintiffs alleged that this conduct gave rise to liability in tort on the . .
Cited – Sorrell v Smith HL 1925
Torts of Conspiracy by Unlawful Means
The plaintiff had struck the first blow in a commercial battle between the parties, and the defendant then defended himself, whereupon the plaintiff sued him.
Lord Cave quoted the French saying: ‘cet animal est tres mechant; quand on . .

Cited by:
Appeal From – Crofter Hand Woven Harris Tweed Company Limited v Veitch HL 15-Dec-1941
The plaintiffs sought an interdict against the respondents, a dockers’ union, who sought to impose an embargo on their tweeds as they passed through the port of Stornoway.
Held: A trade embargo was not tortious because the predominant purpose . .
Cited – Total Network Sl v Revenue and Customs HL 12-Mar-2008
The House was asked whether an action for unlawful means conspiracy was available against a participant in a missing trader intra-community, or carousel, fraud. The company appealed a finding of liability saying that the VAT Act and Regulations . .

These lists may be incomplete.
Updated: 16 July 2021; Ref: scu.268779

GWK Ltd v Dunlop Rubber Co Ltd: 1926

GWK company made motor cars and the ARM company made tyres. GWK contracted to fit all their new cars with ARM tyres and to show them with ARM tyres at trade exhibitions. On the night before a motor show in Glasgow, Dunlop employees removed the ARM tyres from two GWK cars on the exhibition and substituted Dunlop tyres. Dunlop knew of ARM’s contractual right to have their tyres displayed.
Held: Dunlop were liable. Lord Hewart CJ referred to Quinn v Leathem and said: ‘In [my] opinion the defendants knowingly committed a violation of the ARM company’s legal rights by interfering, without any justification whatever, with the contractual relations existing between them and the GWK company and [I think] that the defendants so interfered with the intention of damaging the ARM company and that the company [has] been thereby damnified.’
Lord Hewart CJ
(1926) 42 TLR 376
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Quinn v Leathem HL 5-Aug-1901
Unlawful Means Conspiracy has two forms
Quinn was treasurer of a Belfast butchers’ association. Leathem, who traded as a butcher, employed some non-union men, although when the union made difficulties he asked for them to be admitted to the union, and offered to pay their dues. The union . .

Cited by:
Cited – Douglas and others v Hello! Ltd and others; similar HL 2-May-2007
In Douglas, the claimants said that the defendants had interfered with their contract to provide exclusive photographs of their wedding to a competing magazine, by arranging for a third party to infiltrate and take and sell unauthorised photographs. . .
Cited – Secretary of State for Health and Another v Servier Laboratories Ltd and Others SC 2-Jul-2021
Economic tort of causing loss by unlawful means
The Court was asked whether the ‘dealing requirement’ is a constituent part of the tort of causing loss by unlawful means; whether a necessary element of the unlawful means tort is that the unlawful means should have affected the third party’s . .

These lists may be incomplete.
Updated: 16 July 2021; Ref: scu.251731

National Phonograph Co Ltd v Edison-Bell Consolidated Phonograph Co Ltd: CA 1908

The defendant had intentionally caused loss to the plaintiff by fraudulently inducing a third party to act to the plaintiff’s detriment. The court considered the tort of wrongful interference in contractual relations where a fraud had clearly been directed against the plaintiff.
Buckley and Kennedy LJJ
[1908] 1 Ch 335
England and Wales
Citing:
Applied – Allen v Flood HL 14-Dec-1898
Tort of Malicicious Inducement not Committed
The defendant, on behalf of a group of ironworkers, persuaded their employers in Milwall to stop employing the plaintiff shipwrights. There was no breach of contract. The plaintiffs alleged that this conduct gave rise to liability in tort on the . .

Cited by:
Cited – RCA Corporation v Pollard CA 1982
The illegal activities of bootleggers who had made unauthorised recordings of concerts, diminished the profitability of contracts granting to the plaintiffs the exclusive right to exploit recordings by Elvis Presley.
Held: The defendant’s . .
Cited – Douglas and others v Hello! Ltd and others (No 3) CA 18-May-2005
The principal claimants sold the rights to take photographs of their wedding to a co-claimant magazine (OK). Persons acting on behalf of the defendants took unauthorised photographs which the defendants published. The claimants had retained joint . .
Cited – Douglas and others v Hello! Ltd and others; similar HL 2-May-2007
In Douglas, the claimants said that the defendants had interfered with their contract to provide exclusive photographs of their wedding to a competing magazine, by arranging for a third party to infiltrate and take and sell unauthorised photographs. . .
Cited – Secretary of State for Health and Another v Servier Laboratories Ltd and Others SC 2-Jul-2021
Economic tort of causing loss by unlawful means
The Court was asked whether the ‘dealing requirement’ is a constituent part of the tort of causing loss by unlawful means; whether a necessary element of the unlawful means tort is that the unlawful means should have affected the third party’s . .

These lists may be incomplete.
Updated: 16 July 2021; Ref: scu.225467

Tarleton v M’Gawley: 1790

The master of the Othello, anchored off the coast of West Africa, was held to be liable in tort for depriving a rival British ship of trade by the expedient of using his cannon to drive away a canoe which was approaching from the shore: ‘that an action on the case lay against the master of a vessel for purposely firing a cannon at [traders] and thereby preventing them from trading with the plaintiff’. That was done purposely in the sense of ‘contriving and maliciously intending to hinder and deter (them) from trading’
Lord Kenyon
(1790) 1 Peake NPC 270
Commonwealth
Cited by:
Cited – Douglas and others v Hello! Ltd and others; similar HL 2-May-2007
In Douglas, the claimants said that the defendants had interfered with their contract to provide exclusive photographs of their wedding to a competing magazine, by arranging for a third party to infiltrate and take and sell unauthorised photographs. . .
Cited – Secretary of State for Health and Another v Servier Laboratories Ltd and Others SC 2-Jul-2021
Economic tort of causing loss by unlawful means
The Court was asked whether the ‘dealing requirement’ is a constituent part of the tort of causing loss by unlawful means; whether a necessary element of the unlawful means tort is that the unlawful means should have affected the third party’s . .

These lists may be incomplete.
Updated: 16 July 2021; Ref: scu.251729

Garret v Taylor: 1620

The defendant was held liable under the tort of causing loss by unlawful means, after he drove away customers of Headington Quarry by threatening them with mayhem and vexatious suits.
(1620) Cro Jac 567
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Douglas and others v Hello! Ltd and others; similar HL 2-May-2007
In Douglas, the claimants said that the defendants had interfered with their contract to provide exclusive photographs of their wedding to a competing magazine, by arranging for a third party to infiltrate and take and sell unauthorised photographs. . .
Cited – Secretary of State for Health and Another v Servier Laboratories Ltd and Others SC 2-Jul-2021
Economic tort of causing loss by unlawful means
The Court was asked whether the ‘dealing requirement’ is a constituent part of the tort of causing loss by unlawful means; whether a necessary element of the unlawful means tort is that the unlawful means should have affected the third party’s . .

These lists may be incomplete.
Updated: 16 July 2021; Ref: scu.251728

The Secretary of State for Health and Another v Servier Laboratories Ltd and Others: ChD 2 Aug 2017

Roth J struck out the unlawful means tort claim, saying that, in OBG ‘the ratio of Lord Hoffmann’s determination of the elements of the tort is in para 51’ of his speech: ‘Unlawful means therefore consists of acts intended to cause loss to the claimant by interfering with the freedom of a third party in a way which is unlawful as against that third party and which is intended to cause loss to the claimant. It does not in my opinion include acts which may be unlawful against a third party but which do not affect his freedom to deal with the claimant.’ This includes a requirement that the acts affect the third party’s freedom to deal with the claimant.
He continued: ‘the whole approach of Lord Hoffmann and the express opinions of Lord Walker, Baroness Hale and Lord Brown emphasised the need to confine the tort within careful limits, and support the view that the unlawful means must affect the third party’s freedom to deal with the claimant.’ . . . ‘If the claimants here were correct, then given the broad interpretation of the element of intention adopted in OBG v Allen, the right to claim against Servier would cover not only all the various UK Health Authorities but also all potential generic competitors who suffered loss through their inability to supply a generic version of perindopril by reason of the 947 Patent; any private medical expenses insurer who paid higher prices for reimbursement of the cost of perindopril; and, subject to any issues of jurisdiction, all foreign health authorities and insurers in each of the various other states in Europe that were designated under the 947 Patent. Mr Turner did not shrink from such implications, and indeed urged that the court should not shrink from them either.’
Roth J
[2017] EWHC 2006 (Ch), [2017] 5 CMLR 17
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Douglas and others v Hello! Ltd and others; similar HL 2-May-2007
In Douglas, the claimants said that the defendants had interfered with their contract to provide exclusive photographs of their wedding to a competing magazine, by arranging for a third party to infiltrate and take and sell unauthorised photographs. . .

Cited by:
See Also – The Secretary of State for Health and Another v Servier Laboratories Ltd and Others CA 27-Jun-2019
The Court was asked how far the EU law principle of res judicata can be relied on by the Appellants as establishing facts which they wish to prove in their defences to the damages claims brought by the Respondents. Servier submits that certain . .
Appeal from – The Secretary of State for Health and Another v Servier Laboratories Ltd and Others CA 12-Jul-2019
Appeal against a paragraph of an order by which the judge struck out the claim of the appellant, the Secretary of State for Health and the NHS Business Services Authority that the third respondent is liable for interfering with the NHS’s economic . .
At First Instance – Secretary of State for Health and Another v Servier Laboratories Ltd and Others SC 2-Jul-2021
Economic tort of causing loss by unlawful means
The Court was asked whether the ‘dealing requirement’ is a constituent part of the tort of causing loss by unlawful means; whether a necessary element of the unlawful means tort is that the unlawful means should have affected the third party’s . .

These lists may be incomplete.
Updated: 16 July 2021; Ref: scu.597458

Karunia Holdings Ltd v Creativityetc Ltd: ChD 5 Jul 2021

Request for a declaration that a charge deed was void for fraud and for an order removing all registered entries in respect of it. The Defence and Counterclaim took issue with the entire factual and legal basis of the Claim.
HHJ Halliwell sitting as a Judge of the High Court
[2021] EWHC 1864 (Ch)
Bailii
England and Wales

Updated: 14 July 2021; Ref: scu.663852

Euromex Ventures Ltd and Another v BNP Paribas Real Estate Advisory and Property Management UK Ltd and Others: ChD 9 Oct 2013

Administrators and then liquidators of a company based at television studios in Hayes, Middlesex were accused of dealing with assets in the Studio in such a way as to convert them. The assets in question mainly, but not entirely, comprised television and studio equipment. The total value of the items that are said to have been converted is put at about pounds 14 million in the Particulars of Claim.
Newey J
[2013] EWHC 3007 (Ch)
Bailii
England and Wales

Updated: 13 July 2021; Ref: scu.516329

Kelsen v Imperial Tobacco Co (of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) Ltd: 1957

By an assignment in April 1946, the plaintiff acquired the lease of a shop and it tobacconist’s business. The premises were on a street with a ground floor room and a flat roof top. On the two front sides the shop was bounded by streets and on one side of the back was an adjoining building of three stories. During the lease, the defendants, wholesale tobacconists, displayed three advertising signs on the wall with the adjoining building about the shop. The signs made of sheet metal mounted on a frame which fixed against the wall but with the mounting, it extended by 4 inches into the air space above the flat roof of the shop. In April 1948 the landlords gave to the owners of the adjoining building consent to a large new sign in place of the existing signs. In December 1948, the landlords granted a new lease of the shop to the plaintiff. By clause 1 of the lease, which contained the parcels, the premises devised to the plaintiff were expressed to be subject to ‘all that right so as wants to any of the adjacent property, and by clause 2 the plaintiff covenanted not to permit any sign or advertisement to be posted on or over any part of the exterior at the shop and premises. In January 1950, no new sign having yet been affixed on the adjoining building, its owners again obtained the permission of the landlord of the plaintiffs shop for the defendants to substitute a new large advertising sign for the existing the smaller ones. A new sign was elected by the defendants in 1950 with the plaintiff’s knowledge. Its total length was about 20 feet, and the maximum distance by which part of the sign projected from the wall and over the building was 8 inches. From time to time the defendants servants had access to the sign, from the plaintiff’s shop and with his knowledge, to carry out maintenance work and repairs. In December 1953 as a result of a business dispute between the plaintiff and the defendants, the plaintiffs asked the defendants to remove the sign. After the dispute was settled, the plaintiff on being asked by the descendants whether he still wanted the side removed, replied that it could remain. Further arose between the parties, and the plaintiff gave notice to the defendant to remove the sign, and the defendants having failed to do so now brought an action against them for trespass.
Held: McNair J granted a mandatory injunction ordering the defendants to remove a sign which projected only 8 inches over the plaintiff’s property.
1 The air space above the shop was part of the premises demised to the plaintiff on a true construction of the lease of December 1948 there was nothing to displace the prima facie conclusion that the demise of the premises included the air space above the shop;
2 when in January 1950, the landlords consented to the substitution of the new sign, they could not derogate from the demise of the airspace in December 1948 to the plaintiff;
3 the plaintiffs conduct in allowing the sign to remain on the wall of the adjoining building from 1950 onwards did not estop him from subsequently requiring it to be removed, because a be hard, as most, mary represented to the defendants but he would not object to the sign in future and representation of an intention did not give rise to an estoppel; and on the facts, the descendants had not been induced by the plantiff’s conduct to act to their prejudice to such an extent as to oblige them to continue to display the sign:
4 The invasion of the plaintiff’s air-space by the sign amounted to a trespass on the part of the defendants and not merely to a nuisance. On the facts of the case, although the injury to the plaintiffs legal rights was small, he was entitled to a mandatory injunction requiring the defendants to remove that sign.
McNair J
[1957] 2 QB 344, [1957] 2 All ER 343
England and Wales

Updated: 12 July 2021; Ref: scu.268225

Kuru v State of New South Wales: 12 Jun 2008

Austlii (High Court of Australia) Torts – Trespass to land – Power of police to enter private premises – Police officers went to suburban flat after receiving report of male and female arguing – Police treated report as ‘violent domestic’ – Occupier invited police to ‘look around the flat’ – Occupier later asked police to leave premises – Police did not leave and remained on premises for longer than it would reasonably have taken them to leave – Whether statutory justification for police to remain on premises – Proper construction of Crimes Act 1900 (NSW) ss 357F and 357H – Whether express refusal by occupier immediately terminated authority of police ‘to so enter or remain’ on premises, irrespective of fulfilment of purposes for which entry effected.
Torts – Trespass to land – Power of police to enter private premises – Whether common law justification for police to remain on premises – Whether entry could be justified as directed to preventing a breach of the peace.
Words and phrases – ‘enter or remain’, ‘expressly refused’, ‘breach of the peace’.
[2008] HCA 26
Austlii
Australia
Cited by:
Cited – Gillies v Procurator Fiscal, Elgin HCJ 1-Oct-2008
The police went to the defendant’s flat to find her boyfriend. She refused them access, but when they saw him, the police officers called out that he was under arrest under the 1995 Act, and forced their way past the door and the defendant. The . .

These lists may be incomplete.
Updated: 11 July 2021; Ref: scu.276522

Stanley Yeung Kai Yung and another v Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation: PC 1980

The shareholder had had his share certificates stolen. The thief lodged forged transfers with stockbrokers, who in good faith sent the share certificates and transfer deeds to the bank for registration and transfer, which was done. The transferee thus came to be registered and he then sold the shares. The innocent shareholder asked for his name to be restored to the register and for related relief. The bank brought third party proceedings against the stockbrokers. The original shareholder succeeded against the bank. As between the bank and the stockbrokers, at first instance and in the Hong Kong Court of Appeal the Judges relied on the Barclay implied indemnity and found the stockbrokers liable to indemnify the bank. The stockbrokers appealed to the Privy Council.
Held: The decision in Barclay was upheld.
Lord Scarman dealt with an argument advanced by the stockbrokers that it was truly the transferee rather than the stockbrokers who had requested the bank to act upon the transfer deeds and to issue new certificates and hence, as it was sought to argue, that, rather than the stockbrokers, it was only the transferee who was responsible for indemnifying the bank. As to that argument he said: ‘It is not the case that, if a principal is liable, his agent cannot be. The true principle of the law is that a person is liable for his engagements (as for his torts) even though he is acting for another, unless he can show that by the law of agency he is to be held to have expressly or impliedly negatived his personal liability. But, upon the view of the letters, which the Courts below accepted and this Board believes to be correct, the brokers cannot avoid personal responsibility for whatever consequences the law attaches to the making of the request and the bank’s compliance with it. It was their request – even though made on Mr Wong’s [the transferee’s] behalf.’
As to an indemnity, after quoting Dugdale v Lovering: ‘This ‘broad principle’, as Lord Davey called it, has been consistently followed, and Mr Leggatt for the brokers disclaimed any intention to invite their Lordships’ Board to review it. Their Lordships are satisfied that it is now firmly embedded in the law: see Bank of England -v- Cutler [1908] 2 KB 208; Secretary of State for India -v- Bank of India Ltd [1938] 65 Ind. App. 286 and Welch -v- Bank of England [1955] Ch 508 (per Harman J at pp. 548-549). ‘ and ‘For these reasons their Lordships find themselves in agreement with the Court of Appeal in holding that there was in the circumstances of this request a promise by the stockbroker to indemnify the bank if, by acting on the request, it caused actionable injury or damage to a third party. The promise was accepted by the bank acting on the request and became a contractual indemnity.’
Lord Scarman
[1981] AC 787, [1980] 2 All ER 599
England and Wales
Citing:
Adopted – Corporation of Sheffield v Barclay and Others HL 3-Jul-1905
Lord Davey said: ‘I think that the appellants [Sheffield Corporation] have a statutory duty to register all valid transfers, and on the demand of the transferee to issue to him a fresh certificate of title to the stock comprised therein. But, of . .
Cited – Dugdale v Lovering 1875
The court adopted the position proposed by Mr Cave, for the Plaintiff: ‘It is a general principle of law when an act is done by one person at the request of another which act is not in itself manifestly tortious to the knowledge of the person doing . .

Cited by:
Cited – Cadbury Schweppes Plc and Another v Halifax Share Dealing Ltd and Another ChD 23-May-2006
Fraudsters had successfully contrived to sell shares of others, by re-registering the shares to new addresses and requesting new certificates. The question was which of the company, the company registrars and the stockbrokers should bear the loss. . .

These lists may be incomplete.
Updated: 09 July 2021; Ref: scu.242170

Sycamore Bidco Ltd v Breslin and Another: ChD 30 Nov 2012

The court considered a claim in breach of warranty and misrepresentation in a share purchase transaction.
Held: There had been no representation as suggested, and therefore no misrepresentation. There had however been a breach of warranty.
Mann J
[2012] EWHC 3443 (Ch)
Bailii
England and Wales
Cited by:
See Also – Sycamore Bidco Ltd v Breslin and Another ChD 17-Jan-2013
. .
Principal judgment – Sycamore Bidco Ltd v Breslin and Another ChD 14-Feb-2013
The court considered whether it was correct to award interest on the sum of damages for the period before as well as after judgment, and if so, from what date and at what rate of interest.. . .

These lists may be incomplete.
Updated: 24 June 2021; Ref: scu.466436

Thomas v National Union of Mineworkers (South Wales Area): ChD 1985

Threats made by pickets to those miners who sought to go to work were not an assault because the pickets had no capacity to put into effect their threats of violence whilst they were held back from the vehicles which the working miners were within. The plaintiffs were, however, entitled to enjoy their right to use the highway to go to work without unreasonable harassment and that picketing by 50 to 70 striking miners shouting abuse was a tortious interference with that right. The actions of the striking miners were therefore actionable in nuisance.
Scot J
[1986] Ch 20, [1985] 2 All ER 1, [1985] IRLR 157, [1985] ICR 886, [1985] 2 WLR 1081
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – The Catholic Child Welfare Society and Others v Various Claimants and The Institute of The Brothers of The Christian Schools and Others SC 21-Nov-2012
Law of vicarious liability is on the move
Former children at the children’s homes had sought damages for sexual and physical abuse. The court heard arguments as to the vicarious liability of the Society for abuse caused by a parish priest visiting the school. The Court of Appeal had found . .

These lists may be incomplete.
Updated: 24 June 2021; Ref: scu.466788

Kerner v WX and Another: QBD 6 May 2015

The claimant’s husband had been convicted for sexual activity with a child while in a position of trust. She now sought continuation of an anti-harassment injunction against news photographers taking pictures of her whilst in public with her children. There had been a new campaign after she wanted to continue her own work as a teacher and continued to live with her husband.
Held: An order would be made for the DVLA to disclose the identity of the owner of a vehicle associated with the harassment.
Warby J
[2015] EWHC 1247 (QB)
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
See Also – Kerner v WX and Another QBD 29-Jan-2015
Application for continuation of anti-harassment injunction against persons unknown. . .

These lists may be incomplete.
Updated: 22 June 2021; Ref: scu.546421

Regina (Konan) v Secretary of State for the Home Department: Admn 21 Jan 2004

The claimants alleged that their immigration detention had been unlawful.
Held: Collins J said: ‘Since the detention at least since 24 June 2002 was contrary to the defendant’s own policy as published in Chapter 38, it was unlawful. In so deciding, I am applying the decision of the Court of Appeal in Nadarajah. I do not therefore have to consider the question of proportionality.’
Collins J, rejected a submission on behalf of the Secretary of State that bail was an alternative remedy: ‘An adjudicator in considering a bail application is not determining (indeed, he has no power to determine) the lawfulness of the detention. The grant of bail presupposes the power to detain since a breach of a bail condition can lead to a reintroduction of the detention.’
The Honourable Mr Justice Collins
[2004] EWHC 22 (Admin)
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Nadarajah and Amirhanathan v Secretary of State for the Home Department CA 8-Dec-2003
The Secretary of State’s published policy was that, if legal proceedings were initiated, removal would not be treated as imminent even if it otherwise was. The Secretary of State also had an unpublished policy, namely that information that . .

Cited by:
Cited – SK, Regina (on the Application of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department Admn 25-Jan-2008
The claimant was a Zimbabwean National who was to be removed from the country. He was unlawfully held in detention pending removal. He sought damages for false imprisonment. He had been held over a long period pending decisions in the courts on the . .
Cited – Lumba (WL) v Secretary of State for The Home Department SC 23-Mar-2011
The claimants had been detained under the 1971 Act, after completing sentences of imprisonment pending their return to their home countries under deportations recommended by the judges at trial, or chosen by the respondent. They challenged as . .
Cited – B (Algeria) v Secretary of State for The Home Department SC 8-Feb-2018
Bail conditions only after detention
B had been held under immigration detention, but released by SIAC, purportedly in conditional bail, after they found there was no realistic prospect of his deportation because he had not disclosed his true identity. The court was asked ‘whether . .

These lists may be incomplete.
Updated: 21 June 2021; Ref: scu.192297

Samuels v Coole and Haddock (a Firm): CA 22 May 1997

The defendant solicitors had acted for defendants in an action brought by the plaintiff. They swore and filed an affidavit in support of an application to strike out elements of the action. The affidavit spoke as to abusive and threatening calls and actions from the plaintiff, and of instructions to seek injunctive relief. The plaintiff now sued the solicitors alleging in effect defamation and malicious falsehood. The defendants appealed against the refusal of the judge to strike out the claim.
Held: The appeal was successful, and the claim struck out. The statements complained of were sufficiently close to the matters at issue between the parties to attract protection: ‘it might have been open to Mr. Samuels to apply to have paragraphs 7 to 19 of the affidavit struck out on the grounds of their lack of relevance, but I am in no doubt at all that they are well within the absolute privilege of witness immunity.’
Thorpe LJ, Holman J
[1997] EWCA Civ 1755, [1997] CLY 4860
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Seaman v Netherclift 1876
The court considered the protection of a witness in court from defamation actions and otherwise.
Held: Sir Alexander Cockburn CJ said: ‘I am very far from desiring to be considered as laying down as law that what a witness states altogether . .
Cited – X (Minors) v Bedfordshire County Council; M (A Minor) and Another v Newham London Borough Council; Etc HL 29-Jun-1995
Liability in Damages on Statute Breach to be Clear
Damages were to be awarded against a Local Authority for breach of statutory duty in a care case only if the statute was clear that damages were capable of being awarded. in the ordinary case a breach of statutory duty does not, by itself, give rise . .
Cited – Roy v Prior HL 1970
The court considered an alleged tort of maliciously procuring an arrest. The plaintiff had been arrested under a bench warrant issued as a result of evidence given by the defendant. He sued the defendant for damages for malicious arrest.
Held: . .

Cited by:
Cited – Iqbal v Mansoor and Others QBD 26-Aug-2011
The claimant sought the disapplication of the limitation period in order to pursue the defendant solicitors, his former employers, in defamation. . .

These lists may be incomplete.
Updated: 21 June 2021; Ref: scu.142151

Boyse (International) Ltd v Natwest Markets Plc and Another: ChD 25 May 2021

Whether the Chief Master was correct to conclude that it was sufficiently clear that a claim for fraudulent misrepresentation was barred by the provisions of sections 2 and 32(1) of Limitation Act 1980 to justify the grant of summary judgment in favour of the defendants.
Mr Justice Trower
[2021] EWHC 1387 (Ch)
Bailii
England and Wales

Updated: 20 June 2021; Ref: scu.663049

Crypton Digital Assets Ltd and Another v Blockchain Luxembourg Sa and Others: ChD 11 May 2021

Application to strike out stated parts of the particulars of claim with the effect that the causes of action in inducing breach of contract, dishonest assistance, knowing or unconscionable receipt and unlawful means conspiracy be struck out.
Deputy Master Brightwell
[2021] EWHC 1172 (Ch)
Bailii
England and Wales

Updated: 20 June 2021; Ref: scu.663055

Lagan Navigation Co v Lambeg Bleaching, Dyeing and Finishing Co Ltd: HL 1927

Lord Atkinson stated: ‘It has been well said that the abatement of a nuisance is a remedy which the law does not favour and is not usually advisable, and that its exercise destroys any right of action in respect of the nuisance.’
Concluding, he said: ‘In my opinion, this never was an appropriate case for self-redress, even if the plaintiff had acted promptly. There was no emergency. There were difficult questions of law and fact to be considered and the remedy by way of self-redress, if it had resulted in the demolition of the garage wall, would have been out of all proportion to the damage suffered by the plaintiff . . But, even if there ever had been a right of self-redress, it ceased when Judge Main refused to grant a mandatory injunction. We are now in a position to answer the question left open by Chitty J in Lane v Capsey [1891] 3 Ch.411. Self-redress is a summary remedy, which is justified only in clear and simple cases, or in an emergency. Where a plaintiff has applied for a mandatory injunction and failed, the sole justification for a summary remedy has gone. The court has decided the very point in issue. This is so whether the complaint lies in trespass or nuisance.’
Lord Atkinson
[1927] AC 226
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – The Earl of Lonsdale v Nelson And Others 14-Nov-1823
Trespass for breaking and entering the plaintiff’s manor. Pleas, first, general issue; second, that from time immemorial there hath been and still is a public port partfy within the said manor, and also in a river which has been a public navigable . .
Cited – Campbell Davys v Lloyd 1901
Collins LJ said: ‘The right of abatement by individuals is not regarded with favour by the law. In the words of Lord Hale: ‘because this many times occasions tumults and disorders, the best way to reform public nuisances is by the ordinary courts of . .
Cited – Lane v Capsey 1891
A building society held a charge over property which enjoyed a right of way over neighbouring land. The right was obstructed by the neighbour building over it. Their request for the removal of the obstruction had been rejected by the court with no . .

Cited by:
Cited – Chamberlain v Lindon Admn 18-Mar-1998
The appellant challenged the dismissal of his private prosecution of the defendant in destroying a new garden wall. The magistrates had found a lawful excuse in that the defendant said that the wall had been constructed to obstruct his private right . .

These lists may be incomplete.
Updated: 20 June 2021; Ref: scu.541706

Irvine v Kirkpatrick: HL 1850

Before a misrepresentation may be of any avail whatever, it must inure to the date of the contract. If the other party discovers the truth before he signs the contract, ‘the misrepresentation and the concealment go for just absolutely nothing’.
Lord Brougham
(1850) 7 Bell App (HL) 186
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Cramaso Llp v Ogilvie-Grant, Earl of Seafield and Others SC 12-Feb-2014
The defenders owned a substantial grouse moor in Scotland. There had been difficulties with grouse stocks, and steps taken over years to allow stocks to recover. They had responded to enquiries from one Mr Erskine with misleading figures. Mr Erskine . .

These lists may be incomplete.
Updated: 20 June 2021; Ref: scu.536802

Wilson v Waddell: HL 1876

In the course of proper mineral workings by the defender, the soil above the coal, which was stiff and impervious to water, so that, whilst it was undisturbed, the greater part of the rainfall flowed away over the surface, was cracked into open fissures, through which the rainfall flowed freely down into the defender’s workings, towards the pursuer’s holding, out of which it had to be pumped at additional expense.
Held: The case was one of damnum absque injuria, giving rise to no claim for damages. An owner of land cannot complain of damage caused through the natural user of land by a neighbouring owner.
(1876) 2 App Cas 95
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Willis and Another v Derwentside District Council ChD 10-Apr-2013
The claimants sought damages alleging the escape of noxious CO2 gas from the defendant’s neighbouring land. The gas originated from old coal workings.
Held: There had come to be a liability falling in the defendant from 2006. Its delay in . .

These lists may be incomplete.
Updated: 17 June 2021; Ref: scu.472534

Pipia v BGEO Group Ltd: ComC 20 Jan 2021

This application is one for further Extended Disclosure under the Disclosure Pilot. The focus of the application is email correspondence and the contents of the mobile phones of two key witnesses.
It arises in the context of a claim where the Claimant (‘Mr Pipia’) claims that through a series of cunning transactions orchestrated by the Defendant (‘BG UK’), he was unlawfully deprived of a Georgian fertiliser plant worth hundreds of millions of dollars. BG UK denies any wrongdoing – indeed, any involvement in the events subject to this dispute.
Mrs Justice Cockerill DBE
[2021] EWHC 86 (Comm)
Bailii
England and Wales

Updated: 11 June 2021; Ref: scu.657532

Wilding v Chief Constable of Lancashire: CA 22 May 1995

The court considered a claim by a woman for wrongful arrest and unlawful detention by police officers who had reasonably suspected her of burglary of the house of her former partner. In interview by the police, she denied the offence and made assertions that prompted the officers to contact the complainant to ask him to attend the police station to deal with them before continuing with the interview. Within about two hours after the complainant had been contacted and had made a statement, the police decided that there would be no further enquiries. They released the woman without charge, initially on bail, and subsequently did not charge her with any offence. On the issue whether it had been necessary, by reference to section 37(2) and (3) of PACE, to detain her in custody while they made those further enquiries.
Held: Attempts to define, or to provide synonyms for, ‘necessary’ should be avoided. In such circumstances a court: ‘should ask itself the question, in circumstances like this, whether the decision of the custody sergeant was unreasonable in the sense that no custody officer, acquainted with the ordinary use of language and applying his common sense to the competing considerations before him, could reasonably have reached that decision.
Applying that test in this case, I bear in mind that what was being suggested was a comparatively short period of detention, so that the officers, having checked with . . the complainant . . whether or not there had been, for example, one telephone call about money or whether the appellant did in fact owe him any money, might then continue the interview, or restart the interview, for the purpose they had contended they had, which was obtaining evidence relating to the offence by questioning her. Looking at the matter from that standpoint, it seems to me that the custody officer could reasonably, in the circumstances of this case, have come to the conclusion that he had reasonable grounds for believing that the detention of the appellant without being charged was necessary within the meaning of the section.’
Nourse, Beldam and Kennedy LJJ
Unreported, 22 May 1995
Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 37(2) 37(3)
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Taylor (A Child Proceeding By his Mother and Litigation Friend C M Taylor) v Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police CA 6-Jul-2004
The Chief Constable appealed aganst a finding that his officers had wrongfully arrested and imprisoned the claimant. The claimant was 10 years old when arrested, and complained that the officers had not properly advised him of the nature and purpose . .
Cited – Al-Fayed and others v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis and others CA 25-Nov-2004
The appellants appealed from dismissal of their claims for wrongful imprisonment by the respondent. Each had attended at a police station for interview on allegations of theft. They had been arrested and held pending interview and then released. Mr . .
Cited – Richardson v The Chief Constable of West Midlands Police QBD 29-Mar-2011
The claimant, a teacher, said he had been unlawfully arrested and detained after an allegation of assault from a pupil. Having attended the police station voluntarily, he said that the circumstances did not satisfy the required precondition that an . .
Cited – Hayes v Merseyside Police CA 29-Jul-2011
hayes_merseysideCA2011
The claimant had been arrested after a complaint of harassment. The officer then contacted the complainant who then withdrew his complaint. The officer went to visit the complainant to discuss it further. On his return the claimant was released from . .

These lists may be incomplete.
Updated: 09 June 2021; Ref: scu.198674

Woods v Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis: CA 26 May 1995

The court in considering the period of detention of the claimant, asked itself whether the circumstances were such that the decision of the custody sergeant was unreasonable in the sense that no custody sergeant, applying common sense to the competing considerations before him, could have continued to detain the suspect.
Nourse, Beldam and Kennedy LJJ
Unreported, 26 May 1995
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Taylor (A Child Proceeding By his Mother and Litigation Friend C M Taylor) v Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police CA 6-Jul-2004
The Chief Constable appealed aganst a finding that his officers had wrongfully arrested and imprisoned the claimant. The claimant was 10 years old when arrested, and complained that the officers had not properly advised him of the nature and purpose . .

These lists may be incomplete.
Updated: 09 June 2021; Ref: scu.198675

Cross v Kirby: CA 18 Feb 2000

Judge LJ discussed the doctrine of ex turpi causa: ‘In my judgment, where the claimant is behaving unlawfully, or criminally, on the occasion when his cause of action in tort arises, his claim is not liable to be defeated ex turpi causa unless it is also established that the facts which give rise to it are inextricably linked with his criminal conduct. I have deliberately expressed myself in language which goes well beyond questions of causation in the general sense.’
Judge LJ
Unreported, 18 Feb 2000
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Vellino v Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police CA 31-Jul-2001
The police were not under any duty to protect someone who had been arrested from injuring himself in an attempt to escape. The claimant had a history of seeking to avoid capture by jumping from his flat window. On this occasion he injured himself in . .

These lists may be incomplete.
Updated: 19 May 2021; Ref: scu.258467

Barker v Barking Havering and Brentwood Community Healthcare NHS Trust (Warley Hospital) Dr Taylor: CA 30 Jul 1998

A person who is liable to be detained in a hospital by virtue of an application or order under that Act may either be actually detained or given leave of absence. While on leave of absence it may well be that the patient’s disorder is not such that he needs to be detained in hospital. But he remains liable to be detained, and may be recalled to hospital, unless and until the application or order authorising his detention lapses or he is discharged.
[1999] 1 FLR 106, [1998] EWCA Civ 1347
Bailii
Mental Health Act 1983
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Khadir, Regina (on the Application of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department HL 16-Jun-2005
The applicant who had entered England hidden in a lorry, claimed asylum, and had his claim rejected. It was said that as an Iraqi Kurd, he would be safe in the Kurdish area of Iraq. No safe means had been found of ensuring his return over some four . .

These lists may be incomplete.
Updated: 31 December 2020; Ref: scu.144826

Burrows v Rhodes: 1899

The plaintiff was induced to enlist in the Jameson Raid of 1895, contrary to section 11 of the Foreign Enlistment Act 1870, by the defendants’ fraudulent representation that it had the sanction of the Crown (which would have made it lawful). Kennedy J held that no claim for damages could be founded on an act ‘if the act is manifestly unlawful or the doer of it knows it to be unlawful as constituting either a civil wrong or a criminal offence.’
Kennedy J
[1899] 1 QB 816
Foreign Enlistment Act 1870 11
Cited by:

  • Cited – Lane v Holloway CA 30-Jun-1967
    In the context of a fight with fists, ordinarily neither party has a cause of action for any injury suffered during the fight. But they do not assume ‘the risk of a savage blow out of all proportion to the occasion. The man who strikes a blow of . .
    [1967] 3 All ER 129, [1968] 1 QB 379
  • Cited – Les Laboratoires Servier and Another v Apotex Inc and Others SC 29-Oct-2014
    Ex turpi causa explained
    The parties had disputed the validity a patent and the production of infringing preparations. The english patent had failed and damages were to be awarded, but a Canadian patent remained the defendant now challenged the calculation of damages for . .
    [2014] UKSC 55, [2015] 1 AC 430, [2014] WLR(D) 452, [2014] BUS LR 1217, [2014] 3 WLR 1257, UKSC 2012/0158, [2015] 1 All ER 671, [2015] RPC 10

These lists may be incomplete.
Updated: 05 December 2020; Ref: scu.258461

Irving v National Provincial Bank: CA 1962

Goods were seized by the police from the claimant. Neither the claimant nor the defendant could establish that they were the true owners. Under section 1 the first court directed the goods to be delivered to the defendant as the person who appeared to be the lawful owner. The claimant sued the defendant claiming ownership of the goods.
Held: The Court rejected the claim. Holroyd Pearce LJ said'[The 1897] Act was passed in substitution for an earlier Act, the Metropolitan Police Court Act, 1839, which by section 29 made similar provisions. It provides practical machinery to deal with a practical situation. Although the Act does not, until the expiration of six months, affect the right of any person to take proceedings, it does alter the fact of possession. When an order has been made by a tribunal under the Act for delivery of property to a claimant, the Act cannot have intended the claimant to remain a bailee for the former possessor. The claimant has, by due process of law, after inquiry, had physical possession transferred to him. It is still open to anyone during the ensuing six months to claim the goods from him, provided that the claimant can establish his right to do so. Had the Act intended, it could have preserved the prior rights of possession in the former possessor. But it has not done so, and previous possession of goods now in the hands of another does not raise a presumption of present title in the previous owner, unless the person who has received them from him has done so as a wrongdoer or as agent of bailee of the previous owner. . . This view of the matter is in accordance with the dictum of Cockburn CJ in [Buckley].’ and ‘under this Act of 1897 . . . the plaintiff can no longer rely on a presumption from his previous possession. Therefore the burden is on the plaintiff to prove that he is entitled to the notes or to damages for their conversion. If he cannot discharge that burden he fails in the action. The judge rightly held that his story on that matter was not to be believed, and that he failed to discharge the onus or proof. I entirely agree with the judgment of the judge.’
References: [1962] 2 QB 73
Judges: Holroyd Pearce LJ
Statutes: Police (Property) Act 1897
Jurisdiction: England and Wales
This case cites:

  • Cited – Buckley v Gross 1863
    The court had to decide the ownership of of tallow which had been kept at warehouses. In a fire; it melted and flowed down the sewers into the river where part of it was collected by a man with no right to it; and he sold it to the claimant. The . .
    ((1863) 3B and S 556)
  • Cited – Betts v Receiver of Metropolitan Police District and Carter Paterson and Co Ltd 1932
    The police seized from the claimant certain cloth believing it to be stolen from Carter Paterson and delivered it to Carter Paterson, without any order under the 1897 Act. The claimant sued the receiver and Carter Paterson.
    Held: Since the . .
    ([1932] 2 KB 595)

This case is cited by:

  • Cited – Costello v Chief Constable of Derbyshire Constabulary CA 22-Mar-2001
    The police seized a car from Mr Costello, believing that it was stolen. The seizure was lawful at the time, by virtue of section 19 of PACE. The police never brought any criminal proceedings against Mr Costello, but they refused to return the car to . .
    (, [2001] EWCA Civ 381, [2001] 1 WLR 1437, [2001] 2 Lloyd’s Rep 216, [2001] 3 All ER 150)

These lists may be incomplete.
Last Update: 27 November 2020; Ref: scu.194104

Houghland v R R Low (Luxury Coaches) Ltd: CA 1962

A passenger’s bag had been placed in one coach that had broken down was intended to be transferred to a second coach. When the second coach arrived at the passenger’s destination the bag was not in the hold.
Held: The duty of care of a bailee is the standard one. It is for the person in possession of the goods to prove any loss or damage to goods in their possession is not caused by their own actions or fault.
Where the defendant’s possession of the goods was unintentional and there was no lack of care, detinue will not lie.
Ormerod LJ said ‘once the failure of the bailee to hand over the articles in question has been proved, there is a prima facie case, and the plaintiff is entitled to recover unless the defendant can establish a defence to the satisfaction of the court’
Bankes LJ said: ‘I think that the law still is that, if a bailee is sued in detinue only, it is a good answer for him to say that the goods were stolen without any default on his part, as the general bailment laid in the declaration pledges the plaintiff to the proof of nothing except that the goods were in the defendant’s hands and were wrongfully detained . .’
References: [1962] CLY 157, [1962] 2 All ER 159, [1962] 1 QB 694
Judges: Ormerod LJ, Bankes LJ
Jurisdiction: England and Wales
This case cites:

  • Cited – Coldman v Hill CA 1918
    A bailee of cattle who had without negligence let them escape and be lost.
    Held: he was blameless in detinue but negligent in that he had failed to inform the owner of the loss as soon as possible, a duty which the court found to arise out of . .
    (120 LT 412, [1919] 1 KB 443, [1918] All ER Rep 438)

This case is cited by:

  • Dictum applied – Chaudry v Prabhakar CA 1988
    The plaintiff sued a friend of hers for wrongly advising her that a car she was thinking of buying was in good condition.
    Held: An agent, even a volunteer, owed a duty of care appropriate for those circumstances. The measurement was objective, . .
    ([1989] 1 WLR 29, [1988] 3 All ER 718)
  • Cited – Thakrar v The Secretary of State for Justice Misc 31-Dec-2015
    County Court sitting at Milton Keynes. The claimant prisoner sought damages saying that his personal property had been damaged whilst in the care of the defendant.
    Held: The claims succeeded in part. Some damage was deliberate. There was a . .
    (, [2015] EW Misc B44)

These lists may be incomplete.
Last Update: 27 November 2020; Ref: scu.193403

Arkwright v Newbold: CA 1881

Cotton LJ discussed the tort of deceit and said: ‘In my opinion, it would not be right in an action of deceit to give a plaintiff relief on the ground that a particular statement, according to the construction put on it by the court, is false, when the plaintiff does not venture to swear that he understood the statement in the sense which the court puts on it.’
References: (1881) 17 ChD 301
Judges: Cotton LJ
Jurisdiction: England and Wales
This case is cited by:

  • Cited – Smith New Court Securities Ltd v Scrimgeour Vickers HL 21-Nov-1996
    The defendant had made misrepresentations, inducing the claimant to enter into share transactions which he would not otherwise have entered into, and which lost money.
    Held: A deceitful wrongdoer is properly liable for all actual damage . .
    (Gazette 13-Dec-96, Times 22-Nov-96, , , [1996] UKHL 3, [1997] AC 254, [1996] 4 All ER 769, [1996] 3 WLR 1051)
  • Cited – Walsh v Staines and others ChD 26-Jul-2007
    The defendants applied to strike out a claim based on an allegation of a fraudulent deceit and conspiracy in earlier proceedings between the parties. It was said that the defendant solicitors had represented that their client had funds to support an . .
    (, [2007] EWHC 1814 (Ch))
  • Cited – Hayward v Zurich Insurance Company Plc CA 31-Mar-2015
    The claimant sought damages alleging his back had been injured at work. The insurers accepted liability but said that the claimant had exaggerated the extent of his injury. The claim was settled, but later a neighbour of the claimants said that the . .
    (, [2015] EWCA Civ 327)
  • Cited – Hayward v Zurich Insurance Company Plc SC 27-Jul-2016
    The claimant had won a personal injury case and the matter had been settled with a substantial payout by the appellant insurance company. The company now said that the claimant had grossly exaggerated his injury, and indeed wasfiully recovered at . .
    ([2016] 3 WLR 637, , [2016] UKSC 48, , [2016] 4 All ER 628, [2016] 2 All ER (Comm) 755, [2016] WLR(D) 423, [2017] AC 142, , UKSC 2015/0099, , , , , )

These lists may be incomplete.
Last Update: 27 November 2020; Ref: scu.191185

Chaplin and Co Ltd v Brammall: CA 1908

The plaintiffs, having agreed to supply goods to the defendant’s husband on credit if his wife would guarantee payment by him of their price, sent to the husband a form of guarantee, in order that he might obtain his wife’s signature to it, leaving the matter entirely to him. The husband obtained his wife’s signature to the guarantee, without sufficiently explaining to her the nature of the document, which she did not understand when she signed it.
Held: The instrument of suretyship for his obligations was set aside when the wife’s evidence was that she did not know that the document that she signed was a guarantee or of any importance. The case came squarely within the principle explained in Duval where the document the wife signed ‘was very different from what she supposed it to be’
References: [1908] 1 KB 233, 97 LT 860
Judges: Vaughan Williams LJ
Jurisdiction: England and Wales
This case is cited by:

  • Applied – Kings North Trust Ltd v Bell CA 1986
    The wife claimed to have signed a legal charge in favour of the plaintiffs by virtue of her husband’s fraudulent misrepresentation. The charge secured the business borrowings of the husband. She did not get independent advice.
    Held: The bank . .
    ([1986] 1 All ER 423, [1986] 1 WLR 119)
  • Applied – Avon Finance Co Ltd v Bridger CA 1985
    The son arranged finance for his parents to move near to him. He borrowed money to help finance it, secured by an expensive second loan. He deceived his parents into executing the loan. After the son defaulted, the plaintiff sought possession.
    ([1985] 2 All ER 281, [1985] CLY 1289)

These lists may be incomplete.
Last Update: 27 November 2020; Ref: scu.193355

Industries and General Mortgage Co Ltd v Lewis: 1949

When arranging with the plaintiff company to obtain a loan for the defendant V stipulated that he should be paid half the procuration fee which the defendant would be charged for the company’s services. The company knew that V was to receive from the defendant a share of the profits on the resale of property to be purchased with the money lent, and that he was acting as agent for the defendant, but they had no dishonest intention to cause him to persuade the defendant to accept and the rate of commission demanded or to urge the defendant to act disadvantageously to his own interest. Neither V nor the company informed the defendant of the payment to V.
Held: for the purposes of the civil law a bribe meant nothing more than the payment of a secret commission, and proof of a corrupt motive on the part of the payer was unnecessary; once it was established that one party to a contract that made a secret payment to the agent of the other party the law would presume that he had acted corruptly, that the agent had been influenced by the payment to the detriment of his principal, and that the principal had suffered damage at least to the amount of the bribe; in the present case the payment by the plaintiffs to V constituted a bribe and it’s amount was recoverable by the defendant from the plaintiffs as damages or money had and received.
The court discussed difficulties in defining what is a bribe, Slade J said: ‘Sometimes the words ‘secret commission’ are used, sometimes ‘surreptitious payment’, and sometimes ‘bribe’. For the purposes of the civil law a bribe means the payment of a secret commission, which only means (i) that the person making the payment makes it to the agent of the other person with whom he is dealing; (ii) that he makes it to that person knowing that that person is acting as the agent of the other person with whom he is dealing; and (iii) that he fails to disclose to the other person with whom he is dealing that he has made that payment to the person whom he know to be the other person’s agent. Those three are the only elements necessary to constitute the payment of a secret commission or bribe for civil purposes.’ and ‘Yes, but earlier the learned judge has said that if a gift be made to a confidential agent with a view to inducing him, it is a bribe, and, therefore, in using the later language and referring to the bribes the learned judge is in effect saying: ‘I am using these later presumptions in cases where a bribe has been established and I have already defined a bribe as being only something which has been established as being paid with a certain motive.’ That, of course, would tear up the whole of the learned judge’s observation because he says lower down that the courts will not receive evidence as to what is the motive of the person making the payment. The motive will be conclusively inferred against him.’
References: [1949] 2 All ER 573, 93 Sol Jo 577
Judges: Slade J
This case cites:

  • Explained – Hovenden and Sons v Millhoff 1900 ([1900] 83 LT 41)
    Romer LJ said: ‘The courts of law in this country have always strongly condemned and, when they could, punished the bribing of agents, and have taken a strong view as to what constitutes a bribe. I believe the mercantile community as a whole . .

This case is cited by:

  • Cited – Armagas Ltd v Mundogas SA (‘The Ocean Frost’) CA 1985 ([1985] 1 Lloyd’s Rep 1, [1985] 1 WLR 640)
    In establishing that money was paid as an improper inducement or bribe, proof of corruptness or a corrupt motive was unnecessary.
    When a court looks at a decision of a judge at first instance, the court stressed the need to look at the . .
  • Cited – Tesco Stores Limited v Pook, Pook, Universal Projects (UK) Limited ChD 14-Apr-2003 (, [2003] EWHC 823 (Ch), [2004] IRLR 618)
    A trustee in breach of his duty has a duty to disclose that breach. It was alleged that the defendants, including a director of the claimant, had submitted false invoices to the claimants, and purchased property with the resulting profits.

These lists may be incomplete.
Last Update: 25 October 2020; Ref: scu.194862

Smith v Baker: QBD 20 Oct 2020

Claim and counterclaim for defamation and harassment relating to publications posted on twitter (in respect of the claim) and blogposts (in respect of the counterclaim).
References: [2020] EWHC 2776 (QB)
Links: Bailii
Judges: Master Sullivan
Jurisdiction: England and Wales

Last Update: 24 October 2020; Ref: scu.655155

Kamal v The Home Office: QBD 19 Jan 2016

The Claimant, an Iraqi national, challenges the legality of his detention by the Defendant which commenced on 27 August 2012 and ended on 7 May 2013 when he was deported to the part of Iraq under the administration of the Kurdistan Regional Government (‘KRG’).
References: [2016] EWHC 65 (QB)
Links: Bailii
Judges: Supperstone J

Last Update: 16 October 2020; Ref: scu.559011

Lexi Holdings v Luqman and Another: ChD 16 Jul 2008

References: [2008] EWHC 1639 (Ch), [2008] 2 BCLC 725
Links: Bailii
Judges: Briggs J
Statutes: Civil Procedure Rules 24
Jurisdiction: England and Wales
This case cites:

  • See Also – Lexi Holdings Plc v Luqman and others ChD 2-Jul-2007 (, [2007] EWHC 1508 (Ch))
    Application was made for the committal to prison for contempt of court by the first defendant for breaches of court orders. . .
  • See Also – Lexi Holdings Plc v Luqman and others ChD 19-Oct-2007 (, [2007] EWHC 2355 (Ch))
    . .
  • See Also – Lexi Holdings Plc v Luqman and others ChD 16-Nov-2007 (, [2007] EWHC 2652 (Ch))
    . .
  • Cited – Lexi Holdings Plc v Luqman and others ChD 15-Jan-2008 (, [2008] EWHC 151 (Ch))
    Whether a prisoner serving a sentence for contempt of court is subject to the same rules as to early release etc as other prisoners.
    Held: ‘paragraph 5.2 of PSO 6300 is unlawful in so far as it purports to require, or is interpreted by the . .
  • See Also – Lexi Holdings v Luqman and others CA 6-Aug-2007 (, [2007] EWCA Civ 888)
    Application for permission to appeal – granted. . .
  • See Also – Lexi Holdings Plc v Luqman and others CA 29-Aug-2007 (, [2007] EWCA Civ 1070)
    Claim by valuers on administration of mortgage company for sums paid to the company by lenders to pay for valuations. . .

This case is cited by:

  • See Also – Lexi Holdings Plc v Luqman and others CA 26-Feb-2009 (, [2009] EWCA Civ 117)
    Attempts by company administrators to recover sums allegedly misapplied by former directors. . .

These lists may be incomplete.
Last Update: 22 September 2020; Ref: scu.270851

Lexi Holdings Plc v Luqman and others: ChD 16 Nov 2007

References: [2007] EWHC 2652 (Ch)
Links: Bailii
Judges: Briggs J
Jurisdiction: England and Wales
This case cites:

This case is cited by:

These lists may be incomplete.
Last Update: 22 September 2020; Ref: scu.262957

Duncan v Jones: KBD 1936

The appellant was about to make a public address in a situation in which the year before a disturbance had been incited by her speaking. A policeman believed reasonably that a breach of the peace would occur if the meeting was held, and ordered the appellant not to hold the meeting. The appellant however persisted in trying to hold the meeting and obstructed the police officer in his attempt to prevent her from doing so. Neither the appellant nor anyone present, committed, incited or provoked a breach of the peace, but the appellant was held to have wilfully obstructed the officer in the execution of his duty.
Held: The fact that the officer reasonably apprehended a breach of the peace was a justification for the finding that he was acting in the execution of his duty. The police may prevent a demonstration on the public highway where there was any fear of a breach of the peace.
Lord Hewart CJ: ‘English law does not recognize any special right of public meeting for political or other purposes’.
References: [1936] 1 KB 218, (1935) 154 LT 110, [1935] All ER 711
Judges: Lord Hewart CJ, Humphreys and Singleton JJ
Jurisdiction: England and Wales
This case is cited by:

  • Cited – Hirst and Agu v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire QBD 1987 ((1987) 85 Cr App R 143)
    The defendants were arrested after distributing leaflets outside a furriers, and appealed against convictions for obstructing the highway.
    Held: The appeals succeeded. In deciding whether there was a lawful excuse for a technical obstruction . .
  • Cited – Director of Public Prosecutions v Jones and Lloyd HL 4-Mar-1999 (Times 05-Mar-99, , Gazette 17-Mar-99, Gazette 31-Mar-99, , [1999] 2 AC 240, [1999] UKHL 5, [1999] 2 WLR 625, [1999] 2 All ER 257, (1999) 6 BHRC 513, (1999) 3 CHRLD 4)
    21 people protested peacefully on the verge of the A344, next to the perimeter fence at Stonehenge. Some carried banners saying ‘Never Again,’ ‘Stonehenge Campaign 10 years of Criminal Injustice’ and ‘Free Stonehenge.’ The officer in charge . .
  • Cited – Laporte, Regina (on the Application of) v Gloucestershire Constabulary and others CA 8-Dec-2004 ([2005] QB 678, , [2004] EWCA Civ 1639, Times 13-Dec-04, [2005] All ER 473)
    The claimant had been in a bus taking her and others to an intended demonstration. The police feared breaches of the peace, and stopped the bus, and ordered the driver to return to London, and escorted it to ensure it did not stop.
    Held: The . .
  • Cited – Redmond-Bate v Director of Public Prosecutions Admn 23-Jul-1999 (Times 28-Jul-99, , , [2000] HRLR 249, [1999] EWHC Admin 733, [1999] Crim LR 998, (1999) 7 BHRC 375, (1999) 163 JP 789, CO/188/99)
    The police had arrested three peaceful but vociferous preachers when some members of a crowd gathered round them threatened hostility.
    Held: Freedom of speech means nothing unless it includes the freedom to be irritating, contentious, . .
  • Cited – Laporte, Regina (on the application of ) v Chief Constable of Gloucestershire HL 13-Dec-2006 (, [2006] UKHL 55, Times 14-Dec-06, [2007] 2 WLR 46, [2007] 2 All ER 529, [2007] 2 AC 105, (2006) 22 BHRC 38)
    The claimants had been in coaches being driven to take part in a demonstration at an air base. The defendant police officers stopped the coaches en route, and, without allowing any number of the claimants to get off, returned the coaches to London. . .

These lists may be incomplete.
Last Update: 22 September 2020; Ref: scu.192205

Letang v Cooper: CA 15 Jun 1964

The plaintiff, injured in an accident, pleaded trespass to the person, which was not a breach of duty within the proviso to the section, in order to achieve the advantages of a six-year limitation period.
Held: Trespass is strictly speaking not a cause of action but a form of action. It was the form anciently used for a variety of different kinds of claim which had as their common element the fact that the damage was caused directly rather than indirectly; if the damage was indirect, the appropriate form of action was the action on the case. A negligent trespass to the person could only be pursued in negligence and not in trespass. A cause of action was defined: ‘a cause of action is simply a factual situation the existence of which entitles one person to obtain from the court a remedy against another person.’ (Diplock LJ)
Lord Denning MR said that the cause of action of trespass to the person was limited to intended acts, and that when the act was not intended the plaintiff’s cause of action lay in negligence. He referred to the Tucker report which parliament had not adopted: ‘In this very case, Parliament did not reduce the period to two years. It made it three years. It did not make any exception of ‘trespass to the person’ or the rest. It used words of general import; and it is those words we have to construe, without reference to the words of the Committee.’ ‘Breach of duty’ in the section meant any breach of duty: ‘Our whole law of tort today proceeds on the footing that there is a duty owed by every man not to injure his neighbour in a way forbidden by law. Negligence is a breach of such a duty. So is nuisance. So is trespass to the person. So is false imprisonment, malicious prosecution or defamation of character.’
Diplock LJ said that the cause of action in trespass included both intended and unintended acts. The expression ‘breach of duty’ in section 2 of the 1939 Act, as amended, included both intended and unintended trespass. ‘A cause of action is simply a factual situation the existence of which entitles one person to obtain from the court a remedy against another person.’
References: [1965] 1 QB 232, [1964] EWCA Civ 5, [1964] 2 Lloyd’s Rep 339, [1964] 2 All ER 929, [1964] 3 WLR 573
Links: Bailii
Judges: Diplock LJ, Lord Denning MR, Danckwerts LJ
Statutes: Personal Injuries (Emergency Provisions) Act 19392
Jurisdiction: England and Wales
This case cites:

  • Adopted – Kruber v Grzesiak 1963 ([1963] VR 621)
    The plaintiff had issued a writ claiming damages for personal injuries caused by negligent driving more than three years after the accident, and now wanted to amend the writ by adding a claim for trespass to the person based on the same facts. The . .
  • Applied – Billings v Reed CA 1945 ([1945] KB 11)
    The plaintiff’s wife had been killed by a negligently piloted RAF aeroplane. It was argued that, although this was a war injury, the language of section 3(1) did not exclude a claim based on trespass to the person.
    Held: Lord Greene MR said: . .

This case is cited by:

  • Cited – Wainwright and another v Home Office HL 16-Oct-2003 (, [2003] UKHL 53, , Times 20-Oct-03, [2003] 3 WLR 1137, 2004] 2 AC 406)
    The claimant and her son sought to visit her other son in Leeds Prison. He was suspected of involvement in drugs, and therefore she was subjected to strip searches. There was no statutory support for the search. The son’s penis had been touched . .
  • Cited – Bici and Bici v Ministry of Defence QBD 7-Apr-2004 ([2004] EWHC 786(QB), , Times 11-Jun-04)
    Claimants sought damages for personal injuries incurred when, in Pristina, Kosovo and during a riot, British soldiers on a UN peacekeeping expedition fired on a car.
    Held: The incidents occurred in the course of peace-keeping duties. It was . .
  • Cited – A v Hoare QBD 14-Oct-2005 (, [2005] EWHC 2161 (QB), Times 27-Oct-05, [2006] ACD 12)
    The defendant had been convicted and sentenced for the attempted rape of the claimant. He had subsequently won a substantial sum on the lottery, and she now sought damages. He replied that the action was statute barred being now 16 years old. The . .
  • Cited – Stubbings v Webb and Another HL 10-Feb-1993 (Gazette 10-Feb-93, [1993] AC 498, [1993] 2 WLR 120, Times 17-Dec-92, [1993] 1 All ER 322, [1992] 1 QB 197)
    In claims for damages for child abuse at a children’s home made out of the six year time limit time were effectively time barred, with no discretion for the court to extend that limit. The damage occurred at the time when the child left the home. A . .
  • Cited – Harb v King Fahd Bin Abdul Aziz and Another CA 9-Nov-2005 (Times 21-Nov-05, , [2005] EWCA Civ 1324)
    The wife sought to continue her claim for ancillary relief despite the death of her husband, the former King of Saudi Arabia.
    Held: The court’s jurisdiction over the King had been challenged. However the claimants claim now abated on the death . .
  • Cited – A v Hoare; H v Suffolk County Council, Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs intervening; X and Y v London Borough of Wandsworth CA 12-Apr-2006 ([2006] Fam Law 533, [2006] 2 FLR 727, [2006] 1 WLR 2320, [2006] 3 FCR 673, , [2006] EWCA Civ 395, Times 28-Apr-06, [2006] 1 WLR 2320)
    Each claimant sought damages for a criminal assault for which the defendant was said to be responsible. Each claim was to be out of the six year limitation period. In the first claim, the proposed defendant had since won a substantial sum from the . .
  • Cited – Hill (As Trustee In Bankruptcy of Nurkowski) v Spread Trustee Company Ltd and Another CA 12-May-2006 (, Times 10-Jul-06, [2006] EWCA Civ 542, [2007] 1 BCLC 450, [2007] 1 WLR 2404)
    The defendants sought relief for transactions entered into at an undervalue. The bankrupt had entered into charges and an assignment of a loan account in their favour before his bankruptcy, and the trustee had obtained an order for them to be set . .
  • Cited – A v Hoare HL 30-Jan-2008 (, [2008] UKHL 6, Times 31-Jan-08, [2008] 2 WLR 311, Gazette 14-Feb-08, [2008] 1 AC 844, (2008) 11 CCL Rep 249, [2008] 1 FCR 507, [2008] Fam Law 402, [2008] 1 FLR 771, (2008) 100 BMLR 1, [2008] 2 All ER 1)
    Each of six claimants sought to pursue claims for damages for sexual assaults which would otherwise be time barred under the 1980 Act after six years. They sought to have the House depart from Stubbings and allow a discretion to the court to extend . .
  • Cited – Nolan v Wright ChD 26-Feb-2009 (, [2009] EWHC 305 (Ch))
    The defendant sought to re-open the question of whether the charge under which he might otherwise be liable was an extortionate credit bargain. The creditor said that that plea was time barred. The defendant argued that a finding that the agreement . .
  • Cited – Roberts v Gill and Co Solicitors and Others SC 19-May-2010 ([2010] WLR (D) 130, , , [2010] UKSC 22, , , , [2010] PNLR 30, [2010] WTLR 1223, [2010] 2 WLR 1227, [2011] AC 240)
    The claimant beneficiary in the estate sought damages against solicitors who had acted for the claimant’s brother, the administrator, saying they had allowed him to take control of the assets in the estate. The will provided that property was to be . .
  • Cited – Sarwar v The Royal Bank of Scotland Plc (Rev 1) ChD 27-Jul-2011 (, [2011] EWHC 2233 (Ch))
    The claimant appealed against a finding of indebtedness to the bank. He had said at trial that the bank had been charging interest at 25%. The bank denied this, but after trial it became clear that he had been correct. The bank argued for abuse of . .
  • Cited – Miller v Jackson CA 6-Apr-1977 ([1977] 1 QB 966, [1977] 3 All ER 338, , [1977] EWCA Civ 6)
    The activities of a long established cricket club had been found to be a legal nuisance, because of the number of cricket balls landing in the gardens of neighbouring houses. An injunction had been granted to local householders who complained of . .

These lists may be incomplete.
Last Update: 22 September 2020; Ref: scu.186857

Burris v Azadami: CA 9 Aug 1995

References: Times 09-Aug-1995, [1995] 1WLR 1373
Coram: Sir Thomas Bingham MR
Ratio: The court addressed the principles upon which a Court will grant interlocutory injunctive relief in harassment cases.
Held: Both the High Court and the County Court had jurisdiction under the 1981 and 1984 Acts to grant interlocutory injunctions in wide terms to restrain conduct that was not in itself tortuous or otherwise unlawful, if such order was reasonably to be regarded as necessary for the protection of a plaintiff’s legitimate interest. The court has power to impose an exclusion zone when granting a non-molestation injunction restraining harassment of the victim by the defendant, provided no unnecessary restraint was placed on the defendant. It would not seem to me to be a valid objection to the making of an exclusion zone order that the conduct to be restrained is not in itself tortuous or otherwise unlawful, if such an order is reasonably regarded as necessary for the protection of a plaintiff’s legitimate interest’ and ‘Neither the statute nor authority in my view precludes the making of an ‘exclusion zone’ order. But that does not mean that such orders should be made at all readily, or without very good reason. There are two interests to be reconciled. One is that of the defendant. His liberty must be respected up to the point at which his conduct infringes, or threatens to infringe, the rights of the plaintiff. No restraint should be placed on him which is not judged to be necessary to protect the rights of the plaintiff. But the plaintiff has an interest which the court must be astute to protect. The rule of law requires that those whose rights are infringed should seek the aid of the court, and respect for the legal process can only suffer if those who need protection fail to get it. That, in part at least, is why disobedience to orders of the court has always earned severe punishment. Respect for the freedom of the aggressor should never lead the court to deny necessary protection to the victim.’
Statutes: Supreme Court Act 1981 37(1), County Courts Act 1984 38
This case is cited by:

  • Cited – Hall and others v Save Newchurch Guinea Pigs (Campaign) and others QBD (Bailii, [2005] EWHC 372 (QB), Times 07-Apr-05)
    The claimants ran a guinea pig farm. They and their neighbours applied for injunctions and an exclusion zone to keep away the defendants who campaigned against the breeding of animals for research.
    Held: The claimants had been subjected to a . .

(This list may be incomplete)

Last Update: 19 March 2019
Ref: 78757

Regina v Coney: QBD 1882

r_coneyQBD1882
References: (1882) 8 QBD 534
Coram: Cave J, Stephen J, Hawkins J, Lord Coleridge CJ, Lopes J, Huddleston B
Ratio: A public prize-fight was unlawful. Spectators were tried at Berkshire County Quarter Sessions with common assault. The Chairman of Quarter Sessions directed the jury to convict the spectators of common assault on the basis that having stayed to watch the fight, they encouraged it by their presence.
Held: Each protagonist was guilty of assaulting the other and a number of bystanders were held to have encouraged, and thus to have been guilty of aiding and abetting, the assaults of both. However, mere voluntary presence at a fight did not as a matter of law necessarily render those present guilty of assault. The court was not saying that the jury could not have convicted the spectators on the basis merely of their presence. The objection of the majority was that the case had been withdrawn from the consideration of the jury.
Cave J said: ‘The true view is, I think, that a blow struck in anger, or which is likely or is intended to do corporal hurt, is an assault, but that a blow struck in sport, and not likely, nor intended to cause bodily harm, is not an assault, and that an assault being a breach of the peace and unlawful, the consent of the person struck is immaterial.’
Hawkins J said: ‘The cases in which it has been held that persons may lawfully engage in friendly encounters not calculated to produce real injury to or to rouse angry passions in either, do not in the least militate against the view I have expressed; for such encounters are neither breaches of the peace nor are they calculated to be productive thereof, but if, under colour of a friendly encounter, the parties enter upon it with, or in the course of it form, the intention to conquer each other by violence calculated to produce mischief, regardless whether hurt may be occasioned or not, as, for instance, if two men, pretending to engage in an amicable spar with gloves, really have for their object the intention to beat each other until one of them be exhausted and subdued by force, and so engage in a conflict likely to end in a breach of the peace, each is liable to be prosecuted for assault.’ and
‘whatever may be the effect of a consent in a suit between party and party, it is not in the power of any man to give an effectual consent to that which amounts to, or has a direct tendency to create, a breach of the peace; so as to bar a criminal prosecution. In other words, though a man may by consent debar himself from his right to maintain a civil action, he cannot thereby defeat proceedings instituted by the Crown in the interests of the public for the maintenance of good order; . . . He may compromise his own civil rights, but he cannot compromise the public interests.’
Lord Coleridge CJ: ‘I conceive it to be established, beyond the power of any argument however ingenious to raise a doubt, that as the combatants in a duel cannot give consent to one another to take away life, so neither can the combatants in a prize-fight give consent to one another to commit that which the law has repeatedly held to be a breach of the peace. An individual cannot by such consent destroy the right of the Crown to protect the public and keep the peace.’
Stephen J said: ‘The principle as to consent seems to me to be this: When one person is indicted for inflicting personal injury upon another, the consent of the person who sustains the injury is no defence to the person who inflicts the injury, if the injury is of such a nature, or is inflicted under such circumstances, that its infliction is injurious to the public as well as to the person injured. But the injuries given and received in prize-fights are injurious to the public, both because it is against the public interest that the lives and the health of the combatants should be endangered by blows, and because prize-fights are disorderly exhibitions, mischievous on many obvious grounds. Therefore the consent of the parties to the blows which they mutually receive does not prevent those blows from being assaults.
In cases where life and limb are exposed to no serious danger in the common course of things, I think that consent is a defence to a charge of assault, even when considerable force is used, as, for instance, in cases of wrestling, single-stick, sparring with gloves, football, and the like; but in all cases the question whether consent does or does not take from the application of force to another its illegal character, is a question of degree depending upon circumstances.’
Lopes J said: ‘I understand the ruling of the Chairman to amount to this, that mere presence at a prize fight, unexplained, is conclusive proof of aiding and abetting, even if there had been no evidence that the person or persons so present encouraged or intended to encourage the fight by his or their presence. I cannot hold, as a proposition of law, that the mere looking on is ipso facto a participation in or encouragement of a prize fight. I think there must be more than that to justify conviction for an assault. If, for instance, it was proved that a person went to a prize fight knowing it was to take place, and remain there for some time looking on, I think that would be evidence from which a jury might infer that such person encouraged and intended to encourage the fight by his presence. In the present case the three prisoners were merely seen in the crowd, were not seen to do anything, and there was no evidence why or how they came there, or how long they stayed.’
Huddleston B commented on the direction of the Chairman of Quarter Sessions: ‘If he had told the jury that going to a prize fight to see the combatant strike each other, and be present when they did so, was evidence from which they might find that the defendants countenanced what was going on, and that therefore they might find them guilty, I should have been disposed to support that ruling. But that is not the effect of his summing up.’
This case is cited by:

  • Cited – Regina v Brown (Anthony); Regina v Lucas; etc HL (Independent 12-Mar-93, lip, [1994] 1 AC 212, Bailii, [1993] UKHL 19, Bailii, [1992] UKHL 7, [1993] 2 WLR 556, [1993] 2 All ER 75)
    The appellants had been convicted of assault, after having engaged in consensual acts of sado-masochism in which they inflicted varying degreees of physical self harm. They had pleaded guilty after a ruling that the prosecution had not needed to . .
  • Cited – F v West Berkshire Health Authority HL ([1990] 2 AC 1, Bailii, [1991] UKHL 1)
    The parties considered the propriety of a sterilisation of a woman who was, through mental incapacity, unable to give her consent.
    Held: The appeal succeeded, and the operation would be lawful if the doctor considered it to be in the best . .
  • Cited – Regina v Brown etc CACD (Gazette 15-Apr-92, [1992] QB 491, [1992] 2 All ER 552, [1992] 2 WLR 441)
    The defendants appealed against their convictions for offences under the 1861 Act of assaults inflicting injury. They said that as sado-masochists, they had mutually consented to the assaults and that no offences had been commited, but pleaded gulty . .
  • Cited – Lane v Holloway CA ([1967] 3 All ER 129, [1968] 1 QB 379, Bailii)
    In the context of a fight with fists, ordinarily neither party has a cause of action for any injury suffered during the fight. But they do not assume ‘the risk of a savage blow out of all proportion to the occasion. The man who strikes a blow of . .
  • Cited – Gnango, Regina v CACD (Bailii, [2010] EWCA Crim 1691, [2010] WLR (D) 201, WLRD, [2011] 1 WLR 1414, [2011] 1 All ER 153, [2010] 2 Cr App R 31)
    The defendant appealed against his conviction for murder. He had engaged in a street battle using guns. A bullet from an opponent killed an innocent passer by. The court was asked whether the principles of joint venture and transferred malice could . .
  • Cited – Gnango, Regina v SC ([2012] 2 All ER 129, [2012] 2 WLR 17, [2012] 1 Cr App R 18, [2012] 1 AC 827, Bailii, [2011] UKSC 59, SC Summary, SC, UKSC 2010/0165, Bailii Summary)
    The prosecutor appealed against a successful appeal by the defendant against his conviction for murder. He and an opponent had engaged in a street battle using guns. His opponent had shot an innocent passer by. The court was now asked as to whether . .
  • Cited – Bauer and Others v The Director of Public Prosecutions Admn (Bailii, [2013] EWHC 634 (Admin), [2013] 1 WLR 3617)
    The appellants had entered Fortnum and Masons to demonstrate against tax avoidance. They appealed against convitions for aggravated trespass.
    Held: The statutory question posed by s.68 is whether the prosecution can prove that the trespasser . .
  • Cited – Jogee and Ruddock (Jamaica) v The Queen SC ([2016] 2 WLR 681, UKSC 2015/0015, SC, SC Summary, SC Video, Bailii, [2016] UKSC 8, [2016] WLR(D) 84, WLRD, [2016] UKPC 7)
    The two defendants appealed against their convictions (one in Jamaica) for murder, under the law of joint enterprise. Each had been an accessory when their accomplice killed a victim with a knife. The judge in Jogee had directed the jury that he . .

(This list may be incomplete)
Leading Case
Last Update: 17 March 2019
Ref: 182285

Bird v Holbrook: 1828

References: (1828) 4 Bing 628
Ratio:
Jurisdiction: England and Wales
This case is cited by:

  • Cited – British Railways Board v Herrington HL (lip, [1972] AC 877, [1972] 2 WLR 537, [1971] 1 All ER 749, Bailii, [1972] UKHL 1)
    The plaintiff, a child had gone through a fence onto the railway line, and been badly injured. The Board knew of the broken fence, but argued that they owed no duty to a trespasser.
    Held: Whilst a land-owner owes no general duty of care to a . .

(This list may be incomplete)

Last Update: 10 March 2019
Ref: 180981

Britton v The Royal Insurance Company: 1865

References: [1865] EngR 66, (1865) 4 F & F 905, (1865) 176 ER 843
Links: Commonlii
Ratio: A contract of fire insurance being a contract of indemnity, on which the assured is only entitled to recover the value of the property destroyed, and wilful misrepresentation of the value of the property destroyed will-under the usual condition agamst fraudulent claims – defeat and vitiate the whole claim. In an action on a fire insurance policy, containing the usual condition that it should become void in the event of a fraudulent claim the company setting up, in defence, both fraud and arson :-the jury being advlsed by the Judge that, as the case, as to arson, was only one of suspicion, they should decide rather upon the case as to fraud they were also directed, that if they were satisfied that the claim was wilfully faLlse and fraudulent, they should find for the company upon the plea of fraud.

Last Update: 15 August 2018
Ref: 280978