High Court provides guidance on applications for relief from sanction
Litigators tempted to use the Andrew Mitchell costs ruling as a “tactical advantage” have received a warning shot across the bows from the High Court.
In Summit Navigation Ltd v Generali Romania [2014] EWHC 398 (Comm), Mr Justice Leggatt gave guidance on how the courts should treat applications for relief from sanction under CPR Pt 3.9.
Leggatt J said each sanction must be looked at on its own facts.
The defendants in the case, using Mitchell, argued the case could not continue as the claimants had missed the security cost deadline by one day—in fact, at 10am on the day after a 4pm deadline was missed. The claim was stayed.
However, Leggatt J granted the claimant’s application to lift the stay, dismissed the defendant’s application to continue the stay, and ordered the defendant to pay the costs of both.
He said: “The reliance placed on Mitchell in this case has had the very consequences which the new approach enunciated by the Court of Appeal in Mitchell is intended to avoid.” While Mitchell was a “game changer”, it was important for litigants to understand how the rules of the game have been changed and how they have not.
Leggatt J referred to a lecture given by the Master of the Rolls and approved by the Court of Appeal in Mitchell that it was not the aim of the Jackson reforms to turn rules and compliance into “trip wires” nor to render compliance “an end in itself”. He said he hoped to discourage other litigants from following similar tactics.
In Mitchell v News Group Newspapers [2013] EWCA Civ 1537, [2013] All ER (D) 314 (Nov), Andrew Mitchell MP’s solicitors incurred costs sanctions limiting recoverable costs to the court fees after submitting their budget late in his libel action. The defendant’s costs budget was £589,558.
Jeremy Ford of 9 Gough Square says: “At last a judge has had the good sense to differentiate between types of sanction, for not all sanctions for the purposes of CPR 3.9 are equal. It is to be hoped that this can be used to mitigate the plethora of applications currently clogging up the court system and encourage a return to sensible litigation between parties."
