The court considered the situation where documents had been filed in time, but at the wrong county court.
Held: Purchas LJ said: ‘The jurisdiction of the county court is conferred on the county court under the County Courts Act 1984 and preceding Acts. The wording of the various sections . . makes no provision for the Lord Chancellor in any way to limit the basic jurisdiction conferred on the county court by the Acts of Parliament concerned. It deals solely with the definition of the districts and procedural matters for the convenient discharge of the functions of the court. In my judgment it requires an amendment of the statutory authority rather than the provision of rules of procedure, under which general rubric the County Court Rules are described, before it can be said that the jurisdiction of any particular county court is in any way limited. Moreover, the provisions to which I have already referred, which allow for the transfer of proceedings from one court to another if started in the wrong court, are inconsistent with any lack of jurisdiction if the wrong court is the origin of the proceedings. In particular, section 75(3)(a) of the County Courts Act 1984 and the equivalent provisions of section 102 of the County Courts Act 1959 would be rendered nugatory if the submission was that there was no jurisdiction if the wrong court was chosen in which to initiate the proceedings.’
Judges:
Purchas LJ
Citations:
[1986] 1 WLR 757
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Gwynedd County Council v Grunshaw CA 22-Jul-1999
The plaintiff lived in Lincolnshire, but owned a house in Gwynnedd. She sought to serve a notice in her local County Court, appealing from an order for its demolition, but the manager of that Court refused to accept it saying that it should have . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Litigation Practice
Updated: 20 November 2022; Ref: scu.650578
