1A - Civil Courts

Question 1

Civil claims

Answer 1

claims made in civil courts when an individual organisation or a business believes their rights have been infringed in some way

Question 2

Main areas of civil law

Answer 2

• contract law (company may claim money that’s owed to them)
• law of tort (tort of negligence- individual claiming compensation for injuries in an accident for example. Other types of tort- claim might not be for money but for another remedy eg. injunction)
• family law
• company law
• employment law

Question 3

Layout of the case title

Answer 3

claimant surname v defendant surname

Question 4

Civil cases aim to get what?

Answer 4

• compensation: damages

- injunction: stops someone from doing something or makes someone do something

Question 5

What is the jurisdiction of civil courts?

Answer 5

civil disputes and family matters, property, divorce, contract, tort (eg negligence)

Question 6

structure of the civil court system

Answer 6

Supreme Court
          ↓
Court of Appeal - civil division
          ↓
High Court - family, chancery and Queens Bench division
          ↓
County Court
          ↓
Magistrates Court

Question 7

Magistrates Court

Answer 7

• deals with 97% criminal cases
• some civil jurisdiction (family matters- not divorce- unpaid council tax/water/gas/electricity, local authority appeals on licences for gambling and alcohol sales)
• Heard by Magistrates or District Judges

Question 8

Who’s behind the bench at the magistrates?

Answer 8

3 lay people (not legal people) OR 1 district judge

Question 9

County Court

Answer 9

• 200 in England and Wales (Gov wants to close 50)
• they try nearly all civil cases and are the lowest civil court
• Court of first instance (first place a case is heard)
• Judged by a district or circuit judge

Question 10

County Court jurisdiction

Answer 10

• all contact and tort claims
• all cases for recovery of land
• disputes over equitable matters (eg trusts up to £350,000)

Question 11

High Court

Answer 11

• based in London but there are judges in towns and cities across England and Wales
• Jurisdiction: Hear any civil claims
• 120 High Court Judges (usually alone) most judges sit in the Royal Courts of Justice but also sit in 20 towns and cities across the UK
• Court of first instance and appeal court

Question 12

High Court: Queen’s Bench Division

Answer 12

• Biggest division
• contract and tort cases over £100,000 and important points of law
• Normally 1 judge but can have a jury for fraud, libel and slander cases
• Administrative court: supervises the lawfulness of he conduct of national and of other public bodies through judicial review

Question 13

High Court: Chancery Division

Answer 13

• Jurisdiction: mortgage enforcement, intellectual property matters and copyrights and patents
• Special companies court - deals with winding up companies
• 1 judge and juries are NEVER used

Question 14

High Court: Family Division

Answer 14

• Family cases where a dispute about which country’s laws should apply and all international cases concerning family matters under the Hague Convention
• 1 judge
• The Crime and Courts Act 2013: created new separate Family Court which now hears majority of family matters.
  Family Division now only hears difficult/important cases

Question 15

Pre-trial procedures

Answer 15

First try to negotiate an agreed settlement using Alternative Dispute Resolution for most cases

Question 16

Pre-trial procedures: pre action protocols

Answer 16

1. Let them know you’re making a claim
2. Send a claim form to the relevant court with the fees (N1 form)
3. Court will send a claim to the D
4. If D wants to defend the claim, they send an N9 form back
5. Court will allocate the correct track
   * ** if the parties don’t follow the correct procedures - they may be liable for certain costs if they make a court claim*** - may not get costs awarded even if they win (Dunnet v Railtrack)

Question 17

Issuing a claim: County Court

Answer 17

choose any of the 200 county courts across the UK

Question 18

Issuing a claim: High Court

Answer 18

• choose one of the 20 district registries OR the main court in London
• N1 claim form (court office explains how to fill it in) and can be online

Question 19

Issuing a claim: Fees

Answer 19

Claim has to be filled at a court office and a fee will be charged

Question 20

The three tracks procedure was developed by?

Answer 20

the Civil Procedure Rules 1999

Question 21

Three tracks allocation: What happens when the claim is personal injury?

Answer 21

• less than £1,000 → small claim in the county court
• £1,000 - £25,000 → fast track claim in the county court
• £25,000 - £50,000 → multi track claim in the county court
• £50,000+ → multi track claim in the high court

Question 22

Three tracks allocation: What happens when the claim isn’t personal injury?

Answer 22

• less than £10,000 → small claim in the county court
• £10,000 - £25,000 → fast track claim in the county court
• £25,000 - £100,000 → multi track claim in the county court
• £100,000+ → multi track claim in the high court

Question 23

Small claims

Answer 23

• parties are encouraged to represent themselves
• can’t claim lawyers fees from the other side
• usually heard in private in a small claims court but they can be heard in an ordinary court
• procedure allows the district judge to be flexible in the way they hear the case
• district judges are given training in how to handle small claim cases and will take an active role in the proceedings like asking questions and making sure both parties explain their points fully

Question 24

Fast track claims

Answer 24

• court will set down a very strict timetable for pre-trail matters which aims at preventing sides from wasting time and creating unnecessary costs
• once a case is set for hearing the aim is to have the case heard within 30 weeks but is really closer to 50 weeks
• actual trial is usually heard by a circuit judge and takes place in open court with a more formal procedure than a small claim. By having it heard in an open court, the media can be present and raise awareness if a case is unfairly rule
• to speed up the actual trial, the hearing will be limited to a maximum of one day and only one expert witness is allowed

Question 25

Multi track claims

Answer 25

• heard by a judge who will be expected to manage the case from its allocation to the multi-track route. Managing the case includes: identifying issues quickly, encoring the use of ADR if appropriate, dealing with procedural steps without parties needing to attend court and fixing a timetable that outlines the different stages of the case that must be completed
• case management is aimed at keeping the costs of the cases low as possible and ensuring its heard relatively fast

Question 26

Reform of civil courts - what do we want from a civil courts system - accessibility

Answer 26

the court hierarchy makes county court accessible as there are 200

Question 27

Reform of civil courts - what do we want from a civil courts system - affordability

Answer 27

if you can’t afford to take a claim to court because of court fees, legal fees, if you lose you have to pay the other sides costs etc legal funding is available but it is limited as to who can access it

Question 28

Reform of civil courts - what do we want from a civil courts system - easy to understand

Answer 28

In a court hearing they use legal jargon meaning the defendant may not understand what being said.
- T and V v UK - two children kidknapped and tortured Jamie Bulger by strapping him to a train line. They were intimidated by the courts and went to High Court, but for them to understand what they were being convicted of they had to understand the court proceedings

Question 29

Reform of civil courts - what do we want from a civil courts system - reasonable speed

Answer 29

For some cases, the parties may want the case dealt with quickly so as to return to normal life and in other cases they’ll want it dealt with slowly so as to find sufficient evidence. For fast track cases there is a wait time of 30-50 weeks

Question 30

Reform of civil courts - what do we want from a civil courts system - fair and just cases

Answer 30

Judge listens to both sides and is unbiased and they’re reasons for their decision will be explained in the judgement
If the case ruling is unfair, you can appeal a case

Question 31

Who is Lord Woolfe?

Answer 31

He was the Head of the Committee that was looking at reforming the civil law and he produced a report - Access to Justice Report 1996 that lead to the Access to Justice Act 1999.
He was highly critical of the civil court system and his recommendations led to the biggest change in the way courts operated for 100 years

Question 32

What did the Access to Justice Report 1996 say?

Answer 32

• Court action is too expensive
• There are excessive delays
  
  • 1994 - High Court cases were taking on average 163 weeks in London and 189 weeks outside of London
  • County Court delays were around 80 weeks
• Adversarial process often results in tactical behaviour rather than co-operation between lawyers in search go justice
• complex thus limiting access to the court proceedings
• the hearing themselves are too long and judges aren’t intervening to curtail (reduce in extent) long cases = high costs

Question 33

Adversarial process

Answer 33

a process that supports opposing one sided views by individuals/groups, as inputs to the conflict resolution

Question 34

What was the effect of the Woolfe Reforms?

Answer 34

• Access to Justice Report 1996 → Civil Procedure Act 1997 which was introduced to all civil courts in April 1999.
  Objective = simplify the system, reduce costs and delays
• Civil Procedure Act 1997 introduced pre-action protocols, judges were required to encourage parties to settle, case management was done by judges, the track system was added as a new way of case allocation, the person starting the case was previously the plaintiff but are now claimants
• still problems. delays have been reduced, but there are still year long waits between issuing a fast or multi track claim and the court trial
• The main problems are: ADR isn’t used enough, costs of cases have continued to increase (particularly costs in a fast track case are often bigger than the claimed amount) and the courts are still under-resourced

Question 35

Further reforms since the Woolfe Reforms

Answer 35

• more changes have been made: financial limits for small and fast track claims to avoid expensive trials for lower value claims
• The Civil Procedure Rules have been changed to emphasise that the courts ‘deal with the cases justly and at a proportionate cost’ (winning party can only claim back costs if they are proportionate to the claim)
• The latest review was done by Lord Briggs in 2016. He put forward 2 proposals being (1) there should be an out-of-hours private mediation service in the County Court (2) that an online court should be set up

Question 36

Appeals from the County Court

Answer 36

Appel route depends on the judge
- if it was first heard by a district judge - appeal to Circuit Judge in the SAME county court
- if it was first heard by a circuit judge - appeal to high court
You can only appeal a case once under the Access to Justice Act 1999, if its appealed twice, go to Court of Appeals Civil Division but further appeals are only allowed in exceptional cases which are set out in s 55 of the Access to Justice Act 1999:
(1) the appeal would raise an important point of principle or practice, or
(2) there is some other compelling reason for the Court of Appeal to hear it

Question 37

Appeals from the High Court

Answer 37

A decision in the High Court leads to an appeal in the Court of Appeals Civil Division
In rare cases a case can ‘leap frog’ directly to the Supreme Court
- as of 2015, such an appeal must involve an issue which is of national importance or raise issues of sufficient importance
- from a decision of the court of appeal there is a father appeal to the Supreme Court but only in the Supreme Court or from the Court of Appeal gives permission to appeal

Question 38

What are the advantages of the civil courts?

Answer 38

• Process is fair in that everyone is treated alike
• Trial is conducted by a legal expert with the decision being made by a Judge who’s an experienced and qualified lawyer
• Enforcement of the court’s decision is easier
• There’s an appeal process with specific routed from decisions made in courts
• It may be possible to get legal aid, although legal aid for civil cases has been significantly reduced by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012
• There’s a track system and allocation by judges speeds up the system
• The court is understandable - T and V v UK

Question 39

What are the disadvantages of the civil courts? Costs

Answer 39

Costs of taking a case to court are often more than the amount being claimed. In High Court, the costs can be hundred and for smaller claims the costs are often for more than the amount claimed

Question 40

What are the disadvantages of the civil courts? Delay

Answer 40

There are many preliminary stages to go through that add the length of a case. Even after the case is set down for hearing at court there is still a long wait - usually a year for larger cases before they’re heard in court. All of this can mean cases aren’t finished for years

Question 41

What are the disadvantages of the civil courts? Complicated process

Answer 41

There may be compulsory steps to be taken before a case is started in court. Eg. for some types of case, the parties must use set pre-action protocols and give the other party certain information. When a case is started in court, there are forms to be filled in and set procedure to follow. Theses are all set in the Civil Procedure Rules. Makes it very complicated for an ordinary person to take a case without legal advice and help

Question 42

What are the disadvantages of the civil courts? Uncertainty

Answer 42

No guarantee that you’ll win. Person losing a case may have to pay the other sides costs. Makes it difficult to know how much a case is going to cost in advance. Delays in cases add to the uncertainty and costs