A Public Access barrister acted for a party in the following reported cases. Note that it is only the most important cases which are reported. Public Access barristers will act in many other cases but because they are more routine cases, they are not reported.  

 

The Divisonal Court found that a tribunal had not erred in law in its decision to strike off a senior partner of a firm of solicitors having found him not dishonest but guilty of recklessly allowing a more junior partner to bring about a very substantial deficit in the firm's client account.

 

 

The Court of Appeal decided that a judge had been wrong to find that he had no jurisdiction to grant an injunction compelling an employer to lift its suspension of an employee because the employee's case had wrongly been put on the basis of the court's wide discretion to grant injunctive relief. The employee clearly had an underlying cause of action, namely an arguable claim for breach of his contract of employment, and the judge should not have been deterred from deciding the case on the correct basis.

 

The High Court considered the transfer of a property belonging to a community of Benedictine nuns. It found that it had not been in breach of the oral charitable trusts under which the property had been purchased, had not breached the rule against trustees self-dealing and had not been induced by undue influence.

 

The Court of Appeal found that an application for permission to apply for judicial review of the grant of planning permission for a wind farm had not been made promptly. In the circumstances environmental information about wind speeds supplied on CDs but not placed on the local authority planning file had been made available in the sense required by the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 and Directive 85/337 as amended.

 

The High Court decided that the evidence did not support a trustee in bankruptcy's application for a declaration that the bankrupt was the beneficial owner of a property. The bankrupt's wife had a competing claim to a beneficial interest either because she had an interest in the shares in the company that was the registered proprietor of the property or under a resulting trust as she had provided the purchase funds.

 

 

An appeal before the High Court as to whether a judge had been wrong to give a case management direction excluding the relevance of three joint venture agreements from consideration at trial concerning the ownership of land.

 

An appeal brought by a debtor against a decison of a registrar to grant a bankruptcy petition against him. The grounds of the appeal were that the decision was either unfair for procedural irregularity, or that the value of debts owed could be set off by virtue of a cross-claim against a single creditor.

 

An appeal in respect to trade mark usage. It was held that conduct which fell short of the standards of acceptable commercial behaviour observed by reasonable and experienced men in the particular area being examined could amount to bad faith.

 

The Court of Appeal decided that the purchase of a property as an investment by a mother and daughter did not give rise to a presumption of joint ownership, but where both parties were jointly liable under the mortgage it was correct to treat the value of the mortgage as representing equal contributions to the purchase price for the purpose of calculating beneficial interest. All the parties in this case were represented by Public Access barristers.

 

The Court of Appeal found that the expression "breach of duty" in the Limitation Act 1980 s.32 included a claim under the Insolvency Act 1986 s.423. However the expression "breach of duty" did not include any legal wrongdoing whatsoever and there must be legal wrongdoing of a kind that could properly be raised in an action to which s.32 of the 1980 Act applied.

 

The High Court determined to make a third party costs order against a person who was found to have controlled and funded litigation brought against his spouse and a company in which they both held shares.

 

The Court of Appeal found that in the circumstances a person had the interest as a trustee required for a charging order under the Charging Orders Act 1979 s.2(1)(b)(i). The court had power under the Supreme Court Act 1981 s.51(3) to order, in an appropriate case, that a non-party pay a sum of costs that had already been assessed.

 

The Lands Tribunal determined that the freehold interest in a two-storey Victorian house in Hackney was valued at £147,500 as at November 2000, when the house had vested in the local authority after its compulsory acquisition.

 

The High Court decided that for the purposes of the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986 s.7(2), proceedings to disqualify company directors were "brought" on the day that the request and claim form were received by the court office rather than on the date that the form was issued by the court.

 

The Employment Appeal Tribunal dismissed an appeal by an employer against a finding that an employee had been constructively dismissed. Failing to give the employee an opportunity to be represented by a union representative at her suspension hearing was a breach of an implied term of trust and confidence between the employee and employer.

 

The High Court considered whether a claim to disqualify directors had been issued out of time.

 

The Employment Appeals Tribunal considered the lawfulness of the decision in a claim for unfair and wrongful dismissal.

 

The Court of Appeal considered whether a company or an individual had owned the goodwill in a restaurant business.

 

The Court of Appeal considered an appeal in an adverse possession/recovery of rent arrears case where the findings and conduct of the trial judge were challenged.

 

The Employment Appeals Tribunal, hearing an appeal, were entitled to consider matters which had occurred after an employee's resignation in determining whether she had resigned as a result of an employer's breach of contract. In the circumstances even though the employee had stated that she was retiring the reason for her resignation was her employer's conduct in suspending her in breach of its contractual disciplinary policy. 

 

The High Court considered a judicial review of a decision by a school to refuse to permit a pupil to wear a purity ring as an expression of her Christian faith and sign of her belief in celibacy before marriage.

 

 

The High Court heard an appeal in respect to a decision to set aside a default judgment.

 

The High Court determined whether a firm's former business consultant employee was in breach of an agreement that following termination of his contract he would not supply or deal with any of the firm's competitors for 12 months. 

 

The Court of Appeal decided that the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions did not owe a common law duty of care to an applicant for child support under the Child Support Act 1991 as such a duty would be inconsistent with the statutory scheme

 

The Employment Appeals Tribunal considered whether a rule excluding a part time chairman from a definition of a 'worker' was compatible with the Part Time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2000.

 

The High Court considered a claim for money owed under a contract for the sale of shares.

  

The Employment Appeals Tribunal considered a claim that the chairman at an Employment Tribunal had been bias, without jurisdiction and had failed to follow proper procedures.

 

SUMUKAN LIMITED v  COMMONWEALTH SECRETARIAT [2007] 3 All ER 342

The Court of Appeal considered its own jurisdiction in respect to appeals from arbitration tribunals where the underlying commerical contract had contained an arbitration clauses with a provision excluding rights of appeal. 

 

The Employment Appeals Tribunal considered a claim for compensation for constructive dismissal.

 

The High Court adjudicated on issues of credit for recoveries against liabilities, claims for interest, costs, contribution, permission to appeal and stay of enforcement. These issues were identified in an earlier judgment where it held that there had been a conspiracy to fraudulently misappropriate many tens of millions dollars of Zambian Government money.

 

The Lands Tribunal considering modifying certain restrictive convenants.

 

The High Court heard an appeal against a decision of the GMC fitness to practice panel that a doctor had been guilty of serious professional misconduct and and should be removed from the medical register.

 

The High Court considered a claim for money owed for air conditioning units supplied, and a counter claim based on an allegation that the units had been defective.

 

The High Court determined whether the transferor of some land had been unduly influenced. 

 

The High Court heard an appeal against a decision of the GMC fitness to practice panel that an anaesthetist was guilty of serious professional misconduct and should be removed from the medical register.

  

The High Court considered whether a planning control assessment had complied with established standards.

 

The High Court was asked to decide whether to allow in further evidence in an appeal against a decision by the GMC to find someone unfit to practice.

 

The Court of Appeal considered the effect on costs awards of offers to settle made before the new civil procedural rules came into existence.

 

The High Court considered how compensation was effected by some mitigating and aggravating circumstances in defamation cases.

 

 

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