Martin Hart & Ors. v Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea & Ors.

An application for specific disclosure may be made under CPR 31.12 before standard disclosure. The court has a discretion, informed by relevance, proportionality and the overriding objective. It may also take account of considerations applicable to pre-action disclosure where they are consistent with rule 31.12.

Specific disclosure must identify relevant documents or carefully defined classes. It is not a mechanism for discovering whether a claimant has a viable claim. The applicant must explain the claim sufficiently to show the relevance of the documents sought. Wide, insufficiently particularised or disproportionate requests will ordinarily be refused.

The claimants were police officers who attended Grenfell Tower after the fire and alleged psychiatric injury in claims against various defendants. Ten Licensed Search Officers sought disclosure from their employer, the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, concerning safety, risk assessments, structural surveys, briefings and asbestos.

The proceedings had been issued but stayed, and particulars of claim had not been served. The application was framed as pre-action disclosure under CPR 31.16 and the Pre-Action Protocol for Personal Injury Claims, but the central issues were whether the court had jurisdiction under CPR 31.12 and whether the requested documents were relevant and proportionate.

1. Jurisdiction. The application could not be made under CPR 31.16 because proceedings had already been issued. The court also lacked jurisdiction to use CPR 3.1(2)(m) to order disclosure in a manner inconsistent with the specific requirements of Part 31. Rule 31.12 did, however, confer jurisdiction to order specific disclosure before standard disclosure had taken place. CPR 31.13 was not apt because the application was not a staged approach to standard disclosure.
2. Applicable considerations. The court could consider the relevance and proportionality of the documents, the overriding objective, and consistent factors drawn from CPR 31.16. Disclosure could assist investigation of liability and ADR, but the documents still had to be relevant to an identified claim and suitable for standard disclosure. Relevance was assessed by reference to the pleadings and factual issues, applying the approach described in Harrods Ltd v Times Newspaper Ltd [2006] EWCA Civ 294.
3. Particularisation and scope. The claimants had provided only a limited description of their employers’ liability case. They had not explained sufficiently the alleged injuries, timing, foreseeability, causal circumstances or the relevance of most requested categories. Specific disclosure requires carefully defined documents or classes, limited to what is relevant and proportionate, as illustrated by Carillion plc v KPMG LLP [2020] EWHC 1416 (Comm). The requests were generally too broad or insufficiently specific.
4. Disposition and costs. The application was dismissed. The claimants were directed to develop the individual claims through settlement packs and make more focused requests. The Commissioner’s reasonable voluntary disclosure could continue. Under CPR 44.2, the claimants were ordered to pay the costs of and occasioned by the application.

First-instance application in the High Court. The judgment does not state any prior appellate decision.