Monthly News Archives: April 2014
10 April 2014 by Rosalind English
Wandsworth Clinical Commissioning Group v IA (By the Official Solicitor as his Litigation Friend) [2014] EWHC 990 (COP) 3 April 2014 – read judgment
This was a case about determination of mental capacity, which both judge and counsel described as “particularly difficult and finely balanced”. The judge was confronted with a great deal of conflicting evidence about the capabilities of the individual in question, but concluded in the end that
His capacity may be seen to have fluctuated in the past; this is in my judgment more likely to be attributable to transient cognitive dysfunction due to metabolic reasons as a result of his physical illness … than the progression of symptoms of his acute brain injury.
Background
IA is a 60 year old man from a professional family and himself a physics graduate who once ran his own business. But his life has been eroded by extremely poor health, Type II Diabetes and related disabilities such as anaemia and partial blindness. Then in 2007 he was the subject of a violent criminal assault, being repeatedly kicked in the head, leaving him with a serious head injury, involving skull fractures, brain haemorrhage and contusions to the right frontal area of the brain.
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9 April 2014 by David Hart KC
LH, R (o.t.a) v. Shropshire Council [2014] EWCA 404 (Civ), Court of Appeal, 4 April 2014 – read judgment
Good advertisement for the flexibility of the common law, this case. This is because the duty to consult owed by a public body extends into all reaches of public law, from the regulation of a metal trading company (see my recent post here) to care centres and residential homes. Indeed it was in the context of residential home closures that the modern law got worked out. In the 1992 case of ex parte Baker, there had been a draft community care plan which had made no reference to the closure of individual homes, and which was followed up by a bolt from the blue – residents of one home only had 5 days’ notice that their home was to close.
In none of these cases is there a statutory duty to consult – it is an aspect of common law fairness.
The LH case concerns the closure of an adult care day centre. The question in LH was how to apply the principles in Baker to a rather more nuanced consultation approach, where closure of day centres in general was raised in consultation, but the closure of the specific day centre (Hartleys) was not.
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9 April 2014 by Rosalind English
JC and another v the Central Criminal Court [2014] EWHC 1041 (QB) (08 April 2014) – read judgment
This case raises the question whether an order made under s. 39 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 … prohibiting the identification of (among others) a defendant under the age of 18 years, can last indefinitely or whether it automatically expires when that person attains the age of 18 years. It has wide implications not only for young defendants but also for victims, witnesses, others concerned in proceedings and, of course, the media. [Sir Brian Leveson P, giving the judgment of the court , opening the case at para 1]
Background
On 15 November 2013, the claimants JC and RT, then 17 years of age, each pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court to an offence in early 2012 of joint possession of explosives. In both cases, the Crown accepted that they obtained this property without any intention of endangering life or causing serious injury to property.
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8 April 2014 by Rosalind English
Surrey County Council v P and Others, Equality and Human Rights Commission and others intervening [2014] UKSC 19 (March 19, 2014) – read judgment
Elizabeth-Anne Gumbel QC, Henry Witcomb and Duncan Fairgrieve of 1 Crown Office Row represented the AIRE Centre, one of the intervening parties, in this case. None of them have anything to do with the writing of this post.
Mentally incapacitated people have the same rights to liberty as everyone else. If their own living arrangements would amount to a deprivation of liberty of a non-disabled individual then these would also be a deprivation of liberty for the disabled person. So says the Supreme Court, which has ruled that disabled people are entitled to periodic independent checks to ensure that the deprivation of liberty remains justified.
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1 April 2014 by Rosalind English
Meiklejohn v St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust and Another [2014] EWCA Civ 120 – read judgment
Richard Booth QC of 1 Crown Office Row represented the appellant in this case. He has nothing to do with the writing of this post.
This was an appeal against the finding by HHJ Robinson, sitting as a High Court Judge, that there was no duty of care owed to the appellant in respect of his rare genetic disorder ([2013] EWHC 469 (QB), [2013] Med. L.R. 191). See my previous post for the factual and medical background of the claim. Briefly, the appellant suffered from a rare genetic version of the platelet insufficiency disorder, aplastic anemia (AA), the disorder in question being known as Dyskeratosis Congenita (“DC”).
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Wandsworth Clinical Commissioning Group v IA (By the Official Solicitor as his Litigation Friend) [2014] EWHC 990 (COP) 3 April 2014 – read judgment
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