In David Abbott and 3,449 others v Ministry of Defence, Master Davison considered the extent to which multiple claimants can use a single claim form.
Abbott claims
The claimants brought proceedings alleging that they had sustained noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL), following exposure to noise whilst in the military. Hugh James solicitors acted for the claimants and issued claims on behalf of 3500 claimants using a single claim form and paying a single court fee. The claim form had appended to it a schedule containing the names and addresses of 3,449 individual claimants. That schedule itself had run into some 323 pages. The issuing of the claim was prompted by limitation concerns as a result of the coming into force of the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Act 2021.
Earlier decisions
The court had previously, in other claims, considered the issuing of multiple claims using a single claim form.
In 2019, in the claim of Bargh and others v MOD, Senior Master Fontaine had raised the issue, of her own motion, whether it was permissible to issue five claims on one claim form. She ruled that it was not because the claims had very little in common other than the facts that they were all for the same type of injury and were all against the MOD.
The same issue was then raised before Master Davison in the claim of Adrian Turner and others v MOD. Hugh James represented the claimants. In that case there were roughly 250 claims issued on a single claim form. The Master made a similar ruling and varied the original case management decision so that in every case where the stay was lifted, the claimant had to issue a separate claim, paying the relevant issue fee, and serve particulars of claim and medical evidence in the normal way. He made provision in the order that the deemed date of issue would be the date of the issue of the original claim.
Decision of Master Davison in the Abbott claims
On 7 July 2022, during a case management conference in the Abbott claims, Master Davison was once again asked to consider “whether it was permissible to join multiple claimants with widely differing claims to one claim form”.
The master was of the view that it clearly was not and gave a helpful judgment.
CPR rule 19.1 provides that “any number of claimants or defendants may be joined as parties to a claim”. This rule clearly allows multiple claimants, however, it is subject to the provisions of CPR 7.3 which states “a claimant may use a single claim form to start all claims which can be conveniently disposed of in the same proceedings”.
The master had no doubt that the 3,500 claims could not be conveniently disposed of in the same proceedings and it seemed to him that the contrary was not seriously arguable. He stated “the claims are far, far too disparate in terms of the periods and circumstances in which each claimant sustained his or her NIHL. They have a common defendant and a number of common themes. But that is all. They otherwise present a huge variety of unitary claims”.
There could not be a trial of 3,500 claims at one sitting and he dismissed the claimants’ argument that the trial could be conducted by selecting 16 lead cases. He did not think that it was realistic to assume that the other 3,484 cases could be resolved by the outcome of the lead cases. Each case would need to be litigated and tried. If the cases were allowed to proceed as one claim it would generate “multiple tracks and multiple trials.”
The master commented that the court’s computerised case management system (CE-File) has no facility to create sub-files for individual, unitary claims. The case management system is unable to accommodate under one case number all the documents and steps taken in each case. As such, to place 3,500 separate claims on one claim form would put an impossible strain on the system.
The defendant had argued that the way these claims were being managed is analogous to procedures under a group litigation order. If the claims were managed under a formal group litigation order, there would be a mandatory requirement to issue a claim form and pay the court fee for each individual claim. It was pointed out to the master that around 100 other military NIHL claims have been issued by claimants represented by other solicitors and all of those claimants have issued individual claim forms and paid the relevant court fee. It was not proper to treat claimants represented by Hugh James more favourably.
On this occasion, the master was not prepared to stay the claim and direct that the claimants whose cases did not settle should then be required to issue an entirely new claim. Although he had made such an order in the Turner claims, that was “a concession reflecting on the fact that the appropriateness of joining them all together on one claim form had initially been overlooked.”
The Abbott claim was issued on one claim form by Hugh James who had full knowledge of the fact that he (Master Davison) and Senior Master Fontaine had already earlier ruled that the approach taken by Hugh James was impermissible.
The master did not think that a stay of the claim in these proceedings would be appropriate as a stay is a step which anticipates that the claim could be revived at a future date and progressed, however, these claims cannot be progressed because each one requires its own claim form. Accordingly, he ordered that unless individual claim forms are issued within 6 months, the claims be struck out. Permission to appeal was refused.
Commentary
This judgment is helpful guidance on the issuing of multiple claims using one claim form and the limits imposed by CPR 7.3.
Individual claims should be assessed carefully to ensure that they can meet the CPR 7.3 test (that is, the claims can be conveniently disposed of in the same proceedings) before including the entire cohort on a single claim form. If it is unclear, the safest option is to issue a separate claim form for each claim and pay the relevant court fee.
This judgment should also act as a warning. The courts will no longer take a lenient approach to the issuing of such claims, this being the third occasion where it has been ruled that such a course is impermissible.
