This may be of interest to those reading this forum. The Supreme Court handed down Judgment last week in the case of Barton v Wright Hassall LLP. Barton was a Litigant in Person bringing a professional negligence claim against Wright Hassall, who themselves were represented by BLM. Barton had been in contact with BLM pre-issue by email. As limitation was approaching he issued, and then just at the end of the 4 month time limit, served his proceedings by email on BLM (having opted to do this himself rather than letting the Court serve). BLM a couple of weeks later, advised that they had not permitted him to serve by email, and that the proceedings were therefore not served. This meant he was out of time to re-serve the same proceedings. Unfortunately he was also then statute barred from issuing another claim. Barton argued that as BLM were corresponding with him by email, this was an indication that they would accept service by this method. BLM contented that the Civil Procedure Rules were clear, and that they had not given permission to serve by email. The Supreme Court ruled in Wright Hassall's favour. A bit of a warning that the CPR will not be applied differently to unrepresented parties, and furthermore, that a represented opponent has no obligation to raise such issues and notify the unrepresented party of any breaches - see paragraph 22 of the Judgment (available on the Supreme Court's website): "Even on the assumption that they realised that service was invalid in time to warn him to re-serve properly or begin a fresh claim within the limitation period, they were under no duty to give him advice of this kind. Nor could they properly have done so without taking their client’s instructions and advising them that the result might be to deprive them of a limitation defence. It is hardly conceivable that in those circumstances the client would have authorised it." There are a good bunch of people here to help on this forum, to avoid situations like that Mr Barton found himself in.

The following is taken from the Law Gazette website: https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/supreme-court-ruling-on-litigants-in-person-could-redraw-cpr/5063855.article

Today the Judiciary released their long awaited Consultation on McKenzie Friends. Most importantly, the consultation proposes a ban on fee-charging McKenzie friends in order to protect ‘vulnerable litigants’ from unregulated, uninsured and unqualified individuals. The article from the Law Gazette website outlines the Consultation in detail (and the online comments make interesting reading !!!). http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/practice/judiciary-proposes-ban-on-fee-charging-mckenzie-friends/5053851.article

Concerning the issue of whether we are a casual worker or a an employee there is many criteria to consider for example the time we work for the employer, our skills, whether he employs us only in case of shortage or during peak time or he uses us in the normal running of our business...etc. However I would like to know if the conclusive evidence is not when the P45 has been issued because if it has been issued one year after the start of employment this means that we are now an employee. It is up to the employer to decide if he need us anymore or nor and as a consequence if he send us our P45 or not. If the employer decides because it is not convenient for him not to issue a P45 at the end of each project we could be consider as an employee There is also the issue of HMRC and in order the employer not to pay tax maybe a worker has to work only for a small period of time and not come back for a long time There is also the issue of the difference between temporary employee and a casual worker

Judiciary publishes guide for litigants in person Friday 11 January 2013 by Jonathan Rayner The judicial office has today published a self-help guide for litigants in person presenting cases to the interim applications court. The 16-page guide, penned by High Court judge Mr Justice Foskett, takes litigants through each stage of the process, from giving notice and presenting documents to how to behave in court, apply for costs and seek permission to appeal. The interim applications court deals with short applications of an interim nature within existing or (sometimes) proposed proceedings in the Queen’s Bench Division of the High Court. It does not deal with family or matrimonial cases. The most commonly heard applications include applying for an injunction to prevent a former employee from abusing confidential information, setting up in competition or working for a rival employer; preventing travellers occupying a site in contravention of the planning laws; freezing orders to prevent the sale of property; and applying for the disclosure of specific documents. Queen’s Bench Division president Sir John Thomas says in his foreword to the guide that court procedures may present difficulties to people unfamiliar with them. He said: ‘Our hope is that (the guide) will help smooth the way for cases involving self-represented litigants in the interim application courts to be heard fairly and effectively by the judge in the allotted time. Jonathan Rayner Jonathan Rayner is a Gazette reporter covering employment, human rights, international, immigration, mental health, sole practitioners, money laundering, diversity and local government