Professional Negligence : Summary Judgment.
Asiansky Television PLC and another v Khanzada and others [2011] EWHC 283
In this Professional Negligence case the defendants made an application for summary judgment against the claimant. The claimants had lost their original solicitors negligence claim against their former solicitors. They made an unsuccessful application for permission to appeal before a judge out of time.
The claimant then complained that the delay in making the application and negligence by its legal advisors had lost them the chance of successfully appealing the judgment.The claimant then brought a Professional Negligence claim against those Solicitors.
Despite the apparent complexity of the claim and the deficiencies in the claimants pleading the judge examined the unpleaded allegations and found that the claimants stood no real prospect of succeeding. The judge held it would be unfair to the defendants if their applications were refused because of deficiencies in the claimants’ pleading and so examined the unpleaded allegations in some detail, finding that the claimants stood no real prospect of succeeding
An important point was that that the Court of Appeal had already rejected the application not only on the ground that it was out of time but also on its merits.
- ” Importantly, however the matter is put, the fact remains that the claimants’ application for permission to appeal, presented on grounds that included some aspects of the Other Terms Renegotiation Argument, was decisively rejected by the Court of Appeal on its merits as well as because it was out of time; and this, to my mind, gives the claim the “absence of reality” ……………. that makes a case suitable for summary disposal.”
Even the most seemingly complex Professional Negligence claims can be suitable for summary judgment.