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The underlying dispute in Woodward and another v Phoenix Healthcare Distribution Ltd concerned the alleged mis-sale of a drug by the respondent whilst still under patent to a company which claimed that, as a result of the respondent’s breach of contract or misrepresentations, it suffered financial loss in excess of £5 million and which forced it to enter administration.
The focus of this appeal concerned whether the appellants’ claim was statute-barred by virtue of limitation. The claim form was issued on 19 June 2017; pursuant to CPR 7.5(1), it should have been served no later than midnight on 19 October 2017. It was not.
Instead, the appellants’ solicitors emailed and posted the claim form and particulars of claim to the respondent’s solicitors on 17 October 2017. A partner at the respondent’s firm took the view that:
The partner considered service to be defective because at no point had his firm been instructed to accept service nor had it ever communicated that it was authorised to do so. The partner met with representatives of his client and was instructed not to bring the defective service to the appellants’ attention.
On 20 October 2017, one day following the expiry of the claim form, the respondent’s firm notified the appellants’ solicitors that service had been defective. The appellants’ solicitors immediately sought to serve the respondent itself by way of courier, post and email, although all too late. The appellants subsequently applied for an order that:
First instance and first appeal decision
At first instance before Master Bowles, the issues included whether the respondent was under a positive duty to notify the appellants’ solicitors as to their mistake and whether the steps taken on 20 October 2017 amounted to good service. In his judgement, which was handed down almost immediately after the Supreme Court’s decision in Barton v Wright Hassall LLP (but which included an addendum addressing the principles raised in Barton), the master concluded that the respondent’s firm was:
In particular, the master reasoned that:
“… good reason was provided by the failure of Mills & Reeve [the respondent’s solicitors], contrary, as I find, to its, or its client’s, duty to further the overriding objective, to warn Collyer Bristow [the appellants’ solicitors] that its purported service was defective, such that good service could have been effected in time. It was that failure which constituted the deliberate playing of a technical game.”
In particular, the master held that the respondent’s solicitors were duty bound under CPR 1.3 not to take advantage of the appellants’ error.
That decision was appealed to HHJ Hodge QC, who held that the master was plainly wrong insofar as no positive duty existed for a party to notify its opponent under CPR 1.3.
In turn, HHJ Hodge QC’s decision was appealed on the grounds that:
Appeal decision
Asplin LJ delivered the Court of Appeal’s unanimous decision. In essence, she held that the master failed to properly take into account the reasoning of Lord Sumption when giving the majority decision in Barton; namely, that a defendant’s advisers were under no duty to give advice to the claimant and that, in any event, it was inconceivable that they would have been instructed to do so by their client. In deciding whether to grant the appellants relief, another relevant consideration was the prejudice which would be suffered by the respondent, in this case, the loss of its right to an ironclad limitation defence.
The court went on to consider to what extent relief from sanctions pursuant to CPR 3.9 assisted the appellants, applying the distinction drawn by Lord Sumption in Barton between sanctions for non-compliance with rules and court orders, and rules which specifically governed the service of a claim form. Asplin LJ appeared to agree with that distinction insofar as sanctions are generally aimed at penalising a party for breaching rules engaged once proceedings have commenced, whereas the rules on service of a claim form are more fundamental and contain “the conditions upon which the court will take cognisance of a matter”.
Accordingly, the court dismissed the appeal.
Analysis
Although at first blush the Court of Appeal’s decision may appear unremarkable, it provides an important (though not entirely unproblematic) gloss on the duties owed between litigants and the nature of different types of procedural breaches:
“Lord Sumption made clear… that even if there had been time to warn, there was no duty to advise of the error. Of course, depending on the facts, the position may well be different if there is a substantial period before the expiry of the limitation period.”
On the Court of Appeal’s own reasoning, however, it is difficult to see how or why the position is different.
Practical implications
The court’s judgement provides a few important lessons for practitioners:
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