Pre-action admission

Walley v Stoke-on-Trent City Council CA TLR 25 August

In Sowerby v Charlton [2006] 1 WLR 568 it was held that CPR rule 14.1(5), which provides that a court is empowered to give permission for a party to withdraw an admission, applies only to admissions made in the course of the proceedings and not to pre-action admissions. Sowerby had caused consternation: it appeared to some that defendants were now free to withdraw pre-action admissions and there would be nothing that a claimant could do about it. The issue in the present case was whether the court had jurisdiction to enter judgment for a claimant in reliance on an admission made by the defendant before commencement of proceedings, but which the defendant had subsequently withdrawn. Under CPR rule 3.4(2) the court had the power to strike out a defence or part of it as an abusive process, or it being otherwise likely to obstruct the just disposal of the case. The threshold applicable to rule 3.4(2) was much higher than would be the case where the court was exercising a broad discretion under rule 14.1(5). For a claimant to show that the withdrawal of an admission would amount to an abuse of the process of the court, it would usually be necessary to show that the defendant had acted in bad faith, and that could simply not be shown here. Second, in order to show that the withdrawal was likely to obstruct the just disposal of the case, it is necessary for the claimant to show that he would suffer some prejudice which would affect the fairness of the trial, but again the facts in this case did not lead to such a finding. Accordingly, a strike-out was not appropriate.