The High Court has ruled that a single claim form can be used to issue more than 3,000 claims by ex-service personnel against the Ministry of Defence.

Mr Justice Andrew Baker and Lord Justice Dingemans upheld an appeal in Abbott v MoD and said the practice of issuing a single group claim was permissible if the convenience test was met.

The initial rejection of a single group claim had set off a series of delays and fees issues and called into question an approach adopted across the profession for more than two decades.

Master Davison had ruled last summer that the claims for noise-induced hearing loss could not be disposed of in the same proceedings and that a single omnibus claim form was not allowed within the civil procedure rules. He added that using a single form for more than 3,000 claims would put an impossible strain on the court’s digital management system.

Davison had requested that each of the 3,449 cases be issued with new claim forms and payment of the appropriate fee within six months.

The court heard this had ‘stark consequences’, with 3,017 people managing to issue individual claim forms but the court office overwhelmed by the volume resulting in long delays. More than 100 claim forms lodged with the court had still not been issued some three months after Davison’s imposed deadline. Many claimants were entitled to partial remission on fees but were nonetheless charged the full £10,000. Hugh James, representing the claimants, had to bear this extra cost, estimated at £400,000, which is still to be reimbursed.

The claimants submitted that while Davison’s order had massively increased the administrative burden and the cost of the litigation, it had served no practical purpose.

In judgment, Baker said Davison had been wrong to think that each claimant needed to issue their own claim form and had ‘misjudged’ the consequent difficulties for the court system. He said the master had ‘misdirected’ himself by deeming it was impossible for a single trial to determine all the claims. The judge said the nature and likely importance to all the claims and their common issues suggested it would be convenient for them to be disposed of in the same proceedings.

Supporting his ruling, Dingemans said it had never been the practice that under group litigation orders each individual claimant had to issue a separate claim form, as Master Davison had suggested.

The court held that the real question was whether the cohort of claims on the claim form had ‘sufficient commonality’, in relation to the issues to be determined, that it would be useful or helpful for a determination to be made which would then be binding on the remainder of the cohort. If it was convenient for such issues to be disposed of in this way, a single set of proceedings would be justified.

Following the court’s decision, Simon Ellis, partner and head of the military department at solicitors Hugh James, said: ‘Our specialist military lawyers are representing thousands of current and former military personnel who have suffered hearing loss because of unprotected exposure to excessive levels of noise during service. We hope this decision represents a further step towards obtaining the redress they deserve.’

 

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