England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
CHANCERY DIVISION
IN BANKRUPTCY
(MR JUSTICE FERRIS)

		Royal Courts of Justice The Strand London Thursday 8 February 2001

Thursday 8 January 2001

1. LORD JUSTICE PETER GIBSON: Sheila Cameron applies for permission to appeal out of time from the order made by Mr Justice Ferris on 4 May 2000. The judge thereby dismissed her appeal against the bankruptcy order made by Mr Registrar Baister on 25 November 1999. The appeal to this court would be a second appeal. For her to obtain permission to appeal, she must not only persuade me that the appeal would have a real prospect of success or that there is some other compelling reason why the appeal should be heard, but also that the appeal would raise an important point of principle or practice, or again that there is some other compelling reason why the appeal should be heard. Miss Cameron had 14 days from the date of the judge's decision in which to file her appellant's notice. She did so on 26 May and is thus one week late. No excuse has been proffered for the delay. However, it is a comparatively short delay and if she can persuade me of the satisfaction of the other conditions for obtaining permission, I would not hold that delay against her.
2. The background facts in summary are these. Miss Cameron was employed by the respondent, the Royal School, Hampstead ("the school"), as a school teacher and house mistress from 1989 to 1991. Her appointment was then terminated. She commenced two sets of proceedings against the school arising out of her dismissal, one in April 1994 in the Barnet County Court ("the Barnet action"), the other in August 1997 in the Central London County Court ("the Central London action"). Both actions have been struck out.
3. There have been several costs orders made against Miss Cameron in favour of the school. There are three costs orders relevant to this application. On 23 October 1998, when District Judge Haselgrove struck out the Central London action, Miss Cameron was ordered to pay the costs. On 8 April 1999, costs were taxed at £7,234.37, which she was ordered to pay by 11 June 1999. On 27 April 1999, on an unsuccessful application by Miss Cameron to vary the costs order of 23 October 1998, District Judge Haselgrove ordered Miss Cameron to pay costs of £176.25 by 18 May 1999. On 14 May 1999, His Honour Judge Zucker QC, on the dismissal of Miss Cameron's appeal from the District Judge's order of 23 October 1998, ordered her to pay costs of £1,181.46 by 28 May 1999.
4. When those orders were not met by payment, on 31 August 1999 the school served a statutory demand on her for those three sums, plus interest, a total of £8,739.74. She applied to set aside the statutory demand, but Mr Registrar James dismissed the application on 22 September 1999 and authorised the school to present a bankruptcy petition on or after 4 October 1999. She applied for an injunction to restrain the presentation of the petition, but Mr Justice Evans- Lombe refused the application on 4 October 1999 and the following day refused her permission to appeal.
5. The school presented a petition on 7 October 1999. She then applied to the Central London County Court for a stay of execution of the three costs orders. That application was refused by His Honour Judge Hallgarten QC. On 25 November 1999, Mr Registrar Baister made a bankruptcy order against Miss Cameron. Earlier Miss Cameron had applied to this court for permission to appeal from the order of Judge Zucker of 14 May 1999, but Lord Justice Brooke on 3 May 2000 refused that application as well as an application for permission to appeal from an order of the County Court refusing permission to appeal from the order of District Judge Hasan on 4 May 1999 striking out the Barnet actions.
6. On 4 May 2000, Mr Justice Ferris heard an application by Miss Cameron for an adjournment of her appeal from the bankruptcy order made by Mr Registrar Baister. He refused that adjournment, dismissed her appeal and ordered Miss Cameron to pay costs of £2,000. Miss Cameron then filed her appellant's notice seeking permission to appeal from Mr Justice Ferris' order. The application was to be heard last term, but she obtained an adjournment on medical grounds. The hearing was re-fixed for today. She has applied to me today for a further adjournment so as to enable her to obtain legal advice. She claims that the case is very complex, or that she has written to well over fifty solicitors and has not been able to find a single one willing or able to assist her under legal aid. She has said that she has found a solicitor who promised to look at her papers to determine whether he would apply for emergency legal aid, and she prays in aid the fact that she has been ill quite a lot since December 1999. She asks that there should be an adjournment whilst other proceedings which she has commenced, or is about to commence, can run their course. They include proceedings for judicial review, as she puts it, of the Central London County Court. She submits that it would be just to await the outcome of those further proceedings before this court adjudicates on her application for permission.
7. In order to consider that application it is appropriate to consider her grounds of appeal. They run to 38 paragraphs on ten closely-typed pages. She has submitted a written skeleton argument in support. In addition, she has handed to me today a shorter skeleton argument dealing primarily with an application for an adjournment. She complains in her grounds of appeal, first, of Mr Justice Ferris' refusal to grant an adjournment. She says that she needed to be represented. She complains that she was given only a limited time in which to speak. However, it appears from the judgment that she wanted to address the judge "at almost indefinite length". She addressed the judge, it appears, for no less than forty minutes on the application for an adjournment, at which point the judge said that in view of her persistence in addressing him on matters of irrelevant past history he felt obliged to limit the time for presenting her argument. She submits that that was unfair.
8. She also criticises various orders made leading to the striking out of her two actions, and the orders for costs made against her. She has gone so far as to suggest today that there was fraud in the obtaining of at least one of the orders. If that is so, then that is a matter that should be pursued in independent proceedings. I give no encouragement for such a course. As matters now stand certainly no fraud has been shown. As I have indicated, the various orders have all been the subject of further proceedings by her which have not yielded to her any success thus far.
9. She complains of clerical and judicial maladministration in the Central London County Court. She also challenges the order by the judge for the payment of £2,000 costs.
10. I am afraid that I do not see that any of these grounds raises any important point of principle or practice. Nor is there any other compelling reason why the appeal should be heard. There is no real prospect of an appeal succeeding on any of the grounds which she has put forward.
11. The judge had a discretion whether to grant or to refuse an adjournment. In the circumstances of this case it seems to me that he was well within the proper ambit of the exercise of that discretion in proceeding as he did. A judge who has proper regard to the overriding objective of the Civil Procedure Rules cannot allow a litigant to speak for however long he or she wishes. In the exercise of his case management powers, the judge was fully entitled to limit her in time. Indeed, he appears to have been quite generous in what he did allow her.
12. Miss Cameron has had ample opportunity to seek to challenge the orders for costs made against her. On one, the order of His Honour Judge Zucker, she had has tried to obtain permission to appeal from this court, but that has failed and so she can go no further.
13. On one matter she points to what certainly appears to have been an irregularity. She was notified by letter dated 17 January 1999 from the court when the school's solicitors put in their bill of costs relating to the order of District Judge Haselgrove on 23 October 1998. She was told that if she wished to be present at the taxation, she should notify the court. She says that she did so by letter dated 22 February 1999 which is in the bundle before me. Indeed, there is a second letter dated 1 March 1999, in which she makes the same point to the court. However, the taxation appears to have gone ahead in her absence, the taxation certificate being issued on 8 April 1999.
14. Under the rules she had fourteen days in which to seek a review of the taxation. If the decision on the review was not accepted, she then would have had the right to a review by the circuit judge and from the circuit judge's decision she could bring an appeal to this court. But she did not follow this procedure. Instead she applied to Judge Hallgarten for a stay. That application failed. She also applied, long out of time in November 1999, to set aside the taxation certificate. That was adjourned by His Honour Judge Ryland on 17 March 2000, pending the application for permission to appeal from Judge Zucker's order, but Lord Justice Brooke refused that application. Mr Justice Ferris pointed out that the theoretical possibility that her application to set aside the certificate would succeed, despite being so out of time, would still have left the order for costs standing and that the most she could hope for was some reduction in the taxed costs. But quite apart from those costs, the other items in the statutory demand of £1,181.46 and £176.25 are not affected by her complaint in respect of the certified costs. Although she says that those orders for costs were wrongly made, it is now too late to seek to do anything about them. Her various applications have run their course and those orders stand.
15. Thus on any footing, as it seems to me, the bankruptcy order was made in respect of a debt, £1,357.71 of which cannot be challenged. It was based on a statutory demand which she has sought to set aside but has failed to do so.
16. The impecuniosity of the unsuccessful party to litigation is no good reason for refusing the successful party the order for costs which normally follows the event. It is a quite different matter whether the party who obtains such an order proceeds on the order. In my judgment, there is no possibility of a successful challenge to the judge's award of costs in the sum of £2,000, which was a substantial reduction from the costs which had been claimed.
17. I can see no point in acceding to Miss Cameron's application for an adjournment. She has sought numerous adjournments at various times. I accept that she is finding great difficulty in obtaining a solicitor to act for her. The unpalatable truth would appear to be that those solicitors whom she has approached may not have found that her case has any legal foundation. In the circumstances therefore I refuse the application for an adjournment.
18. Because of the conclusions which I have reached in relation to the prospects of success on an appeal and as to whether there is any other compelling reason why the appeal should be heard and as to whether any point of principle or practice is raised, it is inevitable, I am afraid, that I must refuse this application.
ORDER: Application refused; permission to appeal refused; application to stay bankruptcy advertisement refused. (Order does not form part of approved Judgment)