Mr Mashood Iqbal (Appellant/Claimant) v Dean Manson Solicitors and Others (No 2) (Respondent/Defendant)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Lord Justice Rix,Lord Justice Lewison,The Chancellor of the High Court |
| Judgment Date | 05 March 2013 |
| Neutral Citation | [2013] EWCA Civ 149 |
| Docket Number | Case No: A2/2011/3321 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Date | 05 March 2013 |
[2013] EWCA Civ 149
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
HIS HONOUR JUDGE PARKES QC
HQ11D01984
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
The Chancellor of the High Court Lord Justice Rix
and
Lord Justice Lewison
Case No: A2/2011/3321
Mr Mashood Iqbal (litigant in person)
David Hirst (instructed by Dean Manson Solicitors) for the Respondent
Hearing dates: Wednesday 31 st October 2012
This appeal, which raises an issue of absolute privilege in defamation proceedings, arises out of litigation of a most unfortunate kind, in which each side asserts that the other is conducting a personal vendetta against it. The merits of those assertions have yet to be adjudicated and nothing I say in this judgment must be taken as trespassing on such an adjudication, if it ever comes to pass. Nevertheless, even at this still interlocutory stage, the narrative is striking.
The claimant and, in this court, the appellant is Mr Mashood Iqbal, a solicitor-advocate who represents himself. The defendants, and here the respondents, are Dean Manson Solicitors, a small firm of solicitors, represented on this appeal by Mr David Hirst. There are other defendant respondents, but they are all, I think, connected with the firm, and it will be sufficient to refer to the firm, which I shall call "Dean Manson".
The background to this litigation can be found in my judgment in this court in Iqbal v. Dean Manson Solicitors (No 1) [2011] EWCA Civ 123, [2011] C P Rep 26. In summary, Mr Iqbal had until 31 March 2006 been employed as a part-time assistant solicitor by Dean Manson. They must have been pleased with him because they offered him full-time employment, but he declined. Some years after he had left their employment and started his own firm under the name of Ahmads' Solicitors of Putney, he had been engaged by a Mr Butt, whom Dean Manson sued in January 2009 in the Leeds county court as alleged guarantor of the fees of their former clients, Mr and Mrs Tahir. Dean Manson appear to have become enraged at this opposition. They wrote to Mr Iqbal three letters, the second and third of which were also copied to Leeds county court, in which they accused him of having intentionally taken Mr Butt's instructions in order to settle scores because of a personal vendetta against the firm. They said that he had been summarily dismissed from the firm for insubordination and reckless conduct. They accused him of poaching clients and inciting them to initiate malicious complaints. They said that he suffered from a conflict of interest because he had worked on the files of Mr and Mrs Tahir when he had been with the firm. They told him to advise Mr Butt to pay their claim. They accused him of breach of immigration laws and of professional misconduct in forming a partnership with a Mr Sajjid Ali, whom they said had no permission to remain and work in the UK.
This attack led Mr Iqbal to issue proceedings against Dean Manson in March 2009 in the Croydon county court for harassment pursuant to the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 (the "1997 Act"). He claimed an interim injunction to restrain Dean Manson from further acts of harassment aimed at damaging his professional and personal integrity.
Later in March 2009 Dean Manson served their defence, personally verified by Mr Muzaffar Mansoor (the first respondent). The defence alleged inter alia that he had wanted to become a partner of the firm "to regularise his immigration status", but his attitude "suddenly turned to grave insubordination and arrogance"; and that in March 2006 he had married a British citizen in order to change his immigration status, but that after he had secured that object he had left his wife, contracted a bigamous marriage and brought his second wife to the UK in breach of the immigration laws. The defence also accused Mr Iqbal of forgery, malice, bad faith, and a revengeful vendetta.
In May 2009 Mr Iqbal applied to strike out the defence as an abuse of court, but failed.
In July 2009 Dean Manson's application to strike out Mr Iqbal's harassment claim succeeded before His Honour Judge Ellis. Permission to appeal was granted by Eady J. Mr Iqbal's appeal came before Mr Justice Teare who upheld the strike out, although for largely different reasons ( [2010] EWHC 1249 (QB)). Permission to appeal was granted by the full court and the appeal was allowed ( Iqbal v. Dean Manson (No 1)). The four issues on appeal are stated in my judgment at [29]. For present purposes all that matters is that this court held that the letters had demonstrated a course of conduct which was capable of amounting to harassment. No issue of absolute privilege was raised by Dean Manson. I said (and Lady Justice Smith and Lord Justice Richards agreed):
"[41] The judge was perhaps concerned, and rightly so, not to set up every complaint between lawyers as to the conduct of litigation as arguably a matter of harassment within the Act. It must be rare indeed that such complaints, even if in the heat of battle they go too far, could arguably fall foul of the Act. However, in my judgment, these three letters, particularly when viewed in the light of each other, and especially the last two, arguably amount to a deliberate attack on the professional and personal integrity of Mr Iqbal, in an attempt to pressurise him, by his exposure to his client and/or the court, into declining to act for Mr Butt or else into advising Mr Butt to meet the demands of Dean Manson. It cannot, at any rate arguably, assist Dean Manson that such letters were written in the context of litigation and in an attempt to improve their position in that litigation, or in an attempt to raise even serious and proper concerns as to possible conflicts of interest. Arguably, the letters go way beyond such concerns. Indeed, Mr Brown conceded in argument that if the above was, even arguably, the view which could be taken of these letters, as distinct from the view of them which he submitted was the correct one, namely that they were simply and solely raising legitimate queries as to conflicts of interest between Mr Iqbal and his client and as to breach of confidence between Mr Iqbal and Dean Manson, then Mr Iqbal's claim could not be struck out…
[42] In sum, in my judgment, each of these letters does, when considered side by side, arguably evidence a campaign of harassment against Mr Iqbal. They are arguably capable of causing alarm or distress. They are arguably unreasonable, or oppressive and unreasonable, or oppressive and unacceptable, or genuinely offensive and unacceptable. Arguably, they go beyond annoyances or irritations, and beyond the ordinary banter and badinage of life. A professional man's integrity is the lifeblood of his vocation. If it is deliberately and wrongly attacked, whether out of personal self-interest or malice, a potential claim lies under the Act."
I also said (with reference to Dean Manson's defence):
"Whatever the hardships involved in litigation, it is not the occasion for irrelevant and abusive dirt to be thrown as part of a malicious campaign. Just as even the freedom of the press may be abused in a rare case ( Thomas v. News Group Newspapers Ltd [2001] EWCA Civ 1233; [2002] EMLR 4; Times, July 25, 2001), so even litigation, whose natural contentiousness also requires its own freedom of speech, can exceptionally be abused. I would, however, equally deplore satellite litigation."
At the close of the hearing of that appeal, at which we announced our decision but reserved judgment, we recommended mediation to the parties who are members of the same community in London (para [67] of my judgment refers). We directed that the Civil Appeals Office should issue the parties with its standard letter regarding the Court of Appeal Mediation Scheme (CAMS). On this appeal we enquired as to the outcome of that recommendation. Mr Hirst told us, on instructions, that mediation did not take place because it had been declined by Mr Iqbal. Mr Iqbal, however, told us that on 6 December 2010, having received the CAMS forms from the Civil Appeal Office, he had invited Dean Manson to join with him in mediation, but had received no reply. He further told us that on 29 July 2011, at a directions hearing, he had again asked Dean Manson to consider a mediated settlement, but had been told by Dean Manson's counsel, on instructions, that Dean Manson were not amenable to mediation.
In the meantime there had been ongoing costs proceedings arising out of Dean Manson's claim against Mr Butt. The guarantee claim against Mr Butt had been struck out on 20 October 2009 by His Honour Judge Belchar and Mr Butt had been awarded his costs subject to detailed assessment. On 14 June 2010 Master Gordon-Saker, in the Senior Courts' Costs Office ("SCCO") had issued an interim costs certificate to Mr Butt in the sum of £6,000. In order to try to stay the costs proceedings and to set aside this certificate Mr Ejaz Baig (the second respondent) made a witness statement dated 28 June 2010 on behalf of Dean Manson ("document 20"). This witness statement repeated some of the allegations against Mr Iqbal which had been the subject-matter of the harassment proceedings, for instance that he was conducting a personal vendetta against the firm, that he was under investigation by the Solicitors Regulation Authority ("SRA"), and that he had put forward Mr Ali as a partner when Mr Ali had no permission to stay or work in this country (but it did not say that Mr Iqbal had knowingly...
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