Mrh Solicitors Ltd v The County Court Sitting at Manchester Apex Hire UK Ltd and Others (Interested Parties)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Nicol |
| Judgment Date | 23 June 2015 |
| Neutral Citation | [2015] EWHC 1795 (Admin) |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Docket Number | Case No: CO/5687/2014 |
| Date | 23 June 2015 |
[2015] EWHC 1795 (Admin)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Lord Justice Burnett
Mr Justice Nicol
Case No: CO/5687/2014
and
and
Julian Knowles QC (instructed by Mishcon de Reya) for the Claimant, MRH Solicitors Ltd
Lesley Anderson QC & John Hunter (instructed by AB Corporate) for the Claimants, Apex Hire UK Ltd & Penningtron Legal Ltd
Paul Fisher (instructed by Keoghs) for the Interested Party, Laura Mason
Hearing dates: 3rd June 2015
This is the judgment of the Court to which we have both contributed.
On 13 th October 2014 at the County Court sitting in Manchester, Mr Recorder Osborne gave an ex tempore judgment at the end of a four day trial dismissing a claim for personal injury and consequential losses on the basis that the underlying motor accident was staged and the claims fraudulent. In the course of his ex tempore judgment he found that the solicitors for the claimant driver in that action (MRH Solicitors Ltd – 'MRH') were party to fraud, as were Apex Hire UK Limited ('Apex') and Pennington Legal Limited ('Pennington') who had provided hire cars to him. A passenger was separately represented. Neither the solicitors nor the hire companies were party to the proceedings or had been given any warning that the findings might be made. The Recorder later approved a transcript of the judgment which included those findings. By these proceedings for judicial review the solicitors and hire companies seek to undo what they submit was a breach of natural justice which has resulted in their integrity being impugned unfairly. Permission was granted on the papers and later interim relief was granted by Supperstone J to prevent the circulation of the approved judgment. The Claimants seek to quash parts of the approved judgment.
The trial began on 8 th October 2014. The proceedings arose out of a road traffic accident which had occurred on 26 th January 2012. The Claimants were Mohammed Yousaf and Junaid Ahmed. They had been travelling in Mr Yousaf's car and had been approaching a roundabout when, it was said, the car in front braked unexpectedly. Mr Yousaf braked in time but the car immediately behind his, and which was being driven by Lara Mason, did not. Ms Mason collided with Mr Yousaf's car. Behind Ms Mason was a taxi being driven by Mohammed Hanif. Mr Hanif was also taken unawares. He collided with Ms Mason's car in front of him which (again so it was said) shunted her car into a second collision with Mr Yousaf's. In the County Court proceedings Ms Mason was the 1 st Defendant and Mr Hanif the 2 nd Defendant. MRH were the solicitors for Mr Yousaf (Mr Ahmed was separately represented). Andrew Lawson was counsel for Mr Yousaf. The trial was heard by Mr Recorder Osborne.
On the first day of the trial, Mr Lawson, having taken his client's instructions, substantially amended the amounts which Mr Yousaf sought to recover in special damages. A claim for £898 for some 11 sessions with a physiotherapist was abandoned because no physiotherapy had been provided, despite the pleadings being supported by a statement of truth. The cost of hiring a substitute car from Pennington and Apex had been claimed at £16,308 but were reduced to £5,400. A claim for storage and recovery of Mr Yousaf's damaged car had been pleaded at £11,277 but was reduced to £3,300. The car being driven by Mr Yousaf was valued at £550.
Ms Mason (or her insurers) instructed Keoghs to defend the claims. Her defence was that both Mr Yousaf and Mr Ahmed were fraudulent. The unidentified driver of the first car was a stooge who, in concert with Mr Yousaf and Mr Ahmed had staged this incident so as to create a pretext for the collision and make a fraudulent claim against the insurers. In her defence Keoghs referred to 11 other road traffic collisions which occurred between 26 th January 2012 and 17 th January 2013 which they said had similar modus operandi and other common features. In all of them the claimant vehicles had braked for no good reason leading to the collisions which were the causes of the damage. In 10 of the 11 cases the claimant's vehicle had braked because a stooge vehicle in front had braked. After the collision the claimants had all used the services of the same recovery company. The claimants' vehicles were inspected in each case by the same company. Some or all of the claimants in each of the 11 cases were represented by MRH. In each case the claimant drivers were provided with a replacement car on credit hire by Apex or Pennington. It was alleged that all of these collisions had been fraudulently induced to make false insurance claims. The pleading said in terms that "For the avoidance of doubt, no allegations are made against any of the above named companies. Rather it is the use of their services by the various claimants (who have all experienced remarkably similar accident circumstances) that links the 12 collisions." Ian Toft of Keoghs provided a witness statement giving evidence about these other cases.
On 8 th October 2014 the Recorder refused an application to exclude Mr Toft's evidence. He ruled that it was potentially admissible on the similar fact principle although whether that was indeed the case would have to be examined at the end of the trial.
Messrs Yousaf and Ahmed gave oral evidence, as did the two defendants and a passenger in Ms Mason's car. Mr Toft also gave evidence. He confirmed in cross examination that fraud against MRH, Apex or Pennington was not being alleged.
On 13 th October 2014 the Recorder gave an oral judgment to which we have referred.
The passages in the judgment to which MRH, Apex and Pennington take exception are these. He said at [6],
"In my view, MRH Solicitors are beyond incompetent in this; they are elbows deep in a fraudulent claim. Their intention is to profit their referring clients, Apex and Pennington, the credit hirers and storage companies, the only ones who are going to gain out of the storage and credit hire of these two fairly old ("F" registered) vehicles to this claimant."
At the end of his judgment he added at [23],
"This claim is fraudulent. In my view it is run, primarily, for the advantage of the intermediaries and the car hire and storage company supported by an utterly unarguable schedule which denotes, in my view, more that incompetence but actual dishonesty on the part of MRH Solicitors."
They also object to what was said at [7] in connection with something found in Mr Yousaf's witness statement suggesting that he was aware he was liable for the hire charges irrespective of whether they were recovered, but of which he said he was unaware when he gave his oral evidence,
"A sentence patently planted in his statement by MRH Solicitors to explain that it is meant to be a serious credit hire contract, but which, he, again, denied having knowledge about … Patently again this is planted in this man's witness statement in the lawyers' language …"
On behalf of MRH, Mr Knowles QC argues that the Recorder behaved unfairly towards the solicitors. He accepted that the Recorder would have been entitled (if he considered the evidence warranted it) to voice concerns or suspicions as to their behaviour, but, since he had not heard from them (and they had not had an opportunity to be heard), he could not properly express final conclusions that they had behaved fraudulently. Secondly, fraud by MRH had not been pleaded by the Defendants. On the contrary, it had been expressly disavowed in Ms Mason's defence. When Mr Toft, her solicitor gave evidence, he again confirmed that it was no part of her case that MRH were party to any fraud. That position was repeated in the closing speech of counsel for Ms Mason. Since fraud by MRH was not pleaded, Mr Knowles submitted, the Recorder was simply not entitled to make such a finding against them. His role was to adjudicate on the issues raised by the pleadings, not to embark on an inquisitorial enterprise of his own.
Ms Anderson QC on behalf of Apex and Pennington adopted Mr Knowles' submissions. She argued as well that there was simply no evidence on which the Recorder could find her clients had been fraudulent. Indeed, she argued, it was difficult to discern on precisely what basis the Recorder had reached his conclusion that her clients had been fraudulent.
The Defendant County Court acknowledged service but, as is customary when a claim for judicial review is brought against a court, HMCTS on its behalf indicated that it did not intend to make any submissions. Recorder Osborne did nonetheless provide a quite lengthy "Note from the Trial Judge".
With the exception of Lara Mason, none of the Interested Parties took part in the present proceedings.
Mr Fisher, on Ms Mason's behalf, explained that she was neutral as to the substance of the complaints by MRH and Apex and Pennington, but made limited submissions as to the nature of any relief.
Jurisdiction
The origin of judicial review is the common law power of the Court of King's Bench to issue prerogative writs of certiorari, prohibition and...
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