A judge who rejected a bid for a group litigation order has said the world is 'a very different place' since Lord Woolf described the procedure as 'a step forward' in case management.

Senior Master Jeremy Cook was ruling on an application for a GLO by former and current students at University College London, who are suing the university over allegations that their studies were impacted by industrial action and Covid-19. UCL denies liability, arguing that clauses in student contracts permitted the university to move teaching online and restrict access to facilities during in the pandemic; and to cancel or postpone teaching as a result of industrial action.

The judge was asked to join former and current students at University College London - who are suing over lack of teaching during industrial action and Covid lockdowns - together by the GLO.

Anna Boase KC, for claimants David Hammon and others, said a GLO was ‘the best way’ these claims could be managed. She argued that some 75,000 UCL students are eligible to bring claims; approximately 6,500 have so far instructed solicitors. Of these, 5,000 have so far brought claims and it is likely a significant number of the remaining 1,500 will issue proceedings and that further claimants will sign up.

Boase also argued that UCL was attempting to ‘shut the gates’ on the litigation and claimed the university has an ‘apparent belief that this litigation is not really for the benefit of any individual claimants with genuine claims and a desire for justice, but rather about the commercial interests of the lawyers and funders who are supporting the claimants in the litigation’.

John Taylor KC, for UCL, argued a GLO was inappropriate and unnecessary and the court could manage the litigation under its existing case management powers. 

Senior Master Cook declined to make a GLO, ruling that an order would delay the process of progressing of up to 10 test cases planned for 2026 and add unnecessary cost and expense.  

The judge acknowledged that the former lord chief justice Lord Woolf, in his final report in 1995 titled ‘Access to Justice’, had described the GLO procedure as a step forward in 'managing the unmanageable'. But Cook said the ‘world is a now very different place to that which existed at the time of Lord Woolf’s report’.

‘Technological and computing developments have revolutionised the way in which lawyers and judges work and manage cases’, Cook said. ‘With cooperation and creativity the court’s standard case management powers can be used to replicate almost any feature of a GLO.’

 

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