A professional negligence action against a barrister has been dismissed after it was described by a High Court judge as a ‘backdoor appeal…as opposed to a legitimate claim’.
Businessman Israel Russell was represented by barrister Barry Coulter between 2015 and 2016 on a direct access basis in proceedings in the central London County Court. At the time, Coulter was a member of Goldsmith Chambers. He is now at Thomas More, the chambers headed by former attorney general Sir Geoffrey Cox KC.
In the direct access proceedings, orders were sought against Russell for delivery-up of shipping containers hired by, and in the possession of, Russell or their market value, and £114,000 damages for wrongful retention of the containers. The judge in that case found for Adaptainer on all issues and dismissed Russell’s counterclaim.
The businessman issued a claim against Coulter arguing he was ‘negligent in what he pleaded and in his failure to plead and raise various legal arguments under the [Consumer Credit Act 1974]’. Coulter argued there was no breach of duty.
The Honourable Mr Justice Saini said the case against Coulter had been a ‘moveable feast’ describing it as ‘one of litigation whack-a-mole’.
He added: ‘That should not happen in any case, let alone one where a professional reputation is at stake. The shifting nature of the case is one of the reasons that the case has taken substantially longer than the time estimate.
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‘The underlying proceedings in which Mr Coulter is alleged to have been negligent were simple and straightforward property claims in the context of CCA regulated agreements. The approach which Mr Russell has taken to the present claim has caused it to balloon out of all proportion.’
The judge said, after a five-day trial and ‘substantial’ written submissions, that ‘many parts’ of Russell’s claim were ‘incoherent and plainly inconsistent’ with the factual reasons given for the finding against him.
Coulter, in giving evidence, came across as a ‘thorough, diligent, and kind person who had helped Mr Russell for over a year with his case and had done everything he could before a judge who did not take to Mr Russell or to the case that he was alleging against [the shipping container company]’. Russell’s ‘unfair allegations…of poor court performance and advocacy’ by Coulter were ‘wholly unjustified’.
Dismissing the claim, the judge said that in each of the nine allegations of negligence, Coulter was not in breach of duty.
He added: ‘The overall impression I was left with at the end of the trial was that this claim was a form of backdoor appeal against the judge’s decision on the law and facts as he found them (and the upholding of his judgment by the Court of Appeal), as opposed to a legitimate professional negligence claim.’
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