Case management powers and striking out Flashcards
What are examples of the courts general case management powers?
*Extend/shorten the time for compliance with any rule, PD or court order.
*Adjourn hearings or bring them forward
*Require a party or their legal representative to attend court
*Stay the whole or part of the proceedings or judgment either generally or until a specified period.
*Order any party to file and serve a costs budget.
*general provision allowing the court to take any other step or make any order for the purposes of managing the case and furthering the overriding objective.
What does it mean by the court’s power to make orders of its own initiative and what is the process?
Without either party taking a step, the court could provide new directions or terminate a case.
*If the court makes an order of its own initiative without a hearing and without giving the parties the opportunity to make representations, the court will include a statement in the order that the parties have a right to apply to set aside, stay or vary the order within a given period.
*If the court does not specify a period, any application should be made within 7 days of the date on which the order was served on the party making the application.
What is the court’s power to strike out?
The court may exercise its power to strike out the whole or part of a statement of case of its own initiative or on the application of a party.
What is strike out?
Strike out is the deletion of written material from a statement of case so that it cannot be relied on in the proceedings by any party. It can include deletion of the entire statement of case so that the case is effectively over.
Strike out is designed to target cases that are inadequately drafted or are otherwise an abuse of the court process.
When should a strike out application be made?
ASAP and preferably before allocation.
If the court is to strike out when will this happen?
If the court is to strike out, this is likely to happen around the allocation/case management stage
What does it mean that strike out is used sparingly?
Strike out is used quite sparingly by the courts as there are often more suitable ways to deal with defective cases such as requiring the party at fault to amend its statement of case or, if a ground for striking out is a failure to comply with a previous order, imposing a sanction such as an adverse cost order.
What are the grounds for strike out?
a) the statement of case discloses no reasonable ground for bringing or defending the claim.
b) the statement of case is an abuse of the court’s process or otherwise likely to obstruct the just disposal of proceedings.
c) there has been a failure to comply with a rule, PD or court order.
What is the judgment after strike out?
Where the court makes an order which includes a term that the statement of case of a party will be struck out if the party does not comply with the order (for example, “If the claimant does not provide a copy of the contract referred to in the particulars of claim, the particulars claim will be struck out”), and the party does not comply and so the statement of case is struck out, the other party can generally obtain judgment with costs by filing a simple request at court (on rare occasions, an application to court will be required).
