11½ years’ delay

Taylor v Anderson and another (CA TLR 22 November)

The claimant suffered catastrophic injuries in a road traffic accident in January 1990 when driving his car over the brow of a hill he was confronted by a lorry being driven on the wrong side of the road after overtaking a stationary vehicle. On an application to strike out under CPR 3.4 the judge found there to have been ‘complete disregard for the norms of conducting litigation of this weight … it is an abuse of process … it was 11½ years since the accident took place … there had been unreasonable and inexcusable delay and it was unlikely that there could now be a fair trial of the action’. The judge’s statements did not justify striking out. What was required was not considerable doubt but a considerable risk or impossibility of a fair trial taking place. An action should not be struck out unless there was an unequivocal affirmative answer to the question of whether there was a risk that a fair trial would not be possible. The judge had been plainly wrong. Although at the date of the appeal the accident had taken place 13 years ago, the important fact was that the witnesses to it did give statements which could be taken as being a proper record. Although made more difficult by the delay, the circumstances were not such as to give rise to a substantial risk of a fair trial of the proceedings being impossible.