Court of Appeal (Civil Division) judgments, 1995

An estate agent may in principle owe a prospective purchaser a personal duty of care for a careless misstatement causing pure economic loss. The governing…

A fresh asylum claim requires a change in one or more essential ingredients of the earlier claim. Those ingredients include a well-founded fear of persecution…

An appellate court should not interfere with a discretionary case-management or procedural decision unless the lower court applied an improper principle, took…

For capital transfer tax, the asset to be valued must first be identified. Where a deceased partner owns an undivided interest in an agricultural tenancy as a…

A cohabitee’s beneficial interest in a home is governed by a constructive trust where the evidence establishes a common intention that the property be shared…

Habeas corpus is an appropriate remedy where detention is alleged to have been unlawful from the outset because a statutory precondition to detention was…

On an application to amend a notice of appeal, the court may distinguish between a freestanding allegation that the lower-court judge acted unfairly and…

Where a statute requires reasons to accompany an administrative decision, the reasons must be proper, adequate and intelligible. They must enable the affected…

A court will not enforce an agreement by which parties conspire to defraud a third party, even if it includes a lawful obligation to carry out work for proper…

A concessionary immigration policy that has not been laid before Parliament is not part of the immigration rules and creates no freestanding entitlement to…

A fraudulent or baseless asylum claim does not create an absolute bar to refugee protection. In an exceptional case, the act of making the claim may itself…

A particularly onerous or unusual term is not incorporated merely because a contract generally refers to standard conditions. The party seeking to enforce it…

At a preliminary issue on meaning, the court decides whether words are capable of bearing the pleaded meaning; the jury determines the meaning ultimately…

Under the Companies Act 1985, section 726(1), the court has a complete discretion whether to order security for costs. Where security is likely to stifle a…

In professional negligence, a solicitor handling urgent documents must take reasonable steps to ensure that they are correctly addressed and sent by a suitable…

The Convention inquiry is composite. The tribunal must assess whether there is a real risk of persecution for a Convention reason by considering all relevant…

Amendment of pleadings is a matter for the trial judge’s discretion, guided by justice rather than procedural punishment. The court must seek to determine the…

Leave to appeal is granted only where the proposed appeal discloses an arguable case with a prospect of success. Where no ground could succeed and the outcome…

In a negligent-misstatement claim for economic loss, the claimant must prove reliance and detriment. Reliance is absent where the claimant’s contractual…

A pedestrian injured in a road collision must prove negligence by the driver. A driver must keep a proper lookout, but is not necessarily expected to…

On an application to dismiss for want of prosecution, inordinate and inexcusable delay creating a substantial risk to a fair trial may justify striking out. A…

An appeal to a VAT Tribunal under section 40 of the Value Added Tax Act 1983 is appellate rather than supervisory. Its scope depends on the decision appealed…

Once a partner without legal title has established an equitable interest in a home through direct contribution, the share is not fixed mechanically by the cash…

Damages for breach of a joint-venture development agreement are assessed by identifying the profit the claimant would probably have received had the venture…

For the Convention ground of membership of a particular social group, the group must exist and be identifiable independently of the persecution feared. A group…

In financial-remedy proceedings, the court is not confined to capital and income proved to be immediately available. It may draw reasonable inferences about a…

In ancillary-relief proceedings, the applicant retains the burden of proving entitlement, but the respondent must provide full and frank disclosure of all…

Under the Occupiers Liability Act 1957, an occupier’s duty to warn is owed to the individual visitor. A warning is required only where, without it, that…

Where an employer consents to an employee using a workplace meeting as a forum for trade union recruitment, that consent ordinarily includes explaining the…

For limitation purposes, an unwritten tenancy is treated as determined at the end of the first relevant period, or on the last receipt of rent if rent was…

On an application to strike out for want of prosecution, the court must balance the public interest in finality and prompt progress against the justice of…

In judicial review of a health authority’s refusal to fund treatment, the court determines legality, not the merits of medical or resource-allocation…

The presumption of advancement in a parent-and-child purchase of a home is a judicial instrument of last resort. It is readily rebutted by comparatively slight…

In an unobserved accident, a court may infer causation from proved facts on the balance of probabilities where the inference is a reasonable deduction rather…

In clinical-negligence cases concerning professional judgment, the claimant bears the burden of proving that the decision was one which no reasonable doctor…