A Midlands firm failed to ‘energetically chase’ the court office at Manchester Civil Justice Centre, despite contacting it on 10 occasions, the Court of Appeal has ruled.

Tedstone, George and Tedstone (TGT) was representing Bryan Rogers as he sought a planning statutory review from South Staffordshire District Council.

The Court of Appeal heard that TGT had not served a sealed claim form within the statutory six-week period following an unexplained ’wholesale delay’ at the Manchester court.

‘I would expect a competent and properly staffed court office to seal and issue the claim form within two working days’, Lord Justice Coulson remarked. ‘A promise to do it “after lunch” in mid-May was slowly replaced with an unexplained further delay of two months.’

But although Coulson accepted TGT filed the documents ‘in good time’ on 18 April last year, he said this did not allow the claimant to ‘sit back and do no more’.

The firm chased the court by email only on 2 May, two days before the deadline, and made no reference to the deadline when it did so, which the judge said was a ‘significant failure’.

TGT allowed the 4 May deadline to expire without further contacting the court office and then waited a full week after the expiry until contacting the court again. Between 10 May and 14 June TGT contacted the court on no fewer than 10 occasions enquiring about the sealed documents.

But Coulson ruled the firm did not take ‘all reasonable steps’ and therefore an extension of time should not be granted.

‘It is a sad but unavoidable fact of life that court offices do not always act promptly or get things right on their own. They are staffed by civil servants, not judges, and there are rarely lawyers involved’, Coulson said.  ‘The staff will not necessarily know what time limits apply to which claims. They will need help from the claimant’s solicitors to know which documents are a priority and why. On occasion, they will need to be energetically chased.’

The local authority’s appeal was allowed and it was ruled that the High Court had no jurisdiction to consider the planning statutory review.