The High Court has thrown out three claims described by the judge as an abuse on a number of levels – with the threat of contempt proceedings if similar proceedings are brought again.

More than 200 similar or identical claims were stayed pending the outcome of three applications heard last month in Stamp & Ors v Capital Home Loans Ltd & Ors.

Master Gidden said the three lead cases should all be struck out, not just for the defendants’ benefit but also as a ‘mercy to claimants who appear to have invested much in claims that are founded upon false learning and false hope’.

He described people being ‘taken in’ by what was effectively a ‘get-rich-quick scheme’, where the arguments relied upon were ‘so misconceived as to be fundamentally wrong’.

Iain Stamp, one of the three claimants, had brought proceedings last July demanding damages of £265,000 for what he alleged was a mis-sold mortgage.

Stamp had described himself as the founder, driving force and chairman of a private members association which claims to have 50,000 members. He alleged he was a victim of a ‘violation of fundamental constitutional rights’ and relied upon – among others – Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights 1689 and the Treason Act 1795.

The judge said his mention of so many old statutes was likely to have been ‘intended to sound credible and to encourage others to rely upon material like it in making a similar claim’.

His claim had a number of common themes and features with the other two claims, which also referenced the same legislation and alleged there had been unlawful acts carried out by lenders. None of the claimants in any of the 200 cases are represented, a fact which the master said ‘tells its own story’.

‘This deceit is all the uglier because the material that forms the building blocks of the claims (and the large group of claims) is a nonsensical and harmful mix of legal words, terms, maxims, extracts and statutes which are designed to look and sound good, at least to some,’ said the master. ‘But they stand only as an approximation of a claim in law, a parody of the real thing.’

The court heard that the three litigants in this hearing had benefited from the remission of court fees, but many others in the group of 200 had not received such a benefit.

Gidden said the large number of claims brought over a short period of time had taken ‘hopeless points’ and ‘cast grave doubt on the intentions of those bringing them’.

He suggested it was potentially criminal conduct for a person or persons to be involved in litigation where 200 claimants apparently acting in person shared a ‘near miraculous uniformity of common purpose, style and prose’.

The master added: ‘The totality of claims that are the subject of this judgment have not revealed the full extent of the source, and nature, of encouragement and co-ordination that lies behind them but there is every appearance of deceit, of abuse and contempt of court, and it is a matter of time before a full picture of these comes to light.

‘Anyone drawn into bringing claims like this should be cautious. Those that promote them are duly warned. Claims that are presented with these characteristics can expect the court’s mercy and forbearance to be particularly limited.’

 

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