Daiichi UK Ltd & Ors v Stop Huntington Animal Cruelty & Ors

For the purposes of section 1 of the Protection Against Harassment Act 1997, “person” does not include a corporate entity. A company therefore cannot be the victim of harassment or bring a civil claim under section 3 as such. Individuals with the same interest in protection from harassment may bring representative proceedings under CPR 19.6. At the interlocutory stage, the court may grant exclusion-zone injunctions even though entering or passing through the zone would not itself be tortious or unlawful. Such relief must be necessary to protect the claimant’s legitimate interests and proportionate to that purpose. The court must balance those interests against freedom of expression and freedom of assembly and association under Articles 10 and 11 of the ECHR.

Five related actions were brought by companies associated with Japanese businesses, together with named individuals claiming for themselves and as representatives of company employees. The defendants were animal-rights campaigners alleged to have conducted a sustained campaign of intimidation and harassment connected with protests against Huntington Life Sciences.

The applications sought interlocutory injunctions under the Protection Against Harassment Act 1997, including exclusion zones around company premises and employees’ homes. The principal issues were whether a company was a “person” capable of being a victim under section 1, whether the individual claimants could use CPR 19.6, and whether the evidence justified exclusion zones consistently with Articles 10 and 11 of the ECHR.

1. Corporate claimants. The word “person” in section 1 of the Protection Against Harassment Act 1997 does not, on its proper construction, include a corporate entity. The references in section 7(2) to alarming or causing distress, the legislative history, and DPP v Dziurzynski supported that conclusion. Huntington Life Sciences v Curtin did not bind the court: it concerned an ex parte short-term injunction and did not decide the criminal-offence construction issue. Esther Thomas v Newsgroup Newspapers Ltd did not support the contrary construction because the issue had not been argued and the company might have been joined on a vicarious-liability basis.
2. Representative proceedings. The named individual claimants and the employees had the same interest, namely protection from harassment by animal-rights activists. It was therefore appropriate under CPR 19.6 for the named claimants to sue on their own behalf and as representatives.
3. Unincorporated defendants. The court adopted the approach in Huntington Life Sciences v Stop Huntington Animal Cruelty that an identifiable unincorporated group may be joined, but need not represent particular individuals where that would be unnecessary, unjust or inconvenient. Any injunction had to identify with sufficient particularity the persons bound by it.
4. Interlocutory relief and exclusion zones. Following Burris v Azadani, an exclusion-zone order may restrain conduct which is not itself tortious or unlawful where the order is reasonably necessary to protect a claimant’s legitimate interests. Such orders should not be made readily or without very good reason. The court must reconcile the claimant’s right not to be harassed with the defendant’s freedom to use the highway and must impose no restraint wider than necessary.
5. Convention rights and evidence. Articles 10 and 11 of the ECHR permit restrictions prescribed by law and necessary in a democratic society, including for public safety, prevention of disorder or crime, and protection of others’ rights. The evidence disclosed an arguable case that the represented defendants directed or coordinated the campaign and encouraged unlawful acts. The balance of justice and convenience favoured interlocutory relief for the non-corporate claimants, including exclusion zones. The judge deferred further submissions on the precise form and ambit of the orders.

The judgment records an earlier action by Huntington Life Sciences determined by Gibbs J in [2003] EWHC 1967 (QB), with an appeal pending. That was a separate action and was not the decision under appeal in these proceedings.