Anthony Goodfellow v Warren Boyes & Archer (a firm)

Service of a claim form on a former partnership requires compliance with the specific service rules applicable to the individual partners and the partnership’s relevant place of business. Where the claimant has reason to believe that an address is obsolete, Civil Procedure Rules 1998, rule 6.9 requires reasonable steps to ascertain the defendant’s current address. A subjective belief that an address is suitable does not satisfy that requirement.

Retrospective validation under rule 6.15 requires a good reason in all the circumstances. Knowledge of the claim is important but insufficient by itself. Where there were no obstacles to valid service, the claimant delayed and failed to investigate an obvious residential address, ambiguous documentation does not provide good reason to validate defective service.

The claimant, as executor of William Goodfellow’s estate, brought a negligence claim against a former solicitors’ partnership. The alleged negligence occurred in 2006 and concerned the registration of property ownership. The claim form was issued shortly before the limitation longstop was believed to expire.

The claimant deleted Roythornes Limited and Mr Archer as defendants before service, leaving the former partnership as the sole defendant. The claim form and particulars were posted to a Roythornes office which had never been a place of business of the former partnership. The claimant applied for a declaration that service was valid under rule 6.9 or, alternatively, retrospective validation under rule 6.15. The defendant sought the opposite declaration and dismissal of the claim.

1. The claimant’s application was dismissed and the defendant’s application was granted. Posting the claim form and particulars to Roythornes’ office at The Incubator was not good service on the former partnership under Civil Procedure Rules 1998, rule 6.9.
2. A claim against a partnership is a claim against the individual partners at the date when the cause of action accrued, brought in the name under which the partnership then carried on business. It is not a claim against a later practice using the same trading name. The claimant therefore had to consider service on Mr Archer, including at his usual or last known residence or at the partnership’s principal or last known place of business.
3. Under rule 6.9, the duty to take reasonable steps is an objective duty to ascertain the defendant’s current address. It is not satisfied by reaching a reasonable subjective belief that an address is suitable. The claimant had failed even to explore Mr Archer’s residential address, which was an obvious and readily ascertainable route to valid service.
4. There was no good reason under rule 6.15 to validate service retrospectively. Documentation alone can support alternative service only where it shows obvious and uncontentious facts. The Standstill Agreement and correspondence were materially ambiguous and should have prompted further clarification. They did not establish that Mr Archer held out a Roythornes office as an address for service.
5. Although Mr Archer, through solicitors, knew of the claim before expiry of the claim form, that knowledge did not itself constitute good reason. The claimant had four months to serve, faced no obstacle to valid service, and had delayed until the final days. Those failures outweighed the potential relevance of prejudice. It was unnecessary to decide whether a subsequent claim would be statute-barred.