Case Alert - [2018] EWCA Civ 1470
Court of Appeal holds judge was right to reject application for specific disclosure
The claimant's application for specific disclosure was dismissed by the judge at first instance and the claimant sought permission to appeal by writing to only the judge(and not the defendant as well) after the hearing. Applying the principles laid down by Warby J in Monroe v Hopkins, the Court of Appeal held that the permission to appeal given by the judge was not validly granted. The Court of Appeal then went on to consider whether it should give permission to appeal and concluded that it should not, since the appeal raised no issue of principle.
It held that the test for specific disclosure is clear: "The application for specific disclosure will usually arise because the applicant believes that the other party has not given adequate disclosure first time round. But that is not inevitable: sometimes, there may be documents (or a particular class of documents) which the applicant seeks by way of specific disclosure, regardless of whether or not they should have been disclosed by way of standard disclosure".
It was said to be clear from PD 31A para 5.5 makes it clear that the court can make an order for disclosure which extends to an old-fashioned "train of enquiry" exercise. However, this was not one of those "rare" cases where it was appropriate to make an order for specific disclosure which went beyond standard disclosure.
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