Overriding Case Management Direction

UMM Qarn Management Co Ltd v Bunting (CLW 15 December CA)

It would not assist the overriding objective of the CPR to dictate the circumstances in which one judge was permitted to interfere with a procedural timetable ordered by another judge. Each case had to turn on its own circumstances. In the present case the Court of Appeal overruled the trial judge’s decision to override a case management direction for a split trial and to vacate the split trial date. There had been no change of circumstances sufficient to warrant one judge overriding the case management direction of another.