General liability newsletter - January 2020

Welcome to the latest edition of our general liability newsletter, rounding up the key cases from January 2020. This month we look at recent cases involving; claims for court fees, late applications to vacate trial, part 36 settlements & litigation privilege.

Claim for Court fee is unreasonable if remission of the Court fee possible

In Stoney v Allianz Insurance Plc (County Court at Liverpool) at a Detailed Assessment hearing on 7 November 2019 the District Judge decided that the Claimant could not recover the Court issue fee of £455 from the Defendant if he could have claimed remission of the fee from the Court. Read more

Late application to vacate a trial date risks refusal even if this automatically hands victory to an opponent

In Mitchell v Precis 548 Limited (High Court 15/11/2019), a fatal mesothelioma claim being pursued by the deceased’s 84 year old widow, the Court gave Directions in March 2019 and at a listing hearing in April 2019 arranged for a trial on a day between 18 and 20 November 2019. Read more

Care required when making Part 36 offers – costs and interest pitfalls

Two recent cases have addressed continuing issues relating to what constitutes a valid Part 36 settlement offer and its costs consequences. Read more

Absence of evidence of historic noise surveys does not entitle the Court to infer that a Claimant had been exposed to excessive noise at work

One of the mainstay allegations made in Noise Induced Hearing Loss claims is that an employer failed to carry out any or any adequate assessment of noise and had exposed the Claimant to excessive noise. Read more

Litigation privilege to withhold a document from disclosure is not lost even though information contained in the document has been revealed

 In SL Claimants v Tesco Plc (3 December 2019) the High Court ruled in an interim application that the Defendant was not required to disclose a document in civil proceedings, part of which had been read aloud to the Court in previous criminal proceedings in relation to a procedural matter being considered by the Court. Read more