England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE MAYOR'S & CITY OF LONDON COUNTY COURT
(HIS HONOUR JUDGE MARR-JOHNSON)

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand London WC2 Wednesday, 31st January 2001

Wednesday, 31st January 2001

1. LORD JUSTICE TUCKEY: This is an application for permission to appeal by Mrs Adebiyi, the claimant in these proceedings, from a decision of His Honour Judge Marr-Johnson given in the Mayors & City of London County Court on 25th August 2000 in which he dismissed her appeal from District Judge Gordon who, on 19th July 2000, awarded her £150 damages, £45 for expenses and £100 costs.
2. This was a small claim so the appeal to Judge Marr-Johnson, lay only for mistake of law or serious irregularity affecting the proceedings. Her second appeal to this Court only lies if the case raises a point of principle or practice or there is some other compelling reason why permission should be granted.
3. The claim arose out of the sale by the defendant (in fact a Mr Olugosi) to the claimant of a reconditioned washing machine for £100 which she paid plus £50 for installing it. The washing machine soon broke down and the defendant did not repair it. So the claimant sued him in the county court. The claim did not proceed smoothly. At the beginning of December 1999 the Court gave notice to the parties of a hearing on 25th February 2000. For reasons which are not apparent however, on 21st December 1999 the Court, in the absence of both parties, dismissed the claim. When she discovered this, the claimant immediately protested and the order was set aside, but by then the defendant had been notified that the claim had been dismissed and subsequently asserted that this is why he did not appear at Court on 25th February 2000.
4. However, the claimant did attend on 25th February and in the defendant's absence the district judge on that awarded her £366.13. The defendant immediately applied to set this judgment aside saying he had a defence to the claim and that he did not attend court for the reason I have already referred to. Mrs Adebiyi (understandably) was not happy with what had happened, but in due course the judgment was set aside by another judge and she did not appeal this order. The hearing was re-fixed for 19th July when both parties attended and gave evidence. The defendant said there was nothing wrong with the machine and he was not liable for any of the claimant's losses. The district judge obviously rejected this defence and held that he was liable for having sold the claimant what effectively was a useless machine. Otherwise he would not have awarded her damages which amounted to the full cost of the machine and its installation. He also awarded her the other sums to which I have referred.
5. Essentially Miss Adebiyi says that the district judge (like the one who heard her case in the absence of the defendant) ought to have awarded her more. Her additional losses she says now amount to about £500 for items such as telephone, postage, taking away the machine, travelling expenses, loss of wages relative to her attendance at Court and a continuing loss because she has had to use a launderette. The district judge (although not faced with a claim of that size) obviously did have to consider whether to award anything on top of the return of the applicant's money and the costs to which I have referred. He obviously decided not to.
6. I can see this has made Mrs Adebiyi extremely annoyed. A first judge awarded her some of her additional losses and this judge did not. But I am afraid that the fact that he did not do so does not amount to a mistake of law; nor does it amount to a procedural impropriety. The way in which the claim was originally handled by the county court clearly does it appears give Miss Adebiyi a legitimate grievance, but that is not something which can be visited on the defendant or something which invalidates the judgment which the district judge gave. Whether items of ancillary loss of the kind which Mrs Adebiyi claims are recoverable in a claim for damages for breach of contract is a question of fact not a question of law.
7. It follows from this analysis that there were no grounds for appeal to Judge Marr-Johnson and that he was right to dismiss the appeal in the way he did. Equally it must follow that there are no conceivable grounds for appeal to this Court which could possibly be categorised as being of importance from the point of view of principle or practice or which compel permission to be given. For those reasons this application must be dismissed.
(Application for permission to appeal dismissed)