Kingsley Edward v Chinazo J Okeke & Ors

A claim is not for a specified amount of money merely because the claim form states a monetary figure or a schedule attributes values to particular losses. The pleaded remedy and nature of the loss must be considered. Claims for personal injury, reputational damage and other unliquidated damages will ordinarily require assessment by the court unless the claimant clearly seeks a specified monetary remedy.

A default judgment may ordinarily be entered administratively. However, the court may list a hearing where necessary to further the overriding objective. The broader question whether general damages can be claimed as a specified amount under the Civil Procedure Rules was left undecided.

The appellant brought four claims involving alleged professional negligence, breach of contract, defamation, misuse of private information and harassment. The respondents failed to acknowledge service or file a defence.

The appellant requested default judgments of £100,000 in each claim. Master Dagnall entered default judgments for damages to be assessed, including an interim payment of £15,000 in the first claim. The appellant appealed, arguing that the claims were for specified amounts under CPR 12.4 and 12.5 and that judgment should therefore have been entered for the sums claimed.

The central issue was whether the pleaded claims were claims for specified amounts of money or claims for amounts to be decided by the court.

1. The appeals were dismissed. The claims were not claims for specified amounts of money. The appellant was therefore not entitled to default judgments for £100,000 in each case. The proper orders were default judgments for damages to be assessed.
2. The court must examine the remedy sought in the claim form and statements of case. The figures entered in the claim forms under “value” or “amount claimed” did not by themselves establish that the claims were for specified sums. The schedules of loss were equally consistent with claims for damages to be assessed and, in some cases, were inconsistent with the figures in the claim forms.
3. The first claim included alleged psychiatric injury and general and special damages. Such damages are ordinarily assessed by the court unless agreed. The claimant had not made clear that he sought a fixed monetary remedy rather than damages assessed up to a stated limit.
4. The wider issue whether general damages can properly be claimed as a specified amount under CPR 12.5(2), including the disagreement between Merito Financial Services Ltd v David Yelloly [2016] EWHC 2067 (Ch) and the approach taken below, was not decided. The court had not received full adversarial argument and the issue was unnecessary to dispose of the appeals.
5. It was accepted that default judgment may be entered administratively without a hearing. However, if necessary, the court could list a hearing under its general case-management powers and the overriding objective. The entry of default judgment is ordinarily an administrative act, but that does not exclude a hearing where procedural fairness or case management requires one. This conclusion was supported by Lux Locations Ltd v Yida Zhang [2023] UKPC 3.
6. The remaining complaints failed. The respondents’ alleged vulnerability had no practical consequence, the appellant had obtained default judgment by administrative request before seeking to set aside the hearing direction, and interim payments were not justified in the absence of a formal application and in light of unresolved issues concerning causation and quantification.

The appeals were brought from orders made by Master Dagnall in four claims. Master Dagnall entered default judgments for damages to be assessed rather than judgments for the specified sums claimed. Mr Justice Johnson dismissed all four appeals.