Perotti v Collyer-Bristow (A Firm)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Lord Justice Brooke,Lord Justice Maurice Kay |
| Judgment Date | 21 May 2004 |
| Neutral Citation | [2004] EWCA Civ 639 |
| Date | 21 May 2004 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Docket Number | Case No: A3/2003/0552, 0552A, 0553, 0554, 0555, 0556, 0557, |
[2004] EWCA Civ 639
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
CHANCERY DIVISION
Lindsay J
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand,
London, WC2A 2LL
Lord Justice Brooke
Vice-President of The Court of Appeal (Civil Division) and
Lord Justice Maurice Kay
Case No: A3/2003/0552, 0552A, 0553, 0554, 0555, 0556, 0557,
A3/2003/0558, 0559, 0560, 0561, 0562, 1608, 1610
The Appellant appeared in person.
The Respondents were not present or represented.
There are before the court no fewer than 14 applications by Mr Angelo Perotti arising out of or connected with an unsuccessful claim for damages for professional negligence against Messrs Collyer-Bristow, a firm of solicitors. The trial started on 21 st October 2002 and continued until 29 th November. On 21 st January 2003 Lindsay J delivered a very long judgment. He refused permission to appeal, but he extended Mr Perotti's time for appealing to 42 days, which ended on 4 th March 2003. On 14 th March Mr Perotti filed 11 applications for permission to appeal. One of them (0562) was against Lindsay J's judgment and the other ten (0553–0561) were against rulings the judge made in the course of the trial between 22 nd October and 4 th November.
Much later, on 17 th July 2003, Mr Perotti filed applications for permission to appeal against rulings made by the judge on 21 st November 2002 (1608 and 1610) . The final matter before us (0552A) is an application under CPR 52.16(6) to reconsider a decision by Master Venne on 3 rd April 2003 whereby he refused to direct that transcripts of certain parts of the trial proceedings be prepared at public expense. Although most of these applications were made seriously out of time, Mr Perotti told us that he had experienced difficulty in persuading court staff to draw up many of the orders he was challenging, and that he could not persuade the staff at the Civil Appeals Office to accept his notices of appeal in their absence. In the circumstances we decided to consider all these proposed appeals on their merits rather than take up further time in inquiring into these matters.
It will not be possible to understand the issues on these applications unless I say something about the underlying litigation. It all arises out of Mr Perotti's dissatisfaction with the way in which the estate of his uncle Lorenzo Perotti was administered. His uncle was born in England, spent his childhood in Italy, and then made his home in England between about 1920 and his death in April 1984. On 27 th August 1976 he made a will in Italian by which he left his real estate in an Italian municipality to Angelo Perotti and his brother Peppino. His final will was made in English in August 1983, and he appointed a friend of his, Mr Impanni, his sole executor. Angelo Perotti, his brother Peppino and his sister Maria Abbate were each to receive one twelfth of his residuary estate. Mr Impanni originally granted a power of attorney to Mr Rudolph, a partner in the firm of London solicitors who prepared the will, to enable him to take out letters of administration in England with the English will annexed. At a time when the Italian land was thought to be worthless and no other property in Italy or elsewhere was known to him, Mr Rudolph swore the gross estate at just over £30,000 and the next estate at just under £20,000. Shortly afterwards two Swiss bank accounts were drawn to his attention which held about £700,000. Following Mr Rudolph's death in August 1985 Mr Rudolph's partner Mr Watson was appointed Lorenzo Perotti's personal representative in England.
Unhappily, although most of the beneficiaries were content with the way in which the estate was being administered, Mr Angelo Perotti was not, and from January 1985 onwards until the time when he started administration proceedings in March 1991 he made his dissatisfaction very clear. As early as March 1985 he told Mr Rudolph that when solicitors were not patently corrupt, deceitful and fraudulent, they were downright incompetent, and when Mr Watson had nearly completed the administration of the estate five years later Mr Perotti charged him with being corrupt and fraudulent. The estate account, sent to him on 20 th May 1991, revealed a gross estate of about £812,000 and a net estate of about £510,000. £291,500 had been paid to the income tax authorities by way of a back duty settlement (including a penalty) for tax on undeclared income, and over £195,000 had been paid in respect of inheritance tax and interest. The fees due to Mr Watson's firm were shown as £32,500 plus VAT. On 20 th June 1991 Mr Perotti's brother Peppino died, and he was now entitled to two twelfths of the residuary estate. It is unnecessary for the purposes of this judgment to set out many of the details of the intervening history which Lindsay J set out clearly in his judgment.
Mr Perotti continued to complain that the estate should have included a liability owed by Mr Impanni to repay a 200 million lira loan (together with 17 years compound interest), a Rolls Royce, a lot of gold coins with a minimum value of £100,000, and other things. In September 1991 he contended that Mr Watson was not entitled to recover any fees at all because he had been a witness to the testator's will.
In October 1991 Mr Watson suggested to the beneficiaries a way of distributing the estate on a consensual basis which would have given Mr Perotti rather more than his strict entitlement under the English will. However, when he wrote to Mr Perotti on 20 th January 1992 inviting his agreement, Mr Perotti riposted three days later by telling Mr Watson that he would be starting administration proceedings, and that these would include allegations of fraud.
The writ, prepared by Mr Perotti as a litigant in person and issued on 17 th March 2002, not only presaged an ordinary administration action but also contained in its general endorsement allegations that Mr Watson, Mr Impanni, and Mr and Mrs Abbate had attempted or conspired to defraud him in the course of the administration.
Between April 1984 and March 1992 Mr Perotti had consulted Messrs Collyer-Bristow on one occasion. On 10 th December 1985 Mr Saner, a partner in the firm, gave him written advice under the green form scheme on the steps he might take to assert his rights in the administration. He told him that insulting solicitors and accusing them of incompetence was not the most practical way of getting justice done. He also advised him to apply for legal aid, and discouraged him from contemplating criminal proceedings. He then returned the papers to Mr Perotti, and Mr Perotti did not return to the firm until September 1992.
By this time the administration proceedings had run into serious difficulties. Mr Perotti had served a home-made statement of claim with the writ on 10 th April 1992, and the three different firms of solicitors acting for Mr Watson, Mr Impanni, and Mr and Mrs Abbate respectively had each applied to strike out the action. Two orders were made requiring Mr Perotti to serve a statement of claim in compliance with the rules, but the time for compliance with those orders was extended until Mr Roger Kaye QC, sitting as a deputy high court judge, heard all the then current appeals and applications at a two-day hearing on 24 th-25 th November 1992. Mr Kaye held that the existing pleading did not comply with the rules and that there was nothing in Mr Perotti's point that Mr Watson was not entitled to recover fees because he had witnessed the will. He made an order to the effect that the action would be struck out if a statement of claim complying with the rules was not served by 9 th December 1992. He refused leave to appeal and made a number of orders for costs against Mr Perotti.
During September 1992 Mr Perotti had been involved in correspondence with Mr Saner of Collyer-Bristow. This achieved nothing because Mr Perotti was unwilling to comply with Mr Saner's demand that he should pay the firm £500 on account of fees before it would be willing to assist him. On 25 th November 1992, when Mr Perotti's plight was a great deal more serious, Mr Perotti telephoned Mr Saner again. There is an agreed transcript of the conversation, and Lindsay J in due course made a finding that Mr Perotti then agreed with Messrs Collyer-Bristow that (so long as Mr Perotti paid £500 on account of costs, as he did on 26 th November when he delivered the papers) the firm were to have the general conduct and consideration of the administration proceedings and of related possible claims by Mr Perotti. This professional relationship was to continue until either the firm lawfully suspended or terminated it, or Mr Perotti lawfully terminated it, or the action was brought to an end by judgment or compromise. The judge rejected Mr Perotti's contention that there was an entire contract. He said that it had long been accepted that administration actions were a class apart.
Although Messrs Collyer-Bristow acted for Mr Perotti until 14 th April 1993, when their senior partner terminated the retainer, and they did not formally come off the record as acting for him until early in 1994, Mr Perotti's principal complaints against them centred around their failure to ensure that two important issues (which I will call the "administration fees issue" and the "investment issue") were included in the new statement of claim which was settled and served in time to meet Mr Kaye's deadline of 9 th December 1992. A lot of the time spent at the trial was devoted to an examination of...
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Table of Cases
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Introduction
...access to it so long as the essential right of access was not entirely extinguished, and one 29 Perotti v Collyer-Bristow (A Firm) [2004] EWCA Civ 639. 30 Attorney General v Purvis [2003] EWHC 3190 (Admin). 31 Bhamjee v Forsdick and Others (No 2) [2003] EWCA Civ 1113, [2004] 1 WLR 88. 12 Ve......