Edward v Okeke & Ors

Default judgment for damages is not automatically judgment for the figure pleaded. The court must identify the reality of the claim. Claims for personal injury, psychiatric injury, reputational damage and other unliquidated damages are ordinarily claims for an amount to be decided by the court, even where the claimant pleads a specific figure.

Where the procedural conditions for default judgment are satisfied, CPR Part 12 may require the court to process a request without convening a hearing on notice to the defendant. The court may nevertheless examine the statement of case sufficiently to determine the nature of the claim and whether the claimant is entitled to judgment. The proper order may therefore be judgment for damages to be assessed, rather than judgment for the pleaded sum.

The claimant brought four claims against defendants resident in Nigeria. The claims concerned breach of contract, defamation, breach of confidence and data protection, property-related allegations, harassment, psychiatric injury, reputational damage and financial loss. Permission had been granted to serve the defendants out of the jurisdiction, and service was accepted as valid. No acknowledgment of service or defence was filed.

The claimant sought administrative default judgments for £100,000 in each case under CPR Part 12. The issues were whether the court could list a hearing on notice to the defendants, whether it could inspect the statements of case, and whether the pleaded claims were for specified sums or amounts to be assessed by the court.

1. The court could list a hearing to consider whether the procedural conditions for default judgment had been met, including proper service. However, CPR 12.4 and 12.5 provided a specific request procedure. Since the essential conditions were accepted, the general case-management power in CPR 3.1 did not permit a hearing on notice to the defendants merely to consider the claimant’s request. The previously listed hearing was therefore revoked as a hearing on notice.

2. The court was entitled to examine the statements of case to identify what the claims were really for. CPR 12.4 and 12.5 concerned the substance and reality of the claim, not merely the claimant’s choice of label or pleaded figure.

3. The claims were predominantly for psychiatric pain and suffering, reputational damage and other unliquidated damages. They were therefore claims for amounts of money to be decided by the court, rather than specified sums within CPR 12.4(1)(a) and CPR 12.5.

4. The court distinguished the reasoning in Merito Financial Services Ltd v David Yelloly, which it was not persuaded to follow insofar as it treated pleaded valuations of damages as sufficient to make such claims specified sums. The approach in Lux Locations Ltd v Yida Zhang supported judicial scrutiny of the statement of case and the distinction between administrative money judgments and claims requiring determination by the court.

5. Default judgments were entered against each defendant for damages to be assessed. In the Okeke claim, an interim payment judgment of £15,000 was also granted. A case-management and possible damages-assessment hearing was retained, and the claimant was ordered to serve the orders on the defendants. Permission to appeal was granted.

First-instance judgment. The court granted the claimant permission to appeal and directed that the subsequent hearing would not remain listed at that stage.