Summary Introduction & Pre-action protocols

Civil Litigation-

PART A: Intro-

X10 Chapters

X12 SGS

Civil and Criminal lit are treated as one – Litigation

 Two exams on one days
o 65% Civil (am),
 20% of civil = Multiple choice
o 35% Crim (pm)

Civil Procedure Rules 1998 http://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/rules

 Clarified & supplemented by case law where necessary

-

One party suing another party

 Eg: suing for non payment of debt
o Breach of contract, negligence, personal injury

Non criminal penalty

Judge decides merits of case – listens to evidence of both parties

-

Balancing Act-

Court balances needs of both parties

 Done via CPR 1 – overriding objective
o All cases dealt with in a manner which is fair, expeditious and saves expense for all
involved

Litigation is expensive and time consuming

 All parties litigation must assist court in achieving CPR 1
o If not, they may be penalised

-

HRA-

Courts must apply & interpret the law in compliance with ECHR.

 Declaration of incompatibility where incompatible with domestic law

-

First Client -

Ritchison's Holdings PLC

,  Subsidiary – Ritchinson’s Investments Ltd (RI)
 Supermakret business
 RI comes to see you about a potential problem when they received advise from a solicitor
when buying land for a hyper market

Read Bundle 1

 Memo from supervising partner
 Help with law & research the matters in memo
 Does RI have a cause of action
o Remedy for RI?
o Damages & amount?
o Can Def pay the damages if RI is successful?
o Cost of litigation?



--

PART B: Overview of a Civil Litigation Claim-

(Civil Action Flowchart)




Pre-Action: Designed to get the parties exchanging info as to why they are in dispute

 Encourage settlement – if not, then, enabling proceedings appropriately

, If a specific protocol does not apply to the claim, then Practice Direction on Pre-Action Conduct
should be followed:

 Complaining party writes to the other, detailing the claim
 Recipient should respond, either
o Accepting the claim OR
o Rejecting the claim; whole/ in part
 Parties then to disclose key documents, engage in negotiations and make
proposals for settlement

Failure to follow pre-action may result in a fee

Action: The Claim Form CRP 7 & 16 :

C brings the action & initiates court process

 Fills out Claim form
o with brief statement of what case is about – Part of ’Statement of case’ - CPR 16.2
 CPR 16.2 sets out what the claim form must contain. The
claim form must be completed by the claimant and must be
served on (sent to) the defendant within four months of the
date it was issued at court.
o Must be complted by C and served to D w/in 4 months of date issued at court

Serving claim form will start litigation & stop limitation (ie: certain proceedings must be brought in a
certain time, 6 yrs for breach of contracts etc)

 Missing limitation – proceedings are time barred

CPR 16: ‘Particulars of claim’ - Sets out details:

 who is who, what happened, what C wants
 Statement of truth – otherwise C could be guilty of contempt of court
 Must be sent to the D

The POC may:

 be included with the claim form,
 may be separate, but served with the claim form,
 OR may be separate and given within 14 days of the claim form (so long as this is stil within
the 4mths)

Responding to a claim-
If the defendant receives the claim form without the particulars of claim, it need
not (save in the Commercial Court) respond until the particulars of claim is
served.
 When the particulars of claim is served on the defendant, it must respond
within 14 days of the deemed date of service. The defendant has three
options:

1. file an acknowledgment of service;
2. file or serve an admission; or
3. file a defence.