Brian Sargeant v UK Insurance Ltd and Another
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Picken |
| Judgment Date | 02 October 2015 |
| Neutral Citation | [2015] EWHC 3304 (QB) |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division |
| Docket Number | Case No: TLQ/15/0494 |
| Date | 02 October 2015 |
[2015] EWHC 3304 (QB)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London WC2A 2LL
Mr Justice Picken
Case No: TLQ/15/0494
Mr Sargeant litigant in person
Mr Digby Jess appeared on behalf of the Defendants
Friday, 2 October 2015
(4.06 pm)
I have two applications before me, the matter having been referred to a High Court judge by a direction made by Deputy Master Partridge on 30 September 2015. The reason why this direction was made is that the Claimant, who appears before me today and who is not legally represented but who has presented his submissions over the course of the best part of two hours with great ability and courtesy, for which I am grateful, wishes to have the trial, set for 9 November 2015 to 13 November 2015, vacated and replacement directions made for meetings of experts and such like. Specifically, the Claimant seeks, by an application notice issued on 2 July 2015, an order setting aside an order made by Master Eastman on 22 June 2015 and variations to an earlier order made by the same Master on 27 January 2015. I shall return to these orders in a moment. First, however, I should mention that the Defendants, who are represented before me today by Mr Digby Jess of counsel, not only resist the Claimant's application but themselves also apply for an unless order in respect of the Claimant's non-compliance with a costs order made against the Claimant by Master Eastman as part of the order made on 22 June 2015. That was an order that the Claimant should pay costs in the sum of £953.48 within 21 days. This is an application to which I shall return after first dealing with the Claimant's application. To enable this to be done, I must set out some of the procedural background after initially saying something about the nature of the Claimant's claims against the Defendants. Those claims are under household insurance policies issued by the Defendant insurance companies in respect of the Claimant's property known as Westfield, Bath Road, Beenham, Reading. Specifically, the Claimant claims in respect of four matters as follows: first, a flood which occurred on 20 July 2007; secondly, an escape of water on 8 October 2009; and, thirdly and indeed fourthly, thefts and escape of water on 13 April and 12 June 2010 respectively.
The Defendants do not dispute that the Claimant is entitled to an indemnity under the insurance policies. There is, however, a dispute, a very real dispute, between the Claimant and the Defendants concerning the level of the indemnity which falls to be paid. To this end, on 27 January 2015, directions were made by Master Eastman at a hearing attended both by the Claimant and by Mr Jess on behalf of the Defendants. Those directions included the grant of permission to both parties (by that, I mean the Claimant and the Defendants together) to present expert evidence in the fields of building surveying and quantity surveying. The relevant directions went on to provide (in the relevant paragraph, paragraph 4) that there should be meetings of experts by 12 June 2015 and that these should be followed by signed joint statements submitted by 10 July 2015.
I was told by Mr Jess, and I have absolutely no reason to doubt it (indeed, Mr Sargeant confirmed that it was the case), that at the hearing before Master Eastman on 27 January 2015, the Claimant, Mr Sargeant, had sought permission to adduce expert evidence from a builder, namely (albeit the identity may not have been given at the time), Building Solutions Limited and, specifically, an individual in that firm called Mr Simon Wynn. I interject to point out that, at this hearing, what Mr Sargeant, the Claimant, seeks is a variation of the order made on 27 January 2015 to enable expert evidence to be given in "the field of reinstatement of flood and burglary damage", which he confirms to me today is, indeed, intended to be a reference to Mr Wynn. At the hearing before Master Eastman in January this year, argument having been directed to the issue of the appropriate expertise of the expert evidence to be adduced, Master Eastman refused to grant permission for evidence from an expert such as Mr Wynn to be adduced. Instead, as I have indicated, he gave directions consistent with what Mr Jess, on behalf of the Defendants, had asked for and consistent with the draft order put before the Master which permitted expert evidence from building surveyors and quantity surveyors.
The order made on 27 January also provided for a trial window of 1 October to 13 November this year. Subsequently, the trial was listed for four days, to commence between 9 November and 13 November 2015 on the basis that it will be presided over by a judge alone and will be category B. It appears that the experts reports were subsequently served. Indeed, I have seen certain of those reports. In the case of Mr Sargeant, the Claimant, the expert evidence adduced came in the form of expert evidence from Mursell & Company (Newbury) Limited, to whom I shall refer as 'Mursell'. That firm provided expert evidence, but covering both the disciplines which had been ordered, namely building surveying and quantity surveying. In the case of the Defendants, in contrast, separate firms served expert reports. In other words, there was a report from a building surveying firm and a separate report from a quantity surveying firm. It is clear from the headed paper of Mursell that they provide both building surveying and quantity surveying and, indeed, also architectural services.
In line with the order which was made in January this year by Master Eastman, what was then to happen was that the experts should have met not later than 12 June 2015, and they should have signed joint statements approximately a month (in fact, slightly under a month) later. As will appear, this did not happen. The reason why this did not happen appears to have been a disagreement between the Claimant and Mursell, the Claimant writing to Mursell on 19 May 2015 complaining about several matters but, in particular, stating as follows:
"I do still have the same matters that I raised with you at the time which were not dealt with… (2) I still have not received breakdown of figures prepared by Mike Evans who was not in on 30 th of April… the main problem that I have is that if the court accepts your figure of £100,000 from £929,000 for flood damage, then I have to look to Mursell & Co. to make up the shortfall for that work if we fail to find buildings to do the reinstatement to original standards as per policy. Is Brian able to confirm in writing that he accepts this because it goes to the very heart of the purpose of the claim?"
A week later, the Claimant, Mr Sargeant, left to go on a cruise to the Azores. He left on 26 May 2015 and returned on 7 June 2015, as appears from the cruise booking information sheet which he has put forward in support of his application. In the meantime, on 2 June 2015, Mursell wrote to Mr Sargeant following an email apparently sent the previous day which was in the same terms. In the letter dated 2 June 2015, Mursell stated, among other things, in paragraph 5, as follows:
"Our report provides an opinion of the scope of the necessary work and the cost is our opinion of the likely reasonable contract value to carry this out. Courts have tended to allow a figure of +/- 15 per cent in the assessment of whether a valuation figure provided by a professional can be considered to be negligent but this is not a definite rule. In providing an opinion, we are acting as servants to the court. Our duty is to act reasonably but we are not providing a warranty on the costs of the work. If you are stating that you think we are, this will compromise our ability to act as expert in this matter and we would have to decline any further instructions in this matter."
The letter then referred to Mursell not having been paid for the work which had been carried out for Mr Sargeant thus far.
Specifically, over the page, the letter stated as follows:
"In summary, you have asked us to provide an opinion as expert witness. This has to be our opinion and one we are prepared to testify to in court. The role as expert witness is as a servant to the court and not to act as advocate. If you do not have confidence in our opinion, there is no point in our continuing and we should cease our relationship. As we had been asked to urgently agree meetings with the Defendants's experts, their confirmation of this is now of some importance. We have been contacted today by the experts for the Defendants. Mr Broadley wishes to meet me Wednesday next week, 10 th June. He is based in Leeds and suggests the meeting in their Birmingham Office. The QS wishes to meet Mike Evans on the 15 th of June. He is based in South London and suggests a meeting in London, possibly at the headquarters of the RICS. Both Mike and I are available to do this but we need you to confirm your instructions for us to do so. This will involve preparation time, travel time, a meeting in each case and preparation of the follow up information and reports. This will be at the time...
To continue reading
Request your trial