A Scottish law firm has lost a jurisdictional challenge in a professional negligence claim brought in England by a renewable energy company.

Wright, Johnston & Mackenzie, which has no place of business outside Scotland, argued the High Court did not have jurisdiction to try the claim for alleged negligence in relation to an application for planning permission by Cornwall Renewable Developments.

The firm said that the fact its services related to English law contracts concerning sites in England was irrelevant, because the dual-qualified solicitor who acted for the company was in Scotland when they carried out the work.

Rolls Building

High Court: England is plainly ‘appropriate forum’ for claim against Wright, Johnston & Mackenzie

Source: Jonathan Goldberg/Alamy

However Chief Master Karen Shuman rejected Wright, Johnston & Mackenzie’s application and refused to dismiss or stay the claim on the ground of forum non conveniens, ruling that ‘it is plain that the appropriate forum for this claim is England’.

‘Whilst Scotland is a forum in which this claim could be tried, I am not satisfied that the claim would be tried more suitably there for the interests of all the parties and the ends of justice,’ she said. ‘The defendant has not discharged the burden of proof that England is not the natural or appropriate forum for the trial and that Scotland is clearly or distinctly more appropriate.’

The judge added: ‘I consider that in advice cases if the court were simply to focus on where the solicitor was located in carrying out that work that would be to lose sight of the wider picture and the nature of the obligation between solicitor and client. It must also be relevant to look at the product received by the client.’

Shuman said the firm was ‘unquestionably … solely based in Scotland’ and the work done for Cornwall Renewable Developments was carried out by a solicitor based in Glasgow.

But the judge added that the solicitor in question ‘was a dual qualified solicitor who was providing a service to an English client, as a solicitor qualified to act in England, concerning a development and sites in England’. Shuman held that ‘the place of performance of the contract’, and ‘the centre of gravity in this case’, was England.