Ozdowski v Secretary of State for the Home Department

Proceedings against the Crown must be served in accordance with the Crown Proceedings Act 1947. Service on a departmental address is insufficient where the Act requires service on the appropriate solicitor. A judgment obtained without proper service, and without the defendant’s knowledge, is irregular and should be set aside where the irregularity is fundamental. The court may then give directions to regularise the proceedings and determine the substantive claim. The merits need not be considered when the judgment is set aside for fundamental procedural irregularity. Costs will ordinarily follow the event, including on an application to set aside an irregular judgment.

Mr and Mrs Ozdowski and their children brought Part 8 proceedings concerning a substantial damages claim. A Leicester County Court district judge entered judgment against the defendant when the Secretary of State had not attended the hearing. The claimants later amended the claim.

The proceedings had not been served on the Treasury Solicitor as required by the Crown Proceedings Act 1947. The defendant applied to set aside the judgment. The central issues were whether service was valid, whether the judgment was irregular, and what consequential directions and costs order should be made.

1. The claimants’ application to substitute the Home Office as defendant was granted without objection.

2. Sections 17 and 18 of the Crown Proceedings Act 1947 governed the proceedings. Section 18 required documents served on the Crown in civil proceedings to be served on the solicitor for the relevant department, identified here as the Treasury Solicitor at Campbell Street. Service at Lunar House, Croydon, did not comply with that requirement.

3. The only reasonable inference was that the claim forms had not been properly served and had not come to the defendant’s attention before judgment was entered. The judgment was therefore irregularly obtained. The defects were fundamental because the defendant had no knowledge of the proceedings and had no opportunity to defend them.

4. The judgment was set aside without consideration of the merits. The court had not invited or heard detailed submissions on the substantive claim.

5. The proceedings were to be regularised through a re-amended claim, further evidence, an amended defence and evidence, trial bundles and skeleton arguments. The action was transferred to the High Court, Birmingham District Registry. The defendant’s strike-out application was adjourned to the final hearing.

6. Under the Part 8 procedure the proceedings would ordinarily be dealt with on the written evidence, and the procedure did not normally provide a disclosure mechanism. The court nevertheless directed that the parties have a proper opportunity to file evidence relevant to the regularised claim.

7. Costs ordinarily follow the event. The defendant had succeeded entirely on the application to set aside the judgment, so the claimants were ordered to pay the defendant’s costs of and occasioned by that application, subject to detailed assessment if not agreed.

The judgment under challenge was entered by a Leicester County Court district judge on 20 April 2009. The High Court set that judgment aside because the proceedings had not been properly served. The claim was directed to continue after regularisation and transfer to the High Court, Birmingham District Registry.