Boys & Maugham (a firm) v Moore

Liability for contempt turns on the existence of the order, breach, the respondent’s requisite knowledge and compliance with procedural safeguards. A person who knows of an order must obey it while it remains in force, even if he considers it irregular or void. The remedy is to seek its discharge. A litigant in person, or a person with mental-health difficulties who has capacity and can participate with reasonable adjustments, is not thereby excused. A committal application does not create a general disclosure obligation. Separate failures to comply with orders fixing different dates are separate acts of contempt and should be separately charged. A duplicity defect may be waived where no injustice results.

The claimant solicitors obtained judgment and costs orders against Mr Moore after he failed to pay costs incurred in earlier property proceedings. Subsequent orders required him to provide financial documents and written answers. HHJ Brown, sitting in the County Court at Canterbury, found Counts 1, 3 and 4 of the committal application proved to the criminal standard. She imposed an eight-week suspended sentence.

Mr Moore appealed as of right, alleging an unfair hearing, failures concerning disclosure and procedure, lack of voluntariness, and defects under Parts 71 and 81 of the Civil Procedure Rules. The central appellate issues were whether the contempt findings were sustainable and whether Count 4 improperly combined breaches of three separate orders.

Appeal dismissed. Nugee LJ gave the principal judgment, with which Davis LJ agreed.

1. Contempt liability depends on the orders made, whether they were breached, the respondent’s requisite knowledge, and compliance with procedural safeguards. The knowledge requirement includes knowledge of the order, conduct amounting to breach, and the facts making the conduct a breach. The formulation in Dell Emerging Markets (EMEA) Ltd v Systems Equipment Telecommunications Services SAL [2020] EWHC 561 (Comm) at [21] was adopted, with the additional procedural requirement identified by the court.
2. There is no general disclosure obligation in a committal application. Under Civil Procedure Rules 1998, r 81.10(3)(b), the applicant must serve the evidence relied on, enabling the respondent to know the material on which committal is sought. Alleged disclosure failures or misleading conduct in the underlying civil proceedings therefore did not affect Mr Moore’s liability for breaching later orders.
3. A person who knows of a court order must obey it unless and until it is discharged, even if the order is believed to be irregular or void. The proper course is to apply to the court. The Court followed the principle stated in Isaacs v Robertson [1985] AC 97 and the passage of Romer LJ in Hadkinson v Hadkinson [1052] P 285 at 288. Being a litigant in person, or having mental-health difficulties, did not exempt a person with capacity from complying with court orders. The Family Procedure Rules did not apply to these debt-enforcement proceedings.
4. The committal application was brought under Part 81, not Part 71, of the Civil Procedure Rules 1998. Earlier alleged procedural failures under Part 71 were therefore irrelevant to breaches of the later orders. The judge was entitled to find that Mr Moore’s deliberate non-compliance was voluntary conduct sufficient for contempt.
5. Count 4 was duplicitous because it combined breaches of three orders imposing obligations on different dates. A mandatory order requiring an act by a specified date is broken once and for all when the act is not done by that date. Each missed deadline was therefore a separate act of contempt: see re Jones [2013] EWHC 2579 (Ch) at [20]-[23] and Kea Investments Ltd v Watson [2020] EWHC 2599 (Ch) at [71]-[73].
6. Under paragraph 16.2 of the Practice Direction 81 – Applications and Proceedings in Relation to Contempt of Court, the procedural defect could be waived because no injustice had been caused. Count 4 was treated as confined to the breach of the order dated 12 March 2020, and the finding of guilt on that count was upheld. The appeal was dismissed in all respects.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): Dismissed Mr Moore’s appeal against the committal order and upheld the finding on Count 4 as confined to the 12 March 2020 order.
• County Court at Canterbury: HHJ Brown found Counts 1, 3 and 4 proved to the criminal standard. Count 1 attracted no order; Counts 3 and 4 resulted in concurrent terms of eight and four weeks respectively, making eight weeks suspended for one year subject to filing and serving a financial witness statement.