Barton v Wight Hassall LLP: Good service

Legacy_user

From the Supreme Court

https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2016-0136.html

Unless the rules and practice directions are particularly inaccessible or obscure, it is reasonable to expect a litigant in person to familiarise himself with the rules which apply to any step he is about to take.

bargepole

The title of this thread is misleading.

It was ruled by the Supreme Court, by a majority of 3 to 2, that it was NOT good service, and the appeal was dismissed.

The appellant sent his Particulars of Claim to the respondent's solicitors by email only, on the last day before the deadline.

The solicitors had not agreed to accept service by email, and he should have sent the document by post.

Hence, on a strict interpretation of the CPRs, he failed to serve the claim, which was then struck out.

The_Deep

Do you not have a view Iam? I do.

In my opinion many of the rules and PDs are obscure and I would expect the judge to make allowances for any lack of knowledge on my part.

It is not like rugby where knowledge of the rules is a sine qua non, before you step on the field of play. Even a seemingly simple matter like challenging the right of access of an opponent's legal rep requires pages of reading.

Many people appearing in the SCC are in full time work, have families, and do not have the time to spend hours reading about Chamberty and Maintenance, Primacy of Contract, clean hands, de minimus, etc, and cannot afford the astronomical fees charged by some solicitors. Fees which they are unlikely to recover.

The question is, what does "obscure" mean? What may be perfectly clear to a senior Civil Servant or a GP, may be meaningless to a bus driver or a Health Care Assistant.

bargepole

But in this case, if you read the judgment, Mr Barton was not inexperienced in litigation matters, he knew or should have known that the solicitors had not agreed to accept service by email, and the particular part of the CPR relating to this were not deemed to be obscure.

Anyway, the UKSC has made its ruling, so any further arguments are now irrelevant.

The_Deep

I was not commenting specifically on this case, (I have not read it). My comments concerned TMOTCO.

bargepole

The_Deep wrote: »

I was not commenting specifically on this case, (I have not read it). My comments concerned TMOTCO.

The other point worth making is that the case in question was never on the Small Claims track, it was a much bigger case than that, and therefore people who travel to Clapham by bus run the risk of not being granted any leeway by District Judges.

In small claims cases, both claimants and defendants can usually get away with not following the correct procedures, as we often see in parking cases, but once you get on to the Fast Track or the Multi-Track, the rules are rigorously applied.

The_Deep

Thank you, it is reassuring to know that CCJs are not all ogres, but I am struggling to understand why OP posted this. It seems of little interest to Mavis (aged 94), who "did not see the signs".