Judge who condemned 'contumelious' claimants rounds on defendants

A High Court judge who earlier this year condemned the litigation tactics of City firm Rosling King as "verging on the contumelious" has turned his attention to the other side's lawyers, describing their behaviour as providing an "object lesson in how modern litigation should not be conducted".

Mr Justice Edwards-Stuart said Reynolds Porter Chamberlain, acting for the defendants in a professional negligence case, had been "entirely speculative" in part of their application for additional disclosure, which amounted to "nothing more than a fishing expedition".

Ruling in Webb Resolutions v JV Ltd [2013] EWHC 3526 (TCC), Edwards-Stuart J said it was "not acceptable" that RPC waited for the day on which expert reports were due to be served before raising the request for further disclosure.

"In submissions, it was said that the request for further disclosure had been provoked (at least in part) by reading the witness evidence that the claimant had served.

"That may be so, but the evidence had been served on 30 April 2013 and there is no reason or explanation why nothing was said or done to raise the question of additional disclosure for over five weeks from that date.

"Second, the defendant did not acknowledge at any stage that it was in default of the order for exchange of expert evidence.

"Even when issuing its application for specific disclosure, and despite repeated reminders from the claimant, it did not apply for an extension of time or for relief from sanction as it should have done. No explanation has been advanced for this failure.

"Third, despite full and clear explanations from the claimant's solicitors, it pressed ahead with the application for all of its original categories of documents without apparent regard for what it had been told."

Edwards-Stuart J said RPC had displayed "no sense of urgency at all", either in correspondence or in issuing the application.

The judge said the delay in issuing was justified on the grounds of awaiting instructions, but that was not a "satisfactory or sufficient" explanation for events starting on 7 June.

He added that an application for four "residual categories" of disclosure had been accompanied by five files of documents, with 1,645 pages.

Mr Justice Edwards-Stuart rejected the application for additional disclosure and ordered that the defendants should have 14 days to file and exchange expert evidence.