England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE B1/2002/0326
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE CENTRAL LONDON COUNTY COURT
(His Honour Judge Knight)

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand London WC2A 2LL Friday, 14th June 2002

Friday, 14th June 2002

1. LORD JUSTICE BROOKE: This is an application by Mr Poster for permission to appeal against part of an order made by Laddie J on 31st January 2002, on an appeal from an order made by Judge Knight QC in the Central London County Court on 20th April 2001, that he should pay the costs of an application by the defendant dated 17th January 2001 on an indemnity basis. Laddie J altered that order to a limited extent, and Mr Poster now has to pay costs on a standard basis only. Mr Poster seeks permission to appeal on the basis that he should not have been ordered to pay the costs of the application at all. To this extent this is a proposed second appeal for which the higher threshold set out in CPR 52.13.2 applies. He also seeks permission to appeal against the order of Laddie J that he should pay the costs of the appeal to the judge. To that extent it is a first appeal, but it is completely tied up with the second appeal.
2. Mr Poster is a former solicitor. He was struck off by the Law Society, but he has told me that he carries on a small business negotiating holiday claims for clients. On this occasion he agreed to take on what he called a rather substantial case for 55 clients who had contracted food poisoning whilst on holiday in Turkey against the defendant company. He embarked on negotiations with the company. He conducted two meetings with the company and their insurers. He told me that offers were made. He advised his clients that they were derisory and that they should issue proceedings. He then assisted them in getting their proceedings issued in person.
3. The defendants' solicitors then took over the matter. He attended their offices. He secured admissions of liability from them, and he has told me this morning that he secured that judgment should be entered in his clients' favour for damages to be assessed with costs.
4. The defendants' solicitors then had the proceedings transferred to the Central London County Court. Mr Poster said he continued negotiations with them. They made various interlocutory applications. Towards the end of this history an application was issued against all the clients for discovery, but it was only served on Mr Poster.
5. Mr Poster had been granted permission, in an order that I have not seen, to act for the claimants as a lay representative. Judge Knight QC allowed an appeal by the defendants against that order in the summer 2000. It therefore followed that Mr Poster had no rights under the Court and Legal Services Act either to conduct litigation or to act as an advocate on behalf of clients in the context of proceedings. I strongly recommend that he should read the recent judgment of the court in Paragon Finance Plc v Noueiri [2001] 1 WLR 2357 in which this court has made it completely clear what the status of lay people is when they purport to act for litigants in the context of proceedings.
6. On the material that I have seen and heard, it appears that Mr Poster in conducting the activities connected with the court proceedings, which he has told me about this morning and which I have recited in my judgment, was conducting litigation when no right to conduct litigation had been conferred. This is prima facie an offence under section 20(1) of the Solicitors Act 1974, and section 70(1) and (6) of the Court and Legal Services Act 1990 refer to this. Mr Poster has told me that in an informal way, because he was there in court, Judge Knight often asked him to come up and speak to him on behalf of the lay people for whom he was acting. There is evidence in the papers that he had made some financial arrangement for his reward in connection with his activities.
7. Whatever Judge Knight may have done on an informal basis, I strongly recommend that Mr Poster should study the law carefully if he is not to find himself faced with either contempt proceedings or criminal proceedings in the future.
8. Be that as it may, Mr Poster attended before Judge Knight on 15th December - it appears that the application was not served on the claimants - and I have the transcript of what happened. He had handed over to the defendant solicitors when they came to court the files in his possession. In those circumstances, all they wanted him to do was to make a formal disclosure statement (as a non party who had documents relating to the case in his possession) and the claimants themselves to make a formal disclosure statement.
9. In court there was a draft order. At one stage the judge said (at page 28 of the transcript) that counsel should take an overall look at this draft order and consider how it stood in the light of what had been said and done thus far. There was then an adjournment. When the judge returned, counsel told him that paragraph five of the draft order needed to be altered. He set out the alteration, and the judge in due course said "Yes". Mr Poster had earlier (at page 18 of the transcript) been present at a discussion when it was said that disclosure had been overtaken and all that was needed now was a simple disclosure statement, which Mr Poster offered to supply by taking an oath in the box.
10. I have been told by Mr Poster this morning that, as often happens, the judge at the end of the day asked counsel formally to draw up the order to reflect what had happened that day. This very, very commonly happens. It happens every day of the week in the Court of Appeal. The court has made an order and all that needs to be done then is for the order to be drawn up.
11. Under the new Civil Procedure Rules, because of the problems which used to occur when the formal order was not drawn up, although the order had been made orally in court, time for appealing now runs, under CPR Part 52, from the time that the judge makes his order in court.
12. In due course, after certain amount of toing and froing, the order was sealed. Mr Poster served his disclosure statement on 3rd January. The claimants did not serve disclosure statements until 18th January, the defendants's solicitors in a letter dated 10th January having warned Mr Poster that they would be applying for an unless order unless disclosure statements were served. They then went to the expense of issuing an application on 17th January for an unless order unless there was compliance with the order which Judge Knight had made. Because those statements were served, that order was withdrawn, and the only matter with which these proceedings are concerned is the costs relating to these proceedings on 17th January.
13. Judge Knight was satisfied that he had made an order on 15th December. He was the judge in court who made the order. He had heard counsel saying what was the proposed draft. He had heard Mr Poster saying that he had no objection to the order being made. He said "Yes", after a period when counsel told him what was proposed, and he asked counsel to draw up the order. He was satisfied that he had made the order, and Laddie J, having read the transcript, was satisfied that the judge had made the order; but he considered that there was possible room for a misunderstanding, and so he reduced the level of costs that Mr Poster had to pay from an order for indemnity costs to an order for costs on the standard basis. It is against that order of Laddie J that Mr Poster seeks to make the second appeal.
14. Two matters immediately stand out. The first is that I have formed the view that Mr Poster was likely to have been in contempt of court in conducting litigation on behalf of these claimants. The second is that he has told me that, although Laddie J refused him permission to appeal against the different order made by Judge Knight QC that he should pay £1,000 on account of the costs of an application that would otherwise be assessed, although he was liable for all those costs he has refused to pay them. In those circumstances, Mr Poster does not appear before the court as the most attractive of litigants.
15. I have to bear in mind under the overriding objective the court's duty to deal with cases justly, allotting to litigants an appropriate share of the court's resources and dealing with the case in ways which are proportionate to the amount of money involved and the importance of the case. I can see no important point of practice or principle here. All these matters arose because Mr Poster, a former solicitor, sought to do solicitors' work. Two judges formed an identical view that an order was made against him.
16. Mr Poster put forward three arguments which he elevated into important points of principle. The first was that Laddie J, during the course of argument, asked for certain documents to clarify what had happened. That very, very frequently happens in proceedings of this kind and raises no important point of principle. The second was Mr Poster's refrain that the order was not made. Two judges, including the judge who made the order, are satisfied that the order was made, and that raises no important point of principle. Finally, Mr Poster contends there is an important point because this was a costs order against a non party under CPR 48.2. It appears to me that this all stems from the court's jurisdiction under section 53 of the County Court Act 1984 to make an order against a non party for disclosure of documents. Because he was involving himself in these proceedings by doing solicitors' business without being a solicitor and without being given the right to conduct litigation, he had found himself in control, as a non party, of all these documents. Although the normal rule under CPR 48.1 is that the court will award a person against whom the order is sought his costs of the application, he may very well make a different order. If Judge Knight considered it appropriate to make a different order and Laddie J on appeal was content to uphold that order, this is not a matter under the new regime for appeals which it is fit to take any further.
17. Parliament under the Access to Justice Act 1999 has said as clearly as it could possibly be said that this court should not entertain second appeals and take up the resources of the court and the resources of the tax-payer unless the matter raises an important point of practice or principle. I consider that this proposed application does not raise any such point of practice or principle and, in any event, under the principles set out in the overriding objective, I do not consider it appropriate to place on the proposed respondents the burden of resisting a second appeal in this matter.
18. This application is therefore dismissed.
Order: Application dismissed.