Achieving Justice

In an article in the New Law Journal of 3 December, Richard Harrison looked at four recent Court of Appeal decisions on the disciplinary techniques of case management under the Civil Procedure Rules. He particularly commended the approach of the Court of Appeal in Biguzzi v Rank Leisure plc (18/LL p98 and [1999] 4 All ER 934) observing that many robust and apparently reasonable case management decisions simply shift loss to third parties, whether lawyers or insurance companies, and this generates disputes at other points in the litigation life-cycle with which the civil justice system still has to cope at some stage. The district judge’s decision in Biguzzi had been consistent with the disciplinary culture which tries to regulate civil proceedings through sanctions and fear, whilst the circuit judge on appeal and the Court of Appeal, saw the reality of the situation which was there had been defaults on both sides and that the central issue was Is there anything unfair in letting this case go to trial?’ Whilst, in a working system, punishment of defaults cannot be wholly avoided, the Biguzzi approach may help to reduce the problems as satellite litigation.