Doyle v Talbot Motor Company Ltd
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | LORD JUSTICE MAY,MR. JUSTICE EWBANK |
| Judgment Date | 16 December 1987 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1987] EWCA Civ J1216-7 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Date | 16 December 1987 |
| Docket Number | 87/1333 |
[1987] EWCA Civ J1216-7
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
COURT OF APPEAL
ON APPEAL FROM THE GUILDFORD COUNTY COURT
(His Honour Judge Main, Q.C.)
Royal Courts of Justice
Lord Justice May
and
Mr. Justice Ewbank
87/1333
MR. OLIVER TICCIATI (instructed by Messrs Stilgoes, Guildford) appeared on behalf of the Respondents/Plaintiffs.
MR. R. McALPINE (instructed by Messrs Harris Rosenblatt & Kramer) appeared on behalf of the Appellant/Defendant.
We have before us an appeal from an order made by His Honour Judge Main, Q.C. on 26th August 1987 in the Guildford County Court. On that occasion he granted the plaintiffs leave to appeal out of time against an order of Mr. Registrar Bradfield and then allowed the plaintiffs' appeal against that order. The circumstances and terms of those various orders I will deal with shortly.
This is an appeal on behalf of the defendant company, asking that the learned judge's order should be set aside in its entirety and that Mr. Registrar Bradfield's order of 29th April 1987 should be restored. This is an action which was started in the Guildford County Court on 7th July 1986. It is a claim in nuisance by three occupiers of premises in a road in Godalming, alleging nuisance by the defendant principally by noise but also by fumes and smells emanating from the business which the defendant carries on in premises in an adjoining road. The relief claimed in the particulars of claim as delivered was, first, for an injunction to restrain the alleged nuisance, and secondly "damages limited to £3,000 for each plaintiff". There was in addition a claim for interest pursuant to the statute.
On 24th July 1986 a defence to that claim was filed by solicitors on behalf of the defendant, which was described in the course of the argument as "informal". It certainly does not condescend to particulars in so far as the various allegations made by the plaintiffs, but in effect it amounted to a general traverse of every allegation made in the particulars of claim. For some time thereafter there was correspondence and negotiation between both sides and their solicitors. Precisely what was being said is not material. It is however apparent that a contention on behalf of the defendant was that the action was started in the county court without jurisdiction in the light of the relief claimed in the particulars of claim which I have quoted, it being said that on its proper construction what was being claimed was £9,000, which was outside the county court jurisdiction and accordingly the plaintiff should either have started in the High Court, or agreed to have the action transferred to the High Court, or had it struck out. Precisely how the correspondence and negotiation proceeded over the following months does not matter, save on this point, that it is clear to me, having looked at all the material and had argued before us what is purely a procedural appeal, that a wholly unnecessary amount of time has been wasted in the course of this litigation and no-one has sought to take the action by the scruff of its neck and get it to trial as quickly as possible. That should be the prime purpose in litigation. It is not a. game to be played, whether according to the rules or not. The whole idea of litigation is to achieve a result which does justice between the parties in relation to the cause of action sued on.
Be that as it may, the next relevant occurrence was an application by the defendants dated 8th April 1987 seeking to have the action struck out on the ground that there was no jurisdiction in the county court to hear it. That application came before Mr. Registrar Bradfield in the Guildford County Court on 29th April. He took the view that there was no jurisdiction in the county court to hear this claim, but he felt it was better, taking the view that he did as to jurisdiction, not to strike out the action but to send it to the High Court and the Guildford District Registry where it could properly be determined without further delay. His order of 29th April was to that effect. But there was an added twist to the story, because it was the intention of the learned Registrar then wearing his county court hat later to take it off and on a subsequent occasion to put on his High Court hat as Mr. District Registrar Bradfield and, at a hearing of which the parties would be given notice, to transfer the action back to the county court pursuant to the provisions of section 40 of the County Courts Act 1984. The learned District Registrar will, I am sure, forgive me if I say that that strikes me as a somewhat Alice in Wonderland procedure—merely to send an action to the High Court in order to send it back again. Be that as it may, the trouble started a little later when on an appointment taken of its own motion by the District Registry in Guildford, the matter came not before Mr. District Registrar Bradfield, but Mr. District Registrar Enzar and, having had the matter argued and been shown the provisions of section 40 of the 1984 Act, he took the view that there was no jurisdiciton in the High Court in Guildford to do what Mr. Registrar Bradfield had intended should be dcne, namely to transfer this action back to the Guildford County Court. He therefore made no order on the appointment that the court of its own motion had set up. That was on 19th May 1987.
In those circusmtances the plaintiffs, minded so far as they could, to keep this action in the county court, decided to appeal Mr. Registrar Bradfield's order of 29th April 1987 to the learned judge in Guildford, which they did by notice of appeal dated 2nd June 1987.
The first point taken before the learned judge was that the appeal against the learned Registrar's order was out of time and he, in his discretion, ought not to extend time and hear the substantive appeal. The judge took the view that he had power to extend the time pursuant to the provisions of Order 13 of the County Court Rules and that it was a case in which he should do so. He then proceeded to hear the appeal on its merits.
Before I come to the question of the merits of this litigation and appeal, I will deal with the question of the extension of time. It was argued before us that, although there was certainly jurisdiction in the learned judge to extend time, it was a jurisdiction or discretion which he exercised wrongly in that there was no material before him to explain why the delay had occurred. I interpolate that appeals to a county court judge from a decision of a county court registrar are by the rules to be...
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