KDY & Anor v Nicholas Langham & Ors

Strike-out and summary judgment may be granted at an early stage where a claim has no reasonable grounds, no real prospect of success, or continuation would confer no possible benefit. The court may test the legal sufficiency of pleaded facts and reasonably available evidence, but must not conduct a mini-trial. A statement of case must identify, for each defendant, a legally recognised duty, breach, causation and loss in a concise and proportionate form; a prolix, incoherent and interdependent pleading may be struck out where amendment or severance cannot cure it. The High Court has no jurisdiction over Equality Act 2010 claims under section 114. Separate institutional decisions do not necessarily form a continuing course of conduct for limitation. A parent cannot recover psychiatric injury as a secondary victim from breaches owed only to the child without an independent duty.

The claim was brought by a child and his mother against eleven defendants connected with education, health, local government and youth services. The claim alleged negligence, personal injury, clinical negligence, discrimination, harassment, victimisation, defamation, human-rights breaches and statutory breaches.

Four groups of defendants applied to strike out the claim or obtain summary judgment. The court considered jurisdiction, limitation, the effect of related First-tier Tribunal and judicial-review proceedings, secondary-victim liability, misfeasance in public office, EHCP duties, medical evidence and the form of the particulars of claim. The joinder of the putative eleventh defendant was not separately determined before the applications were disposed of.

1. Disposition and threshold. The strike-out applications succeeded. The entire Particulars of Claim was struck out under CPR 3.4(2)(a)–(c), and the claim was dismissed against all defendants. Summary judgment and further joinder directions were unnecessary. The court applied the early-disposal principles in Swain v Hillman [2001] 1 All ER 91: the court could assess the pleaded case and reasonably available evidence, but could not conduct a mini-trial.
2. Jurisdiction and limitation. Claims under the Equality Act 2010 fell outside the High Court’s jurisdiction under section 114, subject to the stated First-tier Tribunal and judicial-review exceptions. The six-month limitation period could not be avoided by treating separate decisions of different institutions as one continuing course of conduct. Claims under the Human Rights Act 1998 were subject to the 12-month period in section 7(5); no equivalent continuing-course concept applied, and an extension of time would not be equitable. The pleaded Article 2, Article 3, Article 6, Article 8, Article 14 and Article 2 of Protocol 1 claims also failed on their merits or through duplication with other proceedings. Behaviour-management allegations did not meet the Article 8 threshold, applying R (EBB) v Gorse Academies Trust [2025] EWHC 1983 (Admin).
3. Specific causes of action. Stigmatisation was not a recognised cause of action, and the defamation pleading did not comply with CPR Part 53. Failure to provide medical reports under PD 16.4 did not alone justify strike-out, applying Mark v. Universal Coatings [2018] EWHC 3206 (QB). However, the mother’s psychiatric-injury claims as a secondary victim failed under Paul v Wolverhampton [2024] UKSC 1, because no independent duty was owed to her. The misfeasance claims failed the test in Three Rivers DC v Bank of England [2003] 2 AC 1. The duty under section 42 of the Children and Families Act 2014 lay only with the relevant local authority.
4. Earlier proceedings. The judicial-review proceedings produced no factual findings and therefore no issue estoppel. Nevertheless, the repeated public-law claims against three defendants were abusive or disclosed no reasonable grounds because permission had already been refused on the merits. The pending First-tier Tribunal claims created no issue estoppel and did not require a stay.
5. Pleading and proportionality. The 300-page, 1009-paragraph pleading breached the requirement for a concise statement of facts under CPR 16.4. Its global, cumulative and cross-cutting structure failed to identify the duty, breach, causation and damage alleged against each defendant and made a proportionate response impossible. Amendment or severance would not cure the defects. A future, properly pleaded clinical-negligence claim was not barred. Costs and the final order were to follow.