Smillie v Southend On Sea Borough Council

An appellate court may adjourn a procedural application where an absent, unrepresented applicant has requested time to obtain access to court papers. Where the seriousness of the difficulty cannot be assessed and no other party will be inconvenienced, the court may give the applicant the benefit of the doubt, impose a short return date, and treat failure to attend then as potentially indicating abandonment. The order does not determine the substantive appeal.

This was an appeal from the Queen’s Bench Division, Administrative Court, before Mr Justice Hooper. Mrs Smillie, who was unrepresented and absent, had applied by fax for an adjournment because she had been evicted from the houses in question and could not access her court papers without an appointment. The Court of Appeal had to decide whether to stand the application over.

1. Adjournment granted. Lord Justice Sedley gave Mrs Smillie the benefit of the doubt because the court could not assess how serious her difficulty in accessing the papers was.
2. The matter was stood over for one week, to be heard at 10.00 am the following Wednesday. Mrs Smillie was expected either to attend and make her application or, by not attending, to indicate that she had abandoned it.
3. The application was adjourned, with no order for costs. The substantive appeal was not determined.

1. Court of Appeal (Civil Division): On [2002] EWCA Civ 418, the application was stood over for one week. No substantive determination of the appeal was made.
2. Queen’s Bench Division, Administrative Court: The appeal was from a decision of Mr Justice Hooper; the decision and its citation are not stated in the judgment.