Civil Litigation Brief ®

There are much more specialist blogs available for housing lawyers and I'm glad to say that "Nearly Legal" is recommencing next month.

Lord Denning once observed of Cashflow that "It is the very lifeblood of the enterprise".

The Intellectual Property Enterprise Court is usually the most genteel of courts particularly when it comes to the treatment of expert evidence.

Agreeing a trial or application bundle can have consequences that are easy to overlook.

The very word "proportionality" still plays a major part in many cost assessments.

If the parties have agreed to an arbitration clause and one of them issues proceedings then the right to seek a stay of that action can be lost if the defendant takes a "step in the action".

Here we look at difficult conduct issue.

Some, apparently, minor updates to Practice Directions have a major significance for housing law practitioners in particular.

This is another case relating to pleading damages.

If a party is going to object to their opponents relying on expert evidence this is best done promptly.

Here we look at a post from 2015 about a missing page in a trial bundle.

There is surprisingly little practical guidance for litigators on how to reduce their own client’s liability to pay their opponent’s costs.

Here we look at those points and posts of particular interest to those representing a paying party.

Here we look at a highly unusual allegation.

The two posts earlier today on the judgment in Amaal Ventures Ltd v Eros Ltd looked at problems arising because of a failure to plead damages.

There have been messages this morning from people wondering why they cannot log on to this site when the have a group membership.

Here we have a claimant who, unsuccessfully, argued that it did not need permission to amend its pleadings to claim damages of £2.569 million.

If ever there was a case that would persuade you of the importance of pleadings it is this one.

The previous post in this series looked at cases where the parties had "drifted" into disproportionate conduct and costs.

Here we are looking at the posts on witness statements, more particularly those arising from PD57AC.

Issues of legal professional privilege have been in the news this week.

This short series on proportionality is aimed, primarily, at protecting the client and the lawyer.

This series enables us to pick up key topics from this blog over the past 13 years and relate them to specific areas of practice.

This is an important case about legal professional privilege.

Yesterday we looked at a judgment in the Court of Appeal where the sum at stake was £25.

The judgment given today in the Court of Appeal was the second appeal on the issue.

In this judgment today the Court of Appeal held that it is not appropriate for a former client to raise Part 18 questions as to whether their former solicitors had received a commission on an ATE policy.

Last week we looked at (another) case where a claimant had come to grief when it failed to serve a sealed claim form in time.

Last week we looked at a recent judgment which concerned interest on costs.

We are returning to the previous case to look at the judgment in relation to the judge's comments on the method of assessment.

We have the latest chapter in the ongoing saga of whether a receiving party needs to provide a breakdown of the costs of a medical report.

Observant readers (and possibly the less observant ones) will have noticed that this week we have been paying homage to the arrival of the Bayeux Tapestry in the UK.

Here we look at a recent decision on interest on costs.

Reports relating to requests for further information are relatively rare.

This post written a decade ago deals with a recurring point in litigation as we have already seen this week.

We have here another example, in a judgment today, of the difficulties caused by the use of AI.

Here we have a case where an application to resile from admissions and to amend defences were rejected in clear and categorical terms.

The previous post considered the nature of a solicitor's duty in a conveyancing transaction.

We are looking at a case which explores the limits of a solicitor's duty of care.

Here we look at a case where the judge was extremely blunt in his critique of the way in which both parties had drafted the witness statements.

Here we have a case where the claimant simply failed to serve a sealed claim form in time.

Claims for loss of earnings become particularly difficult when the claimant is not an employee.

The previous post looked at the costs consequences of a claimant pleading a case on a wide basis and then succeeding on the basis of a case that was not specifically pleaded.

Here the "Cost Bites" series interacts with the "Present Importance of Pleadings".

This morning we are travelling to Scotland to look at a case where the judge indicated that the use of AI had led the pursuers (claimants) to bring forward a claim that was largely unsupported by evidence.

The case we looked at in the previous post highlighted the dangers of failing to comply with the duties owed on a without notice application, an application to serve out in particular.

We have looked many times at cases where "without notice" applications have come under fire.

A post earlier today promised checklists on the essential elements that need to be considered when drafting a Reply.

The posts earlier today dealt with service and the drafting of a Reply.

You may have noted that the theme of today is the Reply.