Case Management and Evidence Changes
Case Management and Evidence Changes
This is part of case management changes made to this on 1 April in parts 3, 16-19, of the Civil Procedure Rules, including:
1. It should be more robust, and wherever possible multi-track cases should be case-managed by the same judge throughout
2. Replacement of the allocation questionnaire (AQ) by new directions questionnaires (DQs). There is a new simple DQ for Small Claims Track (to find out whether the parties are willing to try the free small claims mediation scheme and collect email and telephone contact details), and a longer one for Fast Track and Multi-Track with new questions on disclosure, on the costs of expert evidence, and on costs and the costs budget
3. Where defences are filed a court officer will:
- decide provisionally, the track which appears most suitable for the case (by value). This does not fetter judicial discretion, because on the filing of completed questionnaires, the judge can order the appropriate track (not necessarily by value).
B. serve on the parties a new notice of proposed allocation
C. order the parties to file the appropriate
4. If DQs are not filed on time, the party’s statement of case may be struck out , or the court may give directions of its own initiative, or list the case for a costs management conference (CMC), or impose a costs sanction, or simply make an ‘unless order’ in the first instance. But for cases issued at the Salford Business Centre, the staff will issue ‘unless orders’ when AQs/DQs are missing, before transferring the case to a county court for directions.
5. Standard Specimen Directions are available at tinyurl.com/7eazjn7
6. Costs and case management must be conducted together in multi- track claims. A CMC will usually also be a case/costs management conference (CCMC). The judge’s job is to set a proportionate budget and give appropriate directions. The starting point can be either the budget or the directions, but with cross-checks to ensure the directions and budget are compatible. Before CMC/CCMCs, parties must file and serve:
DQs;
Costs budget in form H (PD3E);
Draft directions using the template;
Estimates of costs for any proposed expert evidence; and
Disclosure report.
Part 31 – Disclosure
A menu of possible disclosure orders applies to multi-track cases, except personal injury. This is:
a. dispense with it;
b. disclose what you rely upon and request specific disclosure from the other party;
c. on an issue by issue basis;
d. where it is reasonable to suppose that a document may contain information which enables the party to advance its own case or to damage the case of another party, or which leads to an enquiry with either of those consequences;
e. standard disclosure; or
f. any other appropriate order, for example ‘keys to the warehouse’ where a party has large quantities of documents which they do not wish to check through/list but will allow the other party to do this.
Fourteen days before the first CMC, parties must file and serve a report verified by a statement of truth stating what documents they have, in what form and where they are, estimate the costs of disclosure and select one of the menu options. Not less than seven days before the CMC the parties must meet or speak to discuss and seek to agree a proposal for disclosure.
In multi-track cases the parties must also exchange an electronic document questionnaire (with a statement of truth and the person signing must attend the CMC), discuss the use of technology before the CMC, and prepare a summary for the court.
Witness Statements
The court can give additional directions:
a. identifying or limiting the issues to which factual evidence may be directed;
b. identifying the witnesses who may be called or whose evidence may be read; and
c. limiting the length and/or format of witness statements.
It may not always be possible to use these powers fully at the first CMC in a complex claim when disclosure is likely to be significant, but the new rules should be very helpful when any parties are in person.
Part 35 – Expert Evidence ‘Hot-Tubbing’ or Concurrent Evidence
The judge may order that experts from like disciplines will give evidence concurrently, rather than sequentially as part of ‘their’ parties’ evidence. They will be questioned together, first by the judge based upon disagreements in the joint statement, and then by the parties’ advocates.