Law Weblog

Judge sacked for being rude to solicitors

Friday 24 April 2009 at 10:35 pm | In News | Post Comment District Judge Margaret Short has been removed by the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice after a “history of complaints” including “inappropriate, petulant and rude” behaviour towards solicitors appearing in court.

She is the first judge to be removed since Judge Bruce Campbell was dismissed for smuggling whisky into England from Guernsey in 1983.

The Office for Judicial Complaints started a judicial investigation in 2006 after the judge had taken annual leave when told not to; refused to hand over papers to assist the investigation into her behaviour and made serious “untrue” allegations against support staff.

Judicial Complaints press release here

Murmuring the Judge

Wednesday 22 April 2009 at 11:15 pm | In News | Post Comment

Murmuring a judge. The offence of publicly criticising or “murmuring” a judge

Unhappy with the conduct of a trial, the judge, His Honour Judge Gledhill Q.C. issued this short judgment.

The senior partner of one of the firms involved issued a detailed rebuttal calling into question the judge’s conduct during the trial. A complaint is to be lodged both against the judge’s conduct during trial and afterwards, and separately in relation to the suggestion that the instruction of the advocates involved was dictated by financial considerations.

A public spat like this is so rare it is historic.

Judgment

Rebuttal

Boy sues father – £8.1m compensation – largest ever payout

Wednesday 15 April 2009 at 10:23 am | In News | Post Comment The High Court has awarded a record compensation payment of £8.1m to nine-year-old Callum Cross who was accidentally run over by his father, Patrick when he failed to see Callum as he reversed in a car park on a family day out at Mead Open Farm, near Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire, in March 2002.

Callum will need life-long care after suffering catastrophic spinal and brain injuries.

BBC news item here

Former solicitor – Lord Justice Collins – to become a Supreme Court judge

Monday 13 April 2009 at 8:36 am | In News | Post Comment Lord Justice Collins, 67, is the first judge from the solicitors’ branch of the legal profession to reach the UK’s highest court.
His appointment was announced by Downing Street last week.

Also announced was Sir Brian Kerr, 61, the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland.
They will become “Justices of the Supreme Court”.

Lord Justice Collins was admitted as a solicitor 1968; qualified as a solicitor-advocate; took silk in 1997; deputy High Court judge in 1997; High Court in 2000; Court of Appeal in 2007. He succeeds Lord Hoffmann who is retiring.

Sir Brian was called to the Bar in Northern Ireland in 1970; Bar of England and Wales in 1974; took silk in 1983; High Court judge in Northern Ireland in 1993; Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland in 2004. He succeeds Lord Carswell, who is retiring.

The Supreme Court is on schedule to start on October 1 this year.

Changes made ten years ago have been a disaster – says Lawrence West, QC

Sunday 12 April 2009 at 10:27 am | In News | Post Comment

woolf_lord-no-wig

The changes made ten years ago have been a disaster for the civil justice system and need a radical rethink, says Lawrence West, QC

In 1990 and 1991 there were more than 350,000 new actions in 1996 there were 150,000 in 2000 there were 20,000 in 2002 there were below 20,000.

Read his article here

Boy not culpable – playing tag in playground is okay

Tuesday 7 April 2009 at 6:15 pm | In News | 2 Comments On 3 April, Michelle Orchard 42 failed in her claim against schoolboy Sebastian Lee, who ran into her while playing tag at Corfe Hills School, Corfe Mullen near Poole in Dorset, in January 2004. After six weeks in hospital she was left with a broken nose and damaged teeth, and her lawyers say she also suffered serious brain damage, leading to partial paralysis and balance problems. Sebastian was 13 at the time of the incident.

O v L [2009] CA

[Negligence – duty to take – foreseeable harm – child]
D aged 13, seriously injured a playground supervisor when he bumped into her whilst playing tag with another boy. D was in a play area and not breaking any rules.

Held: For a child to be held culpable for his conduct in games in general, the conduct had to be careless to a very high degree.

D’s conduct had been that which was to be expected of a 13 year old playing tag. No part of his conduct had been outside the norm where such a game was being played, let alone a significant degree outside the norm. No ordinarily prudent and reasonable 13 year old boy playing tag in the courtyard and walkway would reasonably have foreseen the risk of injury, namely, injury beyond that normally associated with a game of tag.

D won

Comment: McHale v Watson considered; Mullin v Richards [1998] considered; Blake v Galloway [2004] considered.

Per Curiam: Parents and schools are there to control children, and it would be a retrograde step to visit liability on a 13-year-old for simply playing a game in the area where he was allowed to do so.

Bill of Rights and Responsibilities

Sunday 5 April 2009 at 2:57 pm | In News | 1 Comment On 23 March, Jack Straw announced a green paper on a future bill of rights and responsibilities.

It is unlikely to contain any new rights that can be enforced. The proposal is that it should be a symbolic statement of rights or perhaps a statement of principles which, endorsed by parliament, might inform legislation, as well as decisions made by public authorities and the courts.

Details here

R v Evans manslaughter by omission – drug overdose

Sunday 5 April 2009 at 2:42 pm | In News | Post Comment On the 2 April the Court of Appeal convened a rare 5 judge panel to decide whether a victim suffering from a drug overdose was owed a duty to act by the person who had contributed to her condition. They found she was owed a duty to act.

R v Evans [2009] CA
[Gross negligence manslaughter – actus reus – omission – state of affairs life threatening – duty to act]
D failed to summon help for overdosing victim to whom she had given drugs. D was V’s older half-sister, who was 16 years old. D and V and their mother were heroin addicts. D gave heroin to V who self-injected and overdosed. D and her mother put V to bed, hoping that she would recover, while they watched Emmerdale on TV.  She died during the night.

Held: For the purposes of gross negligence manslaughter, when a person had created or contributed to the creation of a state of affairs that he knew, or ought reasonably to have known, had become life threatening, a consequent duty on him to act by taking reasonable steps to save the other’s life normally arose.

D had been under a plain and obvious duty to take reasonable steps to assist or provide assistance for the victim.

The prosecution case was based solely on her negligent omission to summon medical help when the deceased was suffering from a heroin overdose.

The relationship between D and the deceased did not of itself create a duty to act.

D was under a duty to take reasonable steps for the safety of the victim once she had appreciated that the heroin she had procured for her was having a potentially fatal impact on her health.

Guilty
R v Adomako [1994] applied; R v Miller [1983] considered; Airedale NHS Trust v Bland [1993] considered; R v Wacker [2003] considered; R v Kennedy (No 2) [2008] considered; Mitchell v Glasgow City Council [2009] HL considered; R v Willoughby [2005] explained.

Comment: This case was heard by 5 judges because it raised an important point of law. The proposition that a supplier of drugs owes a duty of care to the customer is not supported by the authorities.   D’s involvement in the supply to her sister of the fatal dose of heroin could not found a conviction for manslaughter on the basis of her unlawful and criminal act. (R v Kennedy (No 2) an authority expressly stated to have no application to gross negligence manslaughter).

This appeal was not about the supply of the heroin.

The facts did not create a duty between step-sisters as it did with the mother.

D was under a duty to take reasonable steps for the safety of the deceased once she appreciated that the heroin she procured for her was having a potentially fatal impact on her health.

The court agreed that there is an inconsistency between the authorities.

D was sentenced to 4 years her mother 2 years.
The deceased Carly Townsend was 16 years old.

BBC report here
Whole case here