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Intro do Civil Lit - Coggle Diagram
Intro do Civil Lit
Jurisdiction in the UK
The UK is comprised of 3 separate jurisdictions
- England & Wales
- Scotland
- Northern Ireland
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The HC
King's Bench Division (KBD)
- "General" KBD list
- Administrative Court
- Planning Court
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Court Hierarchy
- Doesn't bind itself
- Binds itself when sitting as Divisional Court (hearing appeals from County Court)
- Doesn't bind itself when hearing claims at first instance
- Doesn't bind itself
- All courts bind courts below
County Court
High Court (HC)
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- King's Bench Division
- Chancery Division
- Family Division
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Costs and Funding
Solicitors/own client costs
- These are the fees that a firm/solicitor charges its own clients, and which that the client is liable to pay to the firm pursuant to their individual fee agreement
- General rule: unsuccessful party pays the cost of the successful party (but the court has discretion as to the cost)
- Indemnity principle - cannot recover more from the other side than client has paid to its own solicitor
Party/party costs:
- These are the fees and costs that one party might claim and recover from another party as part of any claim or settlement. In most cases, a client is unlikely to recover all of the costs that it has paid to its own solicitor
- There are many potential ways for a client to fund their own solicitor's fees
- Private retainer
- Conditional fee arrangements
- Damages based agreements
- Fixed fees
- Eligibility for civil legal aid
- 3rd party funding
- L:egal expenses insurance
Case and Matter Analysis
Duty:
- Did D owe a duty to C
- Contractual?
- Express terms (written/oral)
- Implied terms
- Tortious duty?
Breach:
- Has D breached the duties indemnified?
- Question of fact based on evidence
Causation
- Did the breach of duty cause C a loss?
Defences / limiting factors:
- Mitigation, remoteness, frustration, force majeure, exclusion/limitation clause etc
What other issues do you think about?
- Parties - who are the D's
- Limitation - is the claim being brought in time?
County Court or HC?
- Higher value, more complex claims are more likely to in the HC
- Allocation to a "track" indicates how much time and resource the court will allocate to the claim
- The higher the value and complexity, more likely that the claim will be on the multi-track
- Important factors to look out for:
- (1) Value
- (2) Complexity
- (3) Public Importance
County Court
- Multi Track > £100k (depending on factors 2 and 3)
- Intermediate Track - £25k - £100k
- Fast Track - £10k - £25k
- Small Claims - anything below £10k
High Court
- Multi Track (anything above £100k)
- With consideration of the 3 factors)
- Does a specific enactment tell you to issue the claim in the HC or County Court?
- Is the claim a personal injury claim worth less than £50k
- Is the claim a non-PI claim worth £100k or less?
- Is issuing the HC justified on the grounds of:
- (a) financial value of the claim / amount in dispute;
- (b) complexity of facts / legal issues / remedies / procedures; or
- c) public importance
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Judges
"My Lord or "My lady"
- Lord Chief Justice
- President of the Supreme Court
- Justices of the Supreme Court.
- Judges of the CA
- HC Judges
"Judge"
- District Judges
- Deputy District Judge
Routes of Appeals
County Court District Judge:
- First Appeal - go through levels of hierarchy
- Route of first appeal - straight to the CA (exceptional circumstances only)
County Court Circuit Judge:
- First Appeal - go through levels of hierarchy
- Route of first appeal - straight to the CA (exceptional circumstances only)
- Second appeals - go to CA (unless you are already there, in which case, SoC)
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HC Master / District Judge in HC:
- First Appeal - go through levels of hierarchy
- Route of first appeal - straight to the CA (exceptional circumstances only)
HC Judge:
- First Appeal - go through levels of hierarchy
- Route of first appeal - straight to the SC (exceptional circumstances only)
- Second appeals - go to CA (unless you are already there, in which case, SoC)
Court of Appeal:
- Second appeals - go the CA (unless you are already there, in which case, SoC)
Supreme Court:
- Special rules apply to appeals to the SC - these are beyond the scope of this element
Tips for understanding civil litigation:
- Think of litigation as a whole process, composed of separate (but interconnected) stages
- Make sure you can orientate yourself - what is happening at this particular stage? How does it fit into the litigation process as a whole?
- For each concept/topic, make sure you can apply the law to a contextualised (client-focused) situation
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