Michael Hamill v Lloyds Banking Group Pension Trustees Limited

A Pensions Ombudsman determination is final and binding unless challenged through the statutory appeal route. Fresh High Court proceedings cannot be used to circumvent the prescribed time limit and permission requirement by relitigating the same issue. Such proceedings may be struck out as an abuse of process. Fresh proceedings may also be abusive where an earlier claim in materially identical terms was struck out for failure to comply with an unless order.

The claimant alleged that the defendant had underpaid the guaranteed minimum pension element of his occupational pension. The Pensions Ombudsman had determined that his pension was correctly calculated and that he was not entitled to aggregate the scheme pension and guaranteed minimum pension element.

The claimant did not appeal that determination within the prescribed period or seek permission to appeal on a point of law. He later brought Part 8 proceedings raising substantially the same claim, which were struck out after he failed to comply with an unless order. He then issued the present Part 7 claim and sought summary judgment. The issues were whether the claim was barred by the statutory scheme and whether it was an abuse of the process of the court.

1. The claim was dismissed and the defendant’s strike-out application was granted. The claimant’s application for summary judgment was totally without merit.
2. Under Pensions Schemes Act 1993, s 151, a determination of the Pensions Ombudsman is final and binding, subject to an appeal on a point of law to the High Court. The permission requirement and time limit formed part of the procedural safeguards governing that challenge.
3. A first-instance court or tribunal’s decision ordinarily stands in the case in which it was made unless overturned on appeal. A litigant cannot circumvent the appeal process by commencing fresh proceedings before a more senior judge to relitigate the same point. The Ombudsman’s determination therefore remained final and binding.
4. The present claim was an abuse of the process of the court and fell to be struck out under Civil Procedure Rules 1998, Pt 3.4. It was unnecessary to determine the substantive merits.
5. The earlier Part 8 claim had independently been struck out by the operation of an unless order because no amended claim form was served. Re-litigating the same claim in Part 7 proceedings was also an abuse of process.

Ancillary orders, including costs, were reserved for further argument.