England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions

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

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand London WC2 Monday, 4th February 2002

Monday, 4th February 2001

1. LORD JUSTICE JONATHAN PARKER: This is an application by Mr Anil Sharma for permission to appeal against an order made by Patten J on 14 September 2001. By that order, the judge dismissed Mr Sharma's appeal against an order made by His Honour Judge Goldstein on 16 March 2000 in an action brought against Mr Sharma by Sunrise Radio Limited, claiming sums due under an advertising contract. Alternatively, in so far as the application before him was merely an application for permission to appeal, Patten J refused such permission. Mr Sharma has not appeared this morning to make this application, nor is he represented. He has had notice of the hearing but I am told that he has telephoned the listing office earlier today to say that he does not, after all, propose to attend. I shall accordingly proceed to determine the application in his absence.
2. The matter has a lengthy procedural history, which I must now summarise. The action was commenced in June 1996. In due course, Mr Sharma served a Defence. On 16 March 2000 Mr Sharma applied for permission to amend his Defence by adding a counterclaim and joining an additional party, a Mr Lit, the managing director of the claimant. Judge Goldstein refused that application, and made an order for costs against Mr Sharma, in a sum which he summarily assessed at £3,204.76. Mr Sharma applied to the Court of Appeal for permission to appeal against Judge Goldstein's order, but on 14th September 2000 May LJ refused such permission. In the meantime, Mr Sharma had issued an application seeking an order that he discharge his liability under Judge Goldstein's costs order by instalments. That application came before District Judge Silverman on 17 October 2000, when he dismissed it. Mr Sharma renewed that application, and the renewed application was heard by Mr Recorder Merriman on 1st March 2001, when it was once again dismissed. Mr Sharma applied to the Court of Appeal for permission to appeal against Mr Recorder Merriman's order. On 31 July 2001 I refused such permission at an oral hearing. On the face of it, therefore, all avenues of appeal against Judge Goldstein's order dated 16 March 2000 would appear to have been closed to Mr Sharma at that stage. However, an appeal by Mr Sharma against Judge Goldstein's order was nevertheless listed before Patten J on 14 September 2001. Alternatively, the application may (as I noted earlier) have been an application merely for permission to appeal. At all events, the judge treated the application as a substantive appeal, and he addressed the various arguments raised by Mr Sharma on that basis. Although I do not profess to understand how Mr Sharma was able to apply for permission to appeal against Judge Goldstein's order, given the earlier refusal of permission to appeal by May LJ and later by myself, still less how he was able to bring a substantive appeal against that order before the High Court, I am content to proceed for present purposes on the footing that Patten J was seised of the substantive appeal and that his order is an order made on the substantive appeal. On that footing the present application by Mr Sharma is an application for permission to bring a second-tier appeal, to which Rule 52.13 of the Civil Procedure Rules applies. The rule is in the following terms:

"(1) Permission is required from the Court of Appeal for any appeal to that court from a decision of a county court or the High Court which was itself made on appeal.

(2) The Court of Appeal will not give permission unless it considers that -

(a) the appeal would raise an important point of principle or practice; or

(b) there is some other compelling reason for the Court of Appeal to hear it."

3. Patten J gave careful consideration to the various detailed points which Mr Sharma took in relation to the summary assessment of costs carried out by Judge Goldstein, but in the event Patten J dismissed Mr Sharma's appeal subject only to modifying the summary assessment by deleting items of Value Added Tax which, as counsel for the claimant had conceded, were wrongly included in the assessment. Indeed, it appears from the judge's judgment that it was counsel for the claimant who brought this matter to the judge's notice. Accordingly, subject only to a variation to the summary assessment in that respect, Patten J dismissed Mr Sharma's appeal.
4. By his grounds of appeal, Mr Sharma contends, first, that the judge erred in law in refusing to accept what Mr Sharma describes as "recommendations" of Park J when dealing with an application made by Mr Sharma on 22 August 2001 for a stay of execution of the costs order pending his appeal. I can say straightaway that there is no substance whatever in that ground of appeal. I have before me a note, signed by the judge, of what he said on that occasion when disposing of Mr Sharma's application. The third paragraph of the judge's note reads as follows:

"As to that there may be an argument that Sunrise Radio's legal costs (its solicitors' and counsel's fees) ought to have been taken in their amounts before the addition of VAT. I will also assume a possible reduction of the professional fees by approximately 20% to allow for the contingencies (1) that Mr Sharma is given permission to appeal, and (2) that on his appeal the judge reduces the assessment. I should not be understood as implying that in my view either contingency is likely to happen."

5. The last sentence of that paragraph effectively puts paid to Mr Sharma's first proposed ground of appeal.
6. Second, Mr Sharma seeks permission to appeal in relation to the variation of the costs order by the deletion of the items relating to VAT. Once again, I can see no possible basis for an appeal in relation to that aspect of the case, on which (by the concession of the claimant) Mr Sharma was, in effect, successful.
7. Finally, Mr Sharma complains that the claimant served its skeleton argument only half an hour prior to the hearing before the judge, and that in the circumstances the judge ought to have acceded to an application by Mr Sharma to adjourn the hearing in order to give him enough time to consider the skeleton argument and to formulate his responses thereto. Mr Sharma stresses, correctly, that, as a litigant in person, he is entitled to a degree of special treatment by the court. Once again, however, there is, in my judgment, no substance in this proposed ground of appeal. If it be the case that Patten J refused an application by Mr Sharma to adjourn the hearing, that was entirely a matter for the judge in his discretion, and I can see no basis upon which it could be suggested that Mr Sharma was unable to make his points to the judge, or, for that matter, that allowing him any further time to consider the claimant's skeleton argument would have placed him in any better position in relation to the points which he sought to make. All such points were carefully and thoroughly dealt with by the judge and rejected.
8. I conclude, therefore, that the proposed appeal would not raise any important point of principle or practice, nor can I discern any other compelling reason for the Court of Appeal to hear it. I take the view that the proposed appeal would, in any event, be hopeless.
9. I accordingly dismiss the application.
(Application dismissed; no order for costs).