Chubb Insurance Company of Europe S.A. v Davies

Under CPR rule 19.2(2), a person may be added as a party where this is desirable to resolve all matters in dispute or a connected issue. The person need not have an accrued cause of action. The rule should be applied generously where required by the overriding objective, particularly where the applicant is the real target of declaratory relief and has a prospective interest in the outcome.

Joinder may be conditional upon acknowledging the court’s jurisdiction. A stay should not be granted merely because related appellate proceedings are pending where the issues can be determined promptly and the applicant’s participation makes a decision appropriate.

Chubb sought summary judgment under CPR Part 24 declaring that it was not liable to indemnify Vivian Davies under a directors’ and officers’ insurance policy for liability arising from a deceit judgment obtained by Herbert Black and two companies.

The Black parties applied to be joined as defendants because they were the real parties interested in whether the policy responded to their claim. They also sought a stay pending Mr Davies’s appeal against the underlying judgment. The central issues were whether the Black parties could be joined without an accrued right against the insurer and whether the Part 24 application should await the appeal.

1. Intervention. The Black parties were permitted to be added as parties. CPR rule 19.2(2) is expressed in general terms and does not require the proposed party to have a cause of action. It permits joinder where this is desirable to resolve the matters in dispute or a connected issue. The rule should be interpreted generously where required by the overriding objective.
2. The absence of present rights under the Third Parties (Rights against Insurers) Act 1930 did not prevent joinder. Normid Housing Association v Ralphs [1989] 1 Lloyd’s Rep 265 concerned an injunction to prevent settlement and did not preclude an application of the present kind. The reasoning in Wood v Perfection Travel Ltd [1996] LRLR 233, concerning intervention to protect prospective rights under the 1930 Act, was applicable.
3. The Black parties could advance no better substantive answers than Mr Davies. Since they sought to intervene to argue the substantive issues, their joinder was conditional upon acknowledging the court’s jurisdiction.
4. Stay. No stay was ordered. Once the Black parties were joined, there was no real justification for delaying the Part 24 application. The issues, although potentially involving French law, were not complicated and could be resolved in one court day. Chubb was entitled to know its position, and the application was directed to proceed in December.

First-instance decision. The judgment records that Mr Davies had permission to appeal the underlying judgment of Buckley J, but this proceeding concerned Chubb’s Part 24 application and the Black parties’ joinder and stay applications.