Monthly News Archives: February 2018
12 February 2018 by Isabel McArdle
Robinson (Appellant) v Chief Constable of the West Yorkshire Police (Respondent) [2018] UKSC 4
Update – Isabel McArdle talks to Rosalind English about this case in the latest episode from Law Pod UK, available for free download from iTunes and Audioboom (episode 23).
The Supreme Court has made a significant decision on the question of the scope of the common law duty of care owed by police when their activities lead to injuries being sustained by members of the public. It has long been the case that a claim cannot be brought in negligence against the police, where the danger is created by someone else, except in certain unusual circumstances such as where there has been an assumption of responsibility.
This case, however, was focussed on the question of injuries resulting from activities of the police, where the danger was created by their own conduct. The answer is that the police did owe a duty of care to avoid causing an injury to a member of the public in those circumstances.
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11 February 2018 by Conor Monighan
Conor Monighan brings us the latest updates in human rights law.
Credit: Wiki Commons
In the News:
Robinson v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire
Covered by the Blog here
There is no general immunity for police officers investigating or preventing crime. In this case, Mrs Robinson suffered injuries when two police officers fell on top of her, along with a suspected drug dealer resisting arrest. The officers had foreseen Williams would attempt to escape but had not noticed Mrs Robinson (who was represented by 1 Crown Office Row’s academic consultant Duncan Fairgrieve).
The recorder found that, although the officers were negligent, Hill v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire [1989] gave them immunity from negligence claims. The Court of Appeal ruled the police officers owed no duty of care, and even if they did they had not broken it. It also found most claims against the police would fail the third stage of the Caparo test (i.e. it would not be fair, just and reasonable to impose a duty of care upon the police in these situations). The Court found Williams had caused the harm, not the police, so the issue was based on omission rather than a positive act. Finally, even if officers had owed the Appellant a duty of care, they had not breached it.
Mrs Robinson appealed successfully to the Supreme Court.
It held:
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9 February 2018 by Guest Contributor
On 5th February 2018 the Divisional Court gave judgment in Love v USA [2018] EWHC 172 (Admin), holding that the forum bar operated against the extradition of Lauri Love to the United States to face charges of making a series of cyber-attacks on the computer networks of private companies and US Government agencies.
This is the first reported case in which the ‘forum bar’ has been applied to block an extradition.
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7 February 2018 by Guest Contributor
When Britain joined the European Economic Community in 1973 along with Ireland and Denmark, it marked the first enlargement of what we today call the European Union. Since 1973, the club of the nine members has become a union of 28 member states. Most importantly, the law of the EU has developed significantly in terms of validity, scope and substance. What we were studied in the law school with EU law was in essence the institutions, the processes and the tools that are available for the European integration. And in fact EU law has achieved a remarkable degree of integration in some areas such as the Eurozone and the internal market. However, with Brexit, a new chapter is in the writing, this time on the withdrawal from the EU.
A constitutional pathology
The withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union after 44 years poses unprecedented legal challenges but provides useful lessons for the withdrawal process. Until today, this issue was a footnote in the textbooks, with the case of Greenland (which left in 1985) being the only precedent. Greenland joined the European Economic Community in 1973 with Denmark, then gained its autonomy (home rule) from Denmark in 1979 and in a referendum that took place in 1982, 53% percent of the population voted in favour of leaving the European Community. But it is beyond doubt that the exit of Greenland was much less complex, with the main topic for negotiation being the fishing industry.
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6 February 2018 by Rosalind English
In order to set a claim under way in the civil courts, it is necessary to serve the claim form on the party named as defendant. The service rules were good fodder for the likes of Dickens or Trollope as they set their tipstaffs in pursuit of the hapless seeking to escape the Marshalsea or similar; things became rather more mundane when society became too populous for personal service.
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5 February 2018 by Jonathan Metzer
We are delighted to announce the return of the weekly news Round-Up!
Each Monday, Sarah-Jane Ewart, Conor Monighan and Eleanor Leydon will be giving you a bite-sized round-up of legal developments over the last week. These will include summaries of the latest decisions in the courts and discussion of wider issues. We hope these updates will assist in keeping on top of the fast-moving currents in the law in 2018. Don’t go away — these will start next week!
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3 February 2018 by Rosalind English
Southern Gas Networks Plc v Thames Water Utilities Ltd [2018] EWCA Civ 33, 25 January 2018 – read judgment
When the supply of gas to your house fails, you are entitled to compensation from the gas undertaker for the inconvenience. If that failure has been caused by another utility’s burst water main, the gas undertaker may seek to recoup its expenses for repair to its own infrastructure and the compensation it has had to pay out to consumers. A simple enough picture.
But behind this straightforward seeming network of liabilities is a labyrinth of common law and statutory relationships whose exploration is not for the faint hearted. As society’s dependence on the provision of energy, water and sewage services grew, during the Industrial Revolution and beyond, parliament had to think of ways to level the playing field between these increasingly centralised powers. This is not a trend that will go away, as the gas, electricity and fibre optic cables become ever more essential to the way we live our lives.
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