Civil way: 22 April 2016

HARD TIMES FOR DEFAULTERS

Premium quote

Here’s a quote for you to relish and pull out at the least possible provocation. It is a quality quote because it fell from the lips of Vos LJ. “The court cannot ignore that insurers are professional litigants who can properly be held responsible for any blatant disregard of their own commercial interests.” It fell in the personal injury case of Gentry v Miller and another [2016] EWCA Civ 141, [2016] All ER (D) 107 (Mar) where the Court of Appeal reminded that the Denton test on sanction relief also applied to an application to set aside a default judgment. It additionally suggested that the very same test would apply to a CPR 39.3 application to set aside after a failure to attend.

In Gentry an assessment of damages at £75,000 with costs at £13,000 had followed a default judgment with neither the defendant driving tortfeaser nor his insurers participating. The insurers had previously