Description
The Court of Appeal held that it was wrong that parties be permitted to use r.3.1(3) rather than Part 25 as a means for obtaining security for costs. An Order should not be made under r.3.1(3) to protect a defendant from being unable to enforce a judgment for costs against a personal claimant, who was resident within the jurisdiction or in one of the other member states of the European Union and was impecunious and whose conduct of the proceedings might be open to criticism, unless one or more additional factors were present which made it appropriate to impose a burden of that kind on one party and a corresponding benefit on the other. Before exercising the power given by r.3.1(3), the court should identify the purpose of imposing a condition and satisfy itself that the condition it had in mind represented a proportionate and effective means of achieving that purpose, having regard to the order to which it was to be attached. The sum of £5,000 in security for costs was relatively mod est in the context of this type of personal injury litigation and was the kind of amount that someone who was willing to fund his own case in part could be expected to have at his disposal.
