Where a party applies for an order obliging a third party to discover all documents within a certain class of documents, the court must be satisfied that every document which might fall within the class also fell properly within the class of documents which had direct relevance to the court action as described in the new Rules. It was not for the non-Party to have to make up its mind about each of the documents separately, and the court must be sure that the documents do in fact exist.
Pumfrey J said: ‘It seems to me that, notwithstanding the provision as to costs, the jurisdiction to make an order against a non-party must be exercised with some caution. There is no doubt that an order in respect of specific documents presents no difficulties. However, in respect of a request for a class of documents it seems to me that notwithstanding the provision which I have read relating to the costs of the application and of compliance with any order made pursuant to it, it is none the less necessary to be satisfied that there are documents falling within the classes which are specified and those documents are – not may be – documents in relation to which disclosure will support the case of the applicant or adversely affect the case of one of the other parties to the proceedings.’
Judges:
Pumfrey J
Citations:
Times 21-Apr-2000, [2001] 1 All ER 376
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Flood v Times Newspapers Ltd and others QBD 5-Mar-2009
The claimant police officer complained of an alleged defamation in an article published by the defendant. The defendant wished to obtain information from the IPCC to show that they were investigating the matter as a credible issue. The court . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Litigation Practice
Updated: 05 May 2022; Ref: scu.81940