Lonrho Plc v Tebbit and Another
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 26 July 1991 |
| Date | 26 July 1991 |
| Court | Chancery Division |
Chancery Division
Before Sir Nicolas Browne-Wilkinson, Vice-Chancellor
Practice - striking-out application - effect on developing law
Although it was possible to determine a difficult point of law on a striking-out application, it was not appropriate to do so where the point of law was of such a new and developing kind that it could not properly be determined on the bare facts pleaded and would be better determined at trial in the light of the actual facts of the case.
Sir Nicolas Browne-Wilkinson, Vice-Chancellor, so held in the Chancery Division in a reserved judgment delivered in open court after a hearing in chambers on a summons by Norman Beresford Tebbit and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) for an order that the action brought against them by Lonrho plc be struck out on the ground that it disclosed no reasonable cause of action and/or was an abuse of the process of the court.
Mr John Laws and Mr Laurence Rabinowitz for Mr Tebbit and the DTI; Mr John Beveridge, QC, Sir William Wade, QC and Mr David Pannick for Lonrho.
THE VICE-CHANCELLOR said that a claim should only be struck out in a plain and obvious case. The difficulty arose where, as in the present case, a claim to strike out depended on the decision of one or more difficult points of law.
In such a case, the judge should normally refuse to entertain such a claim to strike out. But if in a particular case the judge was satisfied that the decision of the point of law at that stage would either avoid the necessity for trial altogether or render the trial substantially easier and cheaper, he could properly determine that point of law on the striking-out application: Williams v HumbertELR ([1986] AC 368, 435-6, 441).
In considering whether or not to decide the difficult question of law, the judge could and should take into account whether the point of law was of such a kind that it could properly be determined on the bare facts pleaded or whether it would not be better determined at the trial in the light of the actual facts of the case.
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