Howell v AL Amoudi
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Lord Justice Longmore |
| Judgment Date | 14 November 2017 |
| Neutral Citation | [2017] EWCA Civ 1983 |
| Docket Number | Case No: A2/2016/3694 |
| Date | 14 November 2017 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
[2017] EWCA Civ 1983
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
(MR JUSTICE PHILLIPS)
The Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Lord Justice Longmore
Case No: A2/2016/3694
The Applicant appeared in person
The Respondent did not appear and was not represented
(Draft for Approval)
This is an application for permission to appeal against the order of Phillips J of 1 September 2016, by which he refused permission to Mr Howell, the claimant, to appeal the order of Master Cook of 10 June 2016. Of course, by reason of section 54(4) of the Access to Justice Act 1999, the refusal of a permission to appeal from a master cannot itself be appealed to this court, and indeed when Mr Howell initially applied for permission to appeal the decision of Phillips J, he was told that there was no jurisdiction on the part of the court to entertain such an appeal. There is however an exceptional jurisdiction to entertain such an appeal if effectively there was no decision at all made at first instance by the High Court judge sitting on appeal from a master, or, more accurately, to use the phrase of Moore-Bick LJ in Patel v Mussa [2015] 1 WLR 4788, paragraph 15, if the decision was so flawed by unfairness as not to have been a proper decision at all. The example sometimes given of such a case is that of a judge who was considering the case muddled the case up with some other case, so that it could genuinely be said that there was no decision at all; but this exceptional jurisdiction does go further than that because, as Moore-Bick LJ said, it is open to a litigant to show the decision was so flawed by unfairness as not to be a proper decision at all, and that is what Mr Howell has sought to say is arguable before me today.
The underlying claim is based on an agreement between Mr Howell and the respondent, and it is said that the respondent agreed to pay Mr Howell and provide him with various benefits in return for his services to her, primarily relating to the management of her office and property portfolio, and it is said there have been breaches of that agreement. The original Particulars of Claim pleaded that the agreement was contained in a memorandum of 19 December 2014, but Mr Howell wishes to say by way of amendment that that agreement did not set out the entire agreement as to the full terms of his engagement.
Particulars were served on 10 April 2015. Mr Howell obtained a default judgment, but that was in due course set aside because there was an arguable defence on the merits, and in due course, after various interlocutory skirmishings including an application to set aside the default judgment and a discharge of a freezing order that had been made, the respondent (who was the defendant in the action) made an application to strike out Mr Howell's pleading on the basis that it did not disclose a cause of action or was otherwise an abuse. Master Cook did strike out part of the pleadings of Mr Howell, and he refused Mr Howell permission to appeal. Also he refused to allow any adjournment for the purposes of a redraft of the Particulars of Claim. The...
To continue reading
Request your trial