Court of Appeal decision on group actions in the UK 

The group actions team at Penningtons Manches Cooper has successfully defended an application in the High Court by Williams & Co Solicitors to strike out a group claim, in a decision which could strengthen the trend for affordable class actions and collective redress in the English courts.

David Niven, partner in the specialist group actions practice, is representing 134 property investors in a multi-million-pound professional negligence claim against Williams & Co. The defendants had contended that it was not permissible for these individual claims to be issued together in a single claim form. This appeal was dismissed by the Court of Appeal, with Sir Geoffrey Vos, Master of the Rolls, giving the single judgment, with which Lord Justice Lewison and Lady Justice Falk agreed.

This judgment means that, provided it is considered ‘convenient’, any number of claimants can use a single claim form to start any and all claims, such that group claimants will be able to seek access to justice in large-scale litigation in a simple, cost-effective way.

To begin with, HHJ Jarman KC had refused to strike out the single claim form for the 134 investors, because the tests previously laid down in Abbott & Ors v Ministry of Defence [2023] EWHC 1475 (KB), [2023] 1 WLR 4002 (Abbott 2) for using an ‘omnibus’ claim form were met. He accepted that common issues existed between the claims, including the questions of duty, breach and the heads of loss, although noted that there were also individual issues to be considered for each claim, such as causation and reliance.

Williams & Co appealed on the basis that Abbott 2 wrongly construed the Civil Procedure Rules (CPR) 7.3, which referred to ‘a claimant’ using a single claim form. It was argued that this could not be understood to include multiple claimants, meaning they could not use a single form.

The Court of Appeal rejected that case by reference to section 6(1) of the Interpretation Act 1978, which allowed for the singular to include the plural where the context required.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, and found that the 134 claims contained significant common issues of law and fact, and that it would therefore be convenient for the claims to be tried in one set of proceedings.

In a judgment with significance for all practitioners in the group claims field, the Court of Appeal overturned the tests set out in Abbott 2 for ‘convenient disposal’ within the meaning of CPR 7.3, and clarified that the test for whether a single claim form could be used by multiple claimants was simply as set out in CPR 7.3 and 19.1, with the court determining what is convenient, based on the facts of every case.

Related coverage: ‘Court of Appeal allows single claim form for 134 claimants suing firm’ The Law Gazette. Read more