Canada Goose UK Retail Ltd & Anor v Persons Unknown & Anor (Rev2)

Claims against “persons unknown” remain subject to the ordinary requirements of adversarial civil litigation. The claimant must identify the persons against whom relief is sought, so far as practicable, and establish actual or threatened wrongdoing by each relevant defendant.

An injunction must correspond to the threatened tort, be sufficiently clear and precise, and restrain only unlawful conduct. Prospective restrictions on protest cannot be justified merely by expediency or by the misconduct of a minority. Where Articles 10 and 11 are engaged, restrictions must be necessary and proportionate, with an intense focus on the competing rights. Fact-sensitive allegations such as harassment and highway obstruction will rarely be suitable for a broadly framed injunction against a heterogeneous class of unknown protesters.

The claim arose from protests outside a Canada Goose store in Regent Street. The claimants sought injunctions against “persons unknown” for harassment, trespass, nuisance, obstruction of the highway and conspiracy, and against PETA in its own and representative capacities.

An interim injunction had been granted on 29 November 2017 and varied on 15 December 2017. It imposed exclusion zones and limits on protest activity. The claimants later applied for summary judgment and a final injunction. The central issues were whether the claim had been validly served, whether the defendants could be treated as a sufficiently defined class, whether the claim was suitable for summary judgment, and whether the injunction lawfully and proportionately interfered with protest rights.

1. Summary judgment refused. The claim form had not been validly served on the first defendants. Service of the injunction did not make a person a defendant; only valid service of the claim form, or an order dispensing with service, could do so. PETA’s evidence also provided a real prospect of defending the claim because the evidence disclosed no wrongdoing by PETA or its representatives.
2. Proceedings against “persons unknown” are permissible only where the defendants can be defined sufficiently to identify those included and excluded, and where effective notice can be given. The claimant must take practical steps to identify alleged wrongdoers. The jurisdiction is provisional and conditional, particularly where interim quia timet relief is sought.
3. Applying Boyd v Ineos Upstream Ltd [2019] 4 WLR 100, an injunction against persons unknown requires a sufficiently real and imminent risk of a tort, inability to name the likely tortfeasors, effective notice, terms corresponding to the threatened tort, clarity and precision, and clear geographical and temporal limits. The order must not prohibit lawful conduct.
4. A broadly defined injunction against protesters could not meet those requirements. Harassment, highway obstruction, nuisance and conspiracy were inherently fact-sensitive. The interim order also restricted peaceful protest which was not unlawful, and its limits on numbers were arbitrary and unsupported by evidence.
5. Articles 10 and 11 protected lawful protest, including protest which might annoy, offend or disturb. Interference had to pursue a legitimate aim, be prescribed by law, respond to a pressing social need and impair the rights no more than reasonably necessary. The court could not treat protesters as a single class or justify restrictions by the worst conduct of a small minority.
6. The police and local authorities possessed targeted public-order powers which could often balance competing rights more effectively than a prospective civil injunction against unknown persons. The interim injunction could not continue in its existing form. Any further proceedings would require identification of defendants and claims tailored to particular alleged wrongdoing.