Ewing (Terence Patrick) v News International Ltd & others
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Lord Justice Patten,Lord Justice Elias,Lord Justice Ward |
| Judgment Date | 14 July 2010 |
| Neutral Citation | [2010] EWCA Civ 942 |
| Docket Number | Case No: A2/2008/3124 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Date | 14 July 2010 |
[2010] EWCA Civ 942
Lord Justice Ward
Lord Justice Elias
and
Lord Justice Patten
Case No: A2/2008/3124
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
MR JUSTICE COULSON
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
The Appellant appeared in person.
The Respondent did not appear and was not represented.
(As Approved)
This is an appeal by Mr Ewing, who is a vexatious litigant, against an order by Coulson J that he should make an interim payment of £22,500 in respect of the costs of his failed application under s.42(3) of what is now the Senior Courts Act 1981 ("the 1981 Act") for leave to bring proceedings against the Respondents for defamation.
The proposed claim was based on an article published in the Sunday Times on 11 th February 2007 alleging that an unincorporated association called the Euston Trust had accepted £10,000 to drop its objections to a development in Weston-super-Mare. The article went on to say that this was not an isolated incident and that the Trust had obtained money from other builders and developers in return for withdrawing objections it had lodged to their planning applications. The central allegation in the article was that the Trust was not a genuine conservation or similar group with a legitimate interest in objecting to the planning applications in question. It was what the writer referred to as an unregulated body run from a North London council flat by the appellant whom the article described as "a convicted fraudster".
Mr Ewing was indeed convicted on a number of counts of thefts and forgery in 1981. In 1990 he was made the subject of a civil proceedings order under s.42(1) of the 1981 Act on the basis that he had, by then, commenced a total of 37 sets of proceedings, 25 of which were considered by the Divisional Court and found to be vexatious when making the civil proceedings order. Since then he has made at least 19 applications for permission to commence proceedings, most (if not all) of which have been unsuccessful.
The effect of the s.42 order is that Mr Ewing is debarred from commencing civil proceedings in the High Court or in any inferior court without the leave of the High Court. Under s.42(3) leave is not to be given unless the High Court is satisfied that the proceedings or application are not an abuse of the process of the court and that there are reasonable grounds for the proceedings or application.
Treacy J directed an oral hearing of the application for leave in this case which was heard by Coulson J on 19 th June 2008. In a 124-paragraph reserved judgment handed down on 22 nd July the judge carefully analysed Mr Ewing's history as a vexatious litigant; the details of the claim against the respondents; the issues raised by the parties; and his conclusions on them. In short, he concluded that the allegations made in the articles could be justified or were subject to qualified privilege; that Mr Ewing had failed to deal substantively with the allegations; and that any damages that might be awarded would, at best, be nominal. Mr Ewing, as the judge noted, has in any event commenced similar proceedings in Northern Ireland and Scotland where he is not subject to any civil proceedings order.
For all these reasons the judge refused him permission to bring the English proceedings. Under s.42(4) of the 1981 Act there is no right of appeal against a refusal of permission and we are therefore concerned only with the question of costs. Although Mr Ewing has produced a written skeleton argument which challenges the judge's decision to refuse leave, those arguments are not open to him on this appeal.
At the hearing of the application for leave the respondents were represented by solicitors and counsel who fully participated in the proceedings. An application was made for costs and they submitted a breakdown of costs totalling some £43,392.50. The judge ordered Mr Ewing to pay their costs of the application, to be subject to detailed assessment, but directed an interim payment in the sum of £22,500. He said in his judgment that although the total costs bill seemed high, the £22,500 was an amount which the respondents were likely to recover in any event following an assessment.
With the permission of Eady J, Mr Ewing served a notice of appeal challenging the interim costs order. There is no challenge to any other parts of the judge's order, including the order for costs in the respondents' favour. The grounds of appeal are that the figure of £22,500 took no account of the appellant's means; was out of proportion to the likely recovery on the assessment; and that the judge was wrong to make the order in favour of both Times Newspapers and News International because he (Mr Ewing) had conceded at the hearing that News International need not be joined as a defendant to the proposed proceedings and no order in its favour was sought by his counsel.
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Mr P Williamson v The Bishop of London and Others
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Williamson v Bishop of London and Others
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Section 42 of the Senior Courts Act 1981
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