Supreme Court judgments, 2024

In civil proceedings governed by the costs regime in the Civil Procedure Rules 1998, litigation costs must be dealt with under that regime. They cannot be…

A specifically enforceable agreement for value to transfer an equitable interest can create a vendor–purchaser constructive trust even where the purchaser is…

Where a contractual term purports to benefit an expressly identified third party, sections 1(1)(b) and 1(3) of the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999…

Expenditure incurred during the second ten years of an enterprise zone qualifies under section 298(1)(b) of the Capital Allowances Act 2001 only if, by the…

At common law, the immovables rule prevents a foreign bankruptcy law or order from affecting any right to or interest in land situated in England and Wales.…

The one-year time bar in article III, rule 6 of both the Hague Rules and the Hague-Visby Rules applies to a carrier’s misdelivery of goods after discharge but…

A document recording a legally unenforceable collective agreement may be rectified where correction would alter legal rights through terms incorporated into…

A trade mark application may be made in bad faith where its specification includes goods or services for which the applicant had no genuine intention to use…

Under section 13(1) of the Inquiries Act 2005, a Minister may suspend a public inquiry to allow a related investigation or civil, criminal or disciplinary…

For the purposes of section 70 of the Solicitors Act 1974, a solicitor’s bill is paid by deduction or retention from client money only if the client agrees to…

A person generally owes a duty to avoid creating unreasonable and reasonably foreseeable risks of physical injury, but no duty to protect others from…

An immigration appeal to the First-tier Tribunal is a fresh determination. The tribunal becomes the operative decision-maker and must itself comply with…

The existence of other proceedings capable of advancing a claimant’s wider objective does not itself make them suitable alternatives to judicial review.…

A general choice of law governing a contract ordinarily governs an arbitration clause contained in it, even where the arbitration has a foreign seat. The law…

A contract of employment may exist for a single engagement even though neither party was obliged to offer or accept the work and either could cancel…

An employer’s express power to terminate employment on notice may be qualified by a term implied in fact where its exercise for a particular purpose would…

Where legislation does not prescribe the consequence of breaching a procedural requirement, the court must identify the consequence which best fits the…

Article 6(1) applies to a review of a temporary exclusion order where permitted obligations interfere with civil rights and the imposition review will…

An expense of managing an investment business may still be capital expenditure. The expressions “expenses of a capital nature” in section 1219(3)(a) and “items…

An air carrier cannot rely on the defence of extraordinary circumstances where a flight is cancelled because an essential crew member unexpectedly becomes ill.…

A collateral warranty is a construction contract under section 104(1) of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 only where the contractor…

A sewerage undertaker may be liable in nuisance or trespass for polluting discharges into a watercourse where its system operates as designed, even if avoiding…

A civil claim which challenges an earlier criminal conviction is not an abuse of process under the Hunter principle unless the claimant had a full and fair…

An environmental impact assessment for a project to extract fossil fuels must assess greenhouse gas emissions from the fuel's inevitable combustion where those…

Under section 3(1) of the Defamation Act 1952, a malicious falsehood calculated to cause pecuniary damage is actionable without proof of actual financial loss.…

A reasonable endeavours proviso in a force majeure clause does not, without clear wording, require the affected party to accept an offer of non-contractual…

A person is jointly liable for procuring a tort only if they intended to cause the primary actor’s conduct and knew the essential facts which made it wrongful.…

State-owned cargo carried aboard a commercial vessel is not thereby “in use” for commercial purposes under section 10(4)(a) of the State Immunity Act 1978. The…

A claimant seeking damages in private nuisance must prove that the defendant’s breach factually caused the claimed loss. The ordinary inquiry is whether the…

An appeal under section 69 of the Arbitration Act 1996 is confined to a question of law which the tribunal was asked to determine and must proceed on the…

An extended, self-induced immigration limbo may engage article 8, but it does not automatically oblige the state to grant leave to remain. The conventional…

The right to strike is protected by article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, although it is neither a core nor an absolute right. The state has a…

Where a claimant suffers whiplash and non-whiplash injuries in the same accident, the court must assess the statutory tariff amount and the common law damages…

For section 20(3) of the Extradition Act 2003, a person deliberately absents himself from trial only by unequivocally waiving the article 6 right to be…

A foreign website uses a trade mark within the protected territory when its advertisements or offers are targeted there. Targeting is assessed objectively from…

Under section 20(5) of the Extradition Act 2003, entitlement to a retrial means a substantive right to receive one. A right merely to apply does not suffice…

The statutory tests for compulsory detention for medical treatment under the Mental Health (Northern Ireland) Order 1986 and the Mental Health Act 1983 both…

A bailee in possession of property may recover financial loss consequential on negligent physical damage to that property. Such loss is not pure economic loss…

VAT charged on imported goods remains an internal fiscal measure where it applies within a general system of taxation to corresponding domestic and imported…

Different sentencing regimes must be assessed as whole entities when deciding whether prisoners are in analogous situations for article 14 purposes.…

A respondent affected by an order granting leave, made without notice under section 13 of the Matrimonial and Family Proceedings Act 1984, has an unconditional…

A contractual requirement that one party pay insurance premiums does not, without more, create an insurance code making insurance the sole avenue of recovery.…

A person who suffers a recognised psychiatric illness from witnessing the death or illness of a close relative cannot recover as a secondary victim unless the…