MICHAEL WILSON AND PARTNERS LIMITED v JOHN FORSTER EMMOTT AND OTHERS

Permission to appeal requires a realistic prospect of success. A proposed appeal concerning whether documents referred to in documents attached to witness statements or affidavits are themselves impliedly mentioned for disclosure purposes has no realistic prospect of success where the documents have not been sufficiently mentioned for the purposes of the applicable rule. In any event, disclosure of such documents must be reasonable and proportionate.

The claimant applied for permission to appeal. The proposed appeal concerned disclosure and, in particular, whether documents referred to in documents attached to witness statements, affidavits or similar materials were themselves sufficiently mentioned to fall within the relevant disclosure rule.

The application also raised whether disclosure on that basis would be reasonable and proportionate.

1. Permission to appeal refused. The governing test was whether the proposed appeal had a realistic prospect of success.
2. The judge considered that the principles applied in the underlying decision were entirely conventional. The only potentially novel issue was whether a document referred to in a document attached to a witness statement, affidavit or similar document could itself be treated as impliedly mentioned.
3. There was no realistic prospect that the Court of Appeal would conclude that a document mentioned only in an attached document had been sufficiently mentioned for the purposes of the relevant rule.
4. Further, even if that were the basis of the application, disclosure would be neither reasonable nor proportionate.
5. The application was refused. The judge also described it as incidentally grossly overblown.

The judgment determines an application for permission to appeal. The judgment appealed citation is not stated in the judgment.