Hague Plant Ltd v Hague & Ors

Permission to amend a statement of case is subject to proportionate case management. The court must consider the proposed pleading’s focus, explanation, timing, effect on work already done, additional cost and the fair allocation of finite court resources. Lateness is relative. A lengthy and unfocused amendment may be late even without a trial date.

A pleading must state concisely the material facts relied on. It should not recite evidence, the opponent’s evolving case, or proposed cross-examination. A previously abandoned claim may be restored only with a sufficient explanation which overcomes the public interest in finality; no rigid test of exceptional circumstances applies.

Hague Plant Ltd sought permission to re-amend its particulars of claim in proceedings alleging dishonest breach of fiduciary duty by Martin Hague and dishonest assistance by Jean Angela Hague. The proposed pleading expanded substantially on the existing claim and included a revived allegation that Jean Angela had acted as a de facto director.

His Honour Judge Behrens, sitting in the Chancery Division at Leeds, refused permission except for agreed matters. He held that the draft pleading was disproportionate, failed to state the claimant’s case concisely, and included allegations which could not properly be advanced.

The claimant appealed. The central issues were whether the judge had erred in treating the amendment as disproportionate and late, and whether he was right to reject the discrete proposed claims.

1. Appeal dismissed. The judge’s refusal of permission to re-amend was a case-management decision within the proper ambit of his discretion. An appellate court would not reconsider the application afresh unless that decision was shown to be plainly wrong or affected by an error of principle.

2. The proposed particulars were properly rejected as disproportionate. Under Civil Procedure Rules r 16.4(1)(a), a pleading must concisely state the material facts. The draft instead mixed primary facts with evidence, submissions, earlier pleadings and material for cross-examination. It would have required extensive re-pleading and further interlocutory work, without clarifying the issues.

3. The need to allocate finite judicial resources fairly applied to amendment applications, not only to sanctions for procedural default. The judge could rely on his experience of the litigation and on the obvious effect of a fivefold expansion of the particulars. He did not need a detailed calculation of every consequential cost.

4. The amendment was late in the relevant sense. Lateness is relative and depends on the nature of the amendment, the explanation for its timing, work already undertaken, and the further work and expense it would cause. The absence of a fixed trial date did not prevent the judge from treating the application as late.

5. The revived de facto directorship claim was also rightly refused. There was an analogy with the permission requirement in Civil Procedure Rules Part 38.7, but no inflexible requirement of exceptional circumstances. The material question was whether a sufficient explanation overcame the public interest in finality after the claim had been abandoned. The explanations offered did not do so.

6. The court also upheld the refusal to permit a collateral challenge to the authenticity of diaries found genuine in the earlier Hague litigation. It was abusive to invoke an allegation of fabrication merely to support a non-admission concerning a different document. The proposed Grey Books estoppel likewise failed: the alleged issue had not been decided in the earlier proceedings, and the evidence did not contain the asserted representation.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division) — dismissed Hague Plant Ltd’s appeal from the refusal of permission to re-amend the particulars of claim: [2014] EWCA Civ 1609.
• High Court of Justice, Chancery Division, Leeds District Registry — on 5 March 2014, His Honour Judge Behrens refused permission to re-amend save for agreed items.