Hobson & Ors v Ashton Morton Slack Solicitors & Ors

A Group Litigation Order is not justified merely because claims share a broad factual background or involve similar complaints. Applicants must identify the common or related issues of fact or law with sufficient precision. Before making a GLO, the court must consider whether test cases, consolidation or representative proceedings would provide a more appropriate and proportionate route. The GLO procedure is unsuitable where liability depends materially on different agreements, parties, representations and individual circumstances. The court must also consider the overriding objective, including proportionality between the value and importance of the claims and the costs and court resources required.

The applicants sought a Group Litigation Order concerning deductions made from compensation paid under schemes for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and vibration white finger claims. The proposed defendants included solicitors, the Union of Democratic Mineworkers and Vendside Ltd. The underlying complaints concerned the enforceability of agreements under which sums were paid or withheld for union support, and alleged breaches of duty by solicitors.

The application raised whether the proposed claims disclosed sufficiently common or related issues, whether all relevant parties had been included, whether another procedural route was more appropriate, and whether the proposed group litigation was proportionate and adequately funded.

1. The application was dismissed. The proposed litigation was unnecessary in form and substance. The applicants had not shown that a GLO was the only satisfactory means of resolving the underlying dispute.
2. Under CPR 19.10 and CPR 19.11, a GLO requires a number of claims giving rise to common or related issues of fact or law. The GLO issues must be stated clearly and precisely, because the judgment will ordinarily bind the parties on the group register.
3. The applicants had failed sufficiently to identify such issues. The proposed claims involved different agreements, different parties, different solicitors and fact-sensitive allegations of misrepresentation, breach of duty, reliance and causation. The fact that the respondents were solicitors and the applicants were miners did not create the necessary commonality.
4. The primary dispute in the UDM cases was whether the agreements between the union and individual claimants were enforceable. If the union were liable, the claimants would generally suffer no recoverable loss against their solicitors. The solicitor claims should therefore not proceed before the union claims had been determined. The Raleys claims were materially different because Raleys acted as agents for different NUM areas under different arrangements.
5. The court should consider whether consolidation, representative proceedings or one or more test cases would be more appropriate. A small number of test cases could determine the central contractual issue at substantially lower cost. The applicants had not demonstrated that those alternatives were inappropriate or inaccessible.
6. The overriding objective required attention to equality, expense, expedition, complexity, the amount at stake and the parties’ financial positions. The very substantial costs, relative to the modest value of the claims, made the proposed GLO disproportionate. The uncertainty surrounding the ATE insurance also provided an independent reason for refusing the application.
7. The court did not determine the unresolved questions concerning the validity of the ATE arrangements, champerty, indemnity or recovery of the premium under section 29 of the Access to Justice Act 1999. Those issues were left for a case in which they were determinative.

Not stated in the judgment.