Robin Stait v Cosmos Insurance Limited Cyprus

For jurisdictional domicile, residence bears its ordinary meaning. It identifies where a person lives and has a settled or usual abode with some degree of permanence. The assessment is fact-specific and evaluative.

Where a person was previously resident in the United Kingdom, the court must ask whether there has been a distinct break in that person’s pattern of life. Intention is relevant but not determinative. A person may have more than one residence, but continuing financial, legal or personal connections do not themselves establish residence.

Members of the armed forces posted abroad are subject to the same test. Their service and the circumstances of the posting form part of the overall evaluation but create no special jurisdictional rule.

The appellant, an RAF officer, was injured in a cycling accident in the Republic of Cyprus while serving a voluntary five-year posting in the Sovereign Base Area. He brought a direct personal injury claim in England against the Cypriot insurer of the driver alleged to have caused the accident.

The insurer challenged jurisdiction under Part 11 of the Civil Procedure Rules 1998. District Judge Griffith held that the appellant was not resident, and therefore not domiciled, in England and Wales when proceedings were issued. He set aside service of the claim form. Andrew Baker J granted permission for a direct appeal to the Court of Appeal.

The central issue was whether the appellant remained resident in England and Wales despite living and working with his family in the Sovereign Base Area.

1. Appeal dismissed unanimously. The appellant was resident and domiciled in the Sovereign Base Area when proceedings were issued. He was not concurrently resident in England and Wales. The English courts therefore lacked jurisdiction under articles 11.1, 13.2 and 62 of Regulation (EU) 1215/2012.

2. Residence is an ordinary word denoting the place where a person lives and has a settled or usual abode with some degree of permanence. Its application depends on the infinitely variable facts of each case. A person may reside in more than one place.

3. Where a person was formerly resident in the United Kingdom, the court must consider whether there has been a distinct break in the pattern or order of that person’s life. That principle forms part of the ordinary law and is not confined to taxation. The inquiry is multifactorial and evaluative. It examines what the person has actually done to alter the pattern of life. Intention is relevant but is not determinative.

4. The appellant had lived and worked full-time in the Sovereign Base Area for more than four years of a five-year posting. His wife and children lived there, his children attended school there, and the family conducted its ordinary professional, social and family life there. His visits to the United Kingdom were short and occasional, while his English house was let and unavailable for his use. Those circumstances established sole residence in the Sovereign Base Area and a distinct break with the United Kingdom.

5. The appellant’s retained house, bank accounts, investments, electoral registration, tax payments, medical connections and intention to return showed substantial connections with the United Kingdom. They did not establish continuing residence. The quality of the connections mattered more than their number.

6. Neither the Recast Regulation nor the domestic implementing legislation creates a special category for members of the armed forces posted abroad. Military status and the circumstances of a posting remain relevant facts within the ordinary evaluative assessment.

1. Court of Appeal (Civil Division): The appeal was dismissed unanimously. The court upheld the decision that the appellant was not domiciled in England and Wales when proceedings were issued: [2022] EWCA Civ 1429.
2. High Court: Andrew Baker J granted permission to appeal on 11 November 2021 and directed a leapfrog appeal to the Court of Appeal under rule 52.23(1) of the Civil Procedure Rules 1998.
3. District Judge: District Judge Griffith granted the insurer’s jurisdictional application on 24 June 2021, declared that the courts of England and Wales lacked jurisdiction, and set aside service of the claim form.