Curran v Collins

Permission to appeal should be granted where the proposed appeal has sufficient prospects of success to merit a second look, even if those prospects are modest.

In a domestic business arrangement, the absence of commercial documentation may carry less weight than it would in an entirely commercial relationship. Honest evidence is not worthless merely because it is unsupported by documents, and a party’s representations that a business was jointly conducted may be materially relevant.

Human sympathy or perceived unfairness cannot alone justify permission. The court must apply the law as it stands.

This was a renewed application for permission to appeal against a judgment of HHJ Marshall QC in the Central London County Court on 24 May 2012.

The applicant claimed an equitable interest in a property bought in the respondent’s name and a joint share in a kennels and cattery business, which she said had been operated in partnership with the respondent. The county court found that she had no equitable interest in the property and that there was no partnership.

The central question was whether the proposed criticisms of the findings, particularly those concerning the alleged partnership, gave the appeal a sufficient prospect of success to merit a second look, and whether permission should extend to the property claim.

1. Disposition. The renewed application was granted and permission to appeal was given.
2. Permission threshold. The relevant question was whether there was sufficient prospect of an appeal that it merited a second look. The prospect could properly be described as modest, but it was sufficient in relation to the partnership claim.
3. Property findings. The proposed complaints about the judge’s assessment of the property evidence amounted principally to disagreements about the weight given to evidence and the preference for one witness’s account over another. The trial judge had heard the evidence and there was no proper basis for an appellate court to interfere with those findings. The written statement from the applicant’s mother was also a matter on which the judge was entitled to reach the conclusion she did.
4. Partnership evidence. The absence of documentation would be a powerful consideration where the relationship was entirely commercial, but it was less powerful in a domestic arrangement. The applicant’s evidence could not be treated as worthless merely because it consisted largely of her own assertions, since the judge regarded her as fundamentally honest. The respondent’s representations to others that the kennel business was a joint venture were potentially supportive of the applicant’s case. It was open to question whether those representations were properly treated only as evidence of deceit by the respondent.
5. Sympathy and legal principle. The court recognised the hardship and perceived unfairness of the result, but human sympathy could not justify permission or alter the applicable law. Judges were required to apply the law as it stood.
6. Scope of permission. Permission was not restricted to the partnership issue. Since the court would need to read the whole judgment and extending permission would not materially increase the costs or work, permission was also granted in relation to the property findings.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): On 22 January 2013, Lord Justice Toulson granted the renewed application for permission to appeal and allowed the appeal to proceed on both the property and partnership issues.
• Central London County Court: On 24 May 2012, HHJ Marshall QC found that the applicant had no equitable interest in the property and that there was no partnership in relation to the business.