The Standard of Proof in Civil Claims: The House of Lords made clear that only two standards of proof are recognised by the common law: the balance of probabilities and beyond reasonable doubt. The test of the balance of probabilities was, however, flexible in its application: a court may have to look at the facts more critically or anxiously where there was an inherent unlikelihood of an occurrence taking place, a serious allegation or consequences following from the proof of the relevant fact. ...
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Purpose of Pleadings. The Privy Council, hearing conjoined appeals from the Court of Appeal of The Bahamas, held that the ultimate purpose of one party’s pleadings was to inform the other party of the case against them. The fact that the precise ambit or extent of the relief sought might be a matter for argument did not justify allowing an application to be struck out for want of prosecution where the basic allegations were sufficiently clear. Any lack of clarity could be corrected by appropria ...
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Appeals against the Same Order. It would stultify the procedure introduced by the Administration of Justice Act 1969 s.12 and s.13 if different appeals against the same order were to proceed in parallel in different courts. The words “leave is granted” in s.13(2) had to be understood to refer to an unconditional grant of leave or a grant of leave subject to conditions which were accepted or
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Receiver’s Remuneration. The CPR r.69.7(2) did not override the scheme whereby a receiver's remuneration and expenses were to be paid out of the receivership assets.
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Freezing Order without notice. It was very difficult to visualise a case where the grant of a freezing order, made without notice, could be said to have been properly made in the absence of any formulation of the case for substantive relief that the applicant for the order intended to institute.
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Challenge to validity of a person’s title to land. A challenge to the validity of a person's title to land was held to be res judicata and not capable of being re-litigated.
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Where an application for judicial review turned on the proportionality of the defendant's actions, the disclosure of documents would be ordered more readily than in an application where such an issue did not arise. In cases involving issues of proportionality, disclosure should be carefully limited to the issues which required it in the interests of justice.
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Appeal against civil penalty – no rehearing permitted. It was not appropriate to direct a rehearing of an appeal against a civil penalty for dishonest conduct where the evidence sought to be adduced on the rehearing could and should have been dealt with in the previous hearings.
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Professional negligence claim – Law Society cause of action. The Law Society's cause of action in negligence against accountants in respect of negligent reports on a solicitor's practice accrued when it first received a claim on the Solicitors' Compensation Fund from a client whose money was misappropriated by the solicitor, because until such a claim was actually made no loss or damage had been sustained by the fund.
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Limitation Act 1980 – Date of knowledge. The requisite knowledge for the purposes of the Limitation Act 1980 s.14A(8)(a) was knowledge of the facts constituting the essence of the complaint of negligence. In the circumstances the relevant date was not when the claimant first knew that he might have a claim for damages but the earlier date when he first knew enough to justify setting about investigating the possibility that the defendant's advice was defective.
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