A grandmother who fractured her hip when she tripped on a Christmas tree decoration in Santa’s grotto in Selfridges in 2009 has won her claim for compensation after the Court of Appeal ruled that Father Christmas and his assistant should have made sure...
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) will be targeting 6,000 Swiss bank accounts for further enquiry following the completion of the preliminary review resulting from the co-operation agreement in the area of taxation between Switzerland and the UK, which was...
When a woman updated her will in 2003, she had no way of knowing that a simple change to a precedent document could cause problems for her executors several years later. There was no intention to change one of the main provisions of the will, which was that...
There has recently been a further case on long-term sickness and a worker’s right to accrue untaken annual holiday leave ( Fraser v Southwest London St George’s Mental Health Trust ). Mrs Fraser was on long-term sick leave after she injured her...
Although pre-nuptial agreements are persuasive rather than binding in the British courts, a recent ruling of the High Court on a French ‘pre-nup’ illustrates clearly the current approach of the courts. It involved a very wealthy French couple...
A rider who was injured after being thrown from her horse has won compensation of £37,000. The accident happened in 2007 when Ceri Tonkinson was riding in Cosmeston Country Park, near Penarth in Wales. The horse she was riding had only recently been...
When a property is owned by two people as joint tenants (where the title to the property is owned by each of them, so that if one dies, the other inherits the property by survivorship), each of them is considered to be the legal owner of the property. A man...
Creating a commercial database and keeping it up to date is an expensive business and owners of such databases often take precautions to make sure they are not used without permission. One method of doing this is for the owners of databases to plant...
A retired plumber who was diagnosed with mesothelioma after being exposed to asbestos at work has won £115,000 in damages. The man had worked almost exclusively for the same building firm between 1950 and the early 1970s. He was exposed to asbestos...
A North Somerset man has received a six-figure sum in compensation after a mistake during an operation on his heart led to him having to have a pacemaker fitted. Steve Edwards, 51, an NHS manager from Weston-super-Mare, was undergoing treatment for an...
When a supplier to a marquee company was not paid for goods it had supplied, the directors told the supplier that the company was waiting for an insurance claim to be settled, after which payments would be made as usual. In reality, there was no insurance...
The wave of litigation which has followed the turmoil in the financial markets as a result of the credit crunch has led to many decisions that have resulted in those suing financial institutions being left to lick their wounds (and also facing sizeable legal...
After years of litigation, a young woman who suffered life-changing injuries when she was hit by a car as a child has been awarded a compensation settlement worth more than £9 million. Leigh Ann Blinkhorn, now 23, was seven years old when the accident...
A court ruling that a spouse’s lottery winnings were not ‘matrimonial property’ so were not subject to the usual rule of equal division between the spouses when the marriage broke up received much publicity recently. The normal rule on...
The Supreme Court has denied HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) the right of appeal in a tax case involving a series of transactions that were carried out for no commercial purpose but which led to a tax saving by the taxpayer. The decision represents a blow for...
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has now published its response to the recent consultation on proposals to criminalise squatting. The consultation paper, entitled ‘Options for dealing with squatting’ , received over 2,000 responses. As a first...
A man who was almost blinded after an accident at work has won an undisclosed amount in damages. Trevor Watson, 42, was working as a drainage engineer. He was instructed to take his truck to a hydraulic specialist because of a blockage in its jetting...
Under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (now superseded by the Equality Act 2010 ), when deciding whether or not an employer took sufficient steps to comply with its duty to make reasonable adjustments to remove a disadvantage faced by a disabled...
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) have announced that the Mortgage Verification Scheme (MVS), which was developed in co-operation with the Council of Mortgage Lenders and the Building Societies Association and run as a pilot scheme in March 2010, is now fully...
When a Jersey multi-millionaire gave most of his assets away to one of his daughters in the months prior to his death, leaving an estate of less than £100,000 to be shared by all three of his children, it was perhaps inevitable that a legal challenge...
An engineer who was seriously injured when he fell through a roof has won more than £164,000 in damages. The 66-year-old man worked for electronics and electrical engineering company Siemens. He was installing CCTV cameras at Liverpool Lime Street...
The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) (Amendment) Regulations 2011 , which came into force on 26 May 2011, made changes to the rules that apply to websites using cookies and similar technologies to remember a user’s preferences....
The scheme set up by the Government to assess the value of Northern Rock shares, for the purposes of deciding whether or not compensation was due to shareholders, concluded that without government support the shares would be valueless. A group of...
A woman who lost a filling when she bit into an oven chip has won compensation from the manufacturer of the product. Susan Stapylton, 60, was eating Aunt Bessie’s oven chips. She bit into something solid and dislodged a filling in one of her wisdom...
The Bribery Act 2010 came into force on 1 July 2011. Under Section 2 of the Act, it is an offence for a person to request, agree to receive or accept a financial or other advantage intending that, in consequence, a relevant function or activity should be...
In Williamson & Soden Solicitors v Briars , the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) considered the employment status of a solicitor who was described as a partner of the firm and whose remuneration was by way of a ‘guaranteed profit share’...
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) have had difficulties in the past in checking on property sales to ensure that the ‘principal private residence’ exemption for Capital Gains Tax (CGT) is being used correctly. Notwithstanding the complexity of the...
A golfer who was hit in the face by a stray golf ball has received compensation for her injuries. Rachel Davis was walking back to the car park from the ninth hole at Branston Golf and Country Club in Staffordshire when the accident happened. The ball hit...
A Gulf War veteran who suffered life-changing injuries when he hit a pothole and was thrown from his motorcycle has won an undisclosed amount in compensation from the council responsible for the upkeep of the road. The accident happened in February 2009,...
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) have announced that, from 1 January 2012, supplies made by employers under salary sacrifice schemes (schemes whereby an employee accepts a lower salary in return for receiving certain benefits) will be treated as taxable...
When a marriage or civil partnership breaks up and there is a significant risk that one party may move assets (normally cash in bank accounts) ‘out of sight’, it is sometimes possible to obtain a ‘freezing order’ to prevent the sums...
The Forum of Private Business (FPB) has reported a noticeable increase in calls to its helpline from businesses that inadvertently included on their websites images that are protected by copyright and subsequently received demands for payment from the...
A recent case illustrates how strong the evidence must be before the presumption that a person making a will has the mental capacity to do so will be overturned. It involved an elderly woman who died leaving an estate of a little under £150,000. Her...
A retired man who has been diagnosed with an asbestos-related disease several decades after exposure has received more than £141,000 in compensation. For more than 20 years, the man worked as a labourer at a paper mill, where he operated a paper...
When a house is bought or sold, the prospective purchaser makes what are called ‘pre-contract enquiries’ in order to establish the exact details of the property being bought. These are normally in the form of a standard set of questions with any...
It is common for service charges to be paid ‘on account’ of the annual cost, based on estimates, and a final account to be made up some time after the year end, based on the actual costs incurred. However, not all landlords are diligent about...
Most people probably do not realise that a highway authority’s responsibility for keeping the roads safe to use is very limited. In practical terms, so many things can happen to a road that it would be unreasonable for the authority to be responsible...
There are generally strict time limits that apply when presenting a claim for unfair dismissal to the Employment Tribunal (ET). Normally, a claim must be lodged before the end of a three-month period beginning with the effective date of termination (EDT)....
A shopper who was injured when he tried to lift a faulty box containing flat-pack furniture has won £11,000 in damages. The man was shopping at a major supermarket when the accident happened. He wished to buy the furniture and was attempting to remove...
One of the rules that applies to the administration of estates is that whilst a person appointed as executor under a will can refuse to accept the appointment, once an executor ‘intermeddles’ in the estate, in principle he or she cannot then...
A man who suffered damage to his hearing as a result of exposure to excessive noise in the workplace has won compensation from his employer. William Shipman, from West Yorkshire, had worked in a variety of jobs for a packaging company. During his...
The penalties for engaging in anti-competitive behaviour are very substantial but, recognising that cartel (price-fixing) behaviour is difficult to detect, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has a ‘leniency programme’, which operates to give...
Thousands could be caught in wrangle over care home fees read the full article at Yorkshire Post http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/business/business-news/thousands_could_be_caught_in_wrangle_over_care_home_fees_1_4074956 ...
The cardinal rule in proceedings involving children is that the welfare of the child comes first. In some cases, the interests of individual children in a family are sufficiently different for them to be considered separately. In a case involving a...
The Government is proposing to integrate the operation of the Income Tax and National Insurance Contributions systems, as announced in the 2011 Budget. Following an initial consultation with businesses and other interested parties, to gather evidence on the...
A woman who missed out on her holiday after she fell down a set of temporary stairs at Birmingham International Airport has won £28,000 in compensation from Thomson Airways. Sheila Gilling, 69, was boarding a flight to Lanzarote when the accident...
When an elderly woman passed away, her daughter, who was her personal representative, realised that some of her late mother’s land was occupied unlawfully by three people. She brought an action against them , seeking to recover possession of the land...
An update on the Legal Position It seems reasonable that an agent should not engage in activities that compete against his own principal. But ‘reasonable’ and ‘legal’ can be very different things. What are the respective legal...
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has issued for consultation proposals for introducing fees for those wishing to lodge a claim with an Employment Tribunal (ET) or an appeal with the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT). Currently, the system is free to use and in...
In order for an asset to be removed from an estate for Inheritance Tax (IHT) purposes, the donor of the asset must retain no benefit from it after the legal title to it passes. Complex ‘reservation of benefit’ legislation exists to ensure that...
A former professional jockey who was injured while working on an equestrian farm has won £22,000 in compensation. Jeffery Kear was working as an equestrian facilities manager at Stockland Lovell, near Bridgwater in Somerset. He had only been employed...
In July, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) announced that it had applied to intervene in four cases due to be heard by the European Court of Human Rights, all of which were brought by Christian employees who claimed to be victims of religious...
When one business uses the trade marks of another, an action may be able to be brought for trade mark infringement and possibly also for ‘passing off’ – the term given to the situation in which a business attempts to profit by presenting...
The UK has been proceeding apace in its attempts to develop ‘green’ energy, and wind turbines are appearing all over the country – including in such seemingly unlikely spots as beside the M25. However, no matter what their benefits as...
A man who suffered a serious spinal injury as a result of a mistaken hospital diagnosis in 2000 has won an undisclosed amount in compensation. Liam Careless, now 23, was 12 years old when he was taken to Tameside Hospital complaining of paralysis in his...
A husband has lost his appeal against an order made in July 2010 for ancillary relief (the legal term for financial provision for an ex-spouse) that put family assets of £10 million, including £7 million held in two trusts, into the pool of...
Company liquidations have edged up in the first quarter of 2011, with 4,121 companies being subject to winding-up orders. Compulsory liquidations fell by more than 10 per cent compared with the same quarter in 2010, but creditors’ voluntary...
A man who was run over by musician Pete Doherty’s Daimler in 2009 has won an undisclosed amount in compensation at the High Court. Chris Corder, 42, was delivering church newsletters near Hadleigh in Suffolk when the accident happened. He was struck...
Every year the firm's Christmas party presents employees with the chance to relax and enjoy the holiday season. However, it is easy to forget that an employer owes its employees certain obligations, even outside work, when the employer has organised the...
If you are used to taking part of your company income by way of dividends (a common tax planning device, the main advantage of which is savings on National Insurance Contributions), but you require time to pay your taxes because of cash-flow problems,...
When a millionaire estate agent died intestate, the two women he had been involved with both tried to have his estate distributed according to their wishes. Chris John died leaving an estate worth £5 million. At the time of his death, he had been...
The widow of a man who died of an asbestos-related disease has won over £250,000 in compensation. William Wolff had worked as a joiner for 50 years before he retired in 2005, three months before his 65th birthday. He and his wife had planned to tour...
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has published provisional fatal injury statistics for the year April 2010 to March 2011 . These show that the number of workers killed in Britain was 171, compared with an all time low of 147 deaths in the previous...
An amateur footballer who was seriously injured while playing on a poorly maintained pitch was recently awarded £22,700 in compensation at Dewsbury County Court. Paul Zoledziejewski, a 33-year-old mechanic, was playing for his club on a pitch in Shelf...
When does a commercial property become vacant under a lease agreement? This was the question considered in a recent hearing in the Court of Appeal . The appeal was brought by haulage and storage firm NYK Logistics (UK) Ltd., a former tenant of Netherlands...
It is well known that in the UK, the loser in a court case pays the legal costs of the winner. It is often assumed that if, say, your legal costs are £5,000 and you win your case, you will get the £5,000 reimbursed. However, this is normally not...
A grandmother has won substantial compensation for injuries she sustained when she slipped on a spillage at an ASDA superstore. Patricia Hill, 73, was shopping at the Rivergate store in Peterborough when she slipped on what was thought to be vegetable...
An advertising and media company run by a Mr Casey sought to register the trade mark ‘Carbon Virgin’. The application was opposed by Richard Branson’s Virgin Enterprises Ltd. (VEL) on the grounds of the similarity of the proposed trade mark...
People who suffered losses as a result of the collapse of mutual insurer Equitable Life in 2000 will be pleased to know that the compensation payments they receive as a result of the passing of the Equitable Life (Payments) Act 2010 will be tax free. The...
A recent survey of businesses carried out by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales has found that, in general, the availability of finance for business from banks and other providers of external finance has eased slightly but is still...
The recent case in which the court was asked to rule regarding a vacant flat that was part of a property sold at auction – the existence of which neither the vendor nor the purchaser was aware of until after the sale – has now been heard by the...
Following its Resolving Workplace Disputes consultation and the Red Tape Challenge review of employment law, the Government has announced its proposals for reform. The aim is to replace overly burdensome regulation whilst safeguarding workers’ rights,...
Every employer must provide employees with suitable personal protective equipment to guard against exposure to health and safety hazards while they are at work. To this end, employers should carry out risk assessments to identify any foreseeable risks faced...
A widow who was excluded from inheriting her husband’s £500,000 estate, under the terms of a will he made four years before he died in 2009, has contested the will, alleging that the brain tumour from which her husband was suffering meant that he...
A father who sought to have a hearing regarding his contact with his children adjourned so that new evidence could be obtained found his argument rejected by the Court of Appeal recently. The family court had issued an interim order that the father, who had...
Operators of Amusement With Prizes (AWP) machines who receive VAT refunds as a result of a review carried out by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) in the wake of a court reverse in 2009 are advised to ensure that they are able to repay the refund if necessary,...
The court has approved a compensation settlement of £900,000 for a boy whose leg had to be amputated shortly after he was born. Leo Ison, now six, was just three weeks old when doctors at Glenfield Hospital in Leicester told his parents that he would...
A landowner’s duty of care with regard to land used by members of the public was the subject of a recent case in the High Court . The limits of legal responsibility in such circumstances are established generally by the law of tort (civil injury to...
The construction industry is one of the most dangerous in which to earn a living. A construction worker who was seriously injured in a fall from height at work has secured a compensation package worth millions of pounds. The 38-year-old man was working for...
Under the Agency Workers Regulations 2010 (AWR), which came into force on 1 October 2011, agency workers are entitled to have the same basic terms and conditions of employment as if they had been employed directly by the hirer once they have completed a...
New measures put forward by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) to deal with the problem of ‘tax agents who act dishonestly in tax matters’ include proposals that HMRC should ‘name and shame’ advisers who are found to have acted dishonestly...
MoneySavingExpert.com (MSE) founder Martin Lewis has won summary judgment in the High Court – against a cold calling company – for infringement of his trade marks. This means that Mr Lewis does not have to run to the expense of a full trial on...
A man who was struck by a van while walking through a car park has won £5,500 in damages. The man was returning to his car when he saw a van reversing, so he altered his route so that he passed in front of the vehicle. The van driver quickly changed...
A developer who completely demolished a property when he only had permission to demolish part of it has landed himself with a fine and legal costs totalling more than £120,000. The developer has been given a year to pay the £80,000 fine and the...
Years ago, it was common for a deed creating a trust for children to specify the beneficiaries as being ‘the legitimate children’ of the person setting up the trust. Recently, the children of the 13th Duke of Manchester, by his bigamous marriage...
A woman who was left permanently disabled after a routine hip operation went wrong has won over £100,000 in damages. Margaret Peabody, 51, was suffering from painful osteoarthritis and, in 2008, underwent an operation at the St Cross Hospital in Rugby...
Two companies have been fined a total of £450,000 and ordered to pay costs after health and safety failures led to a maintenance worker falling to his death. Christopher Booker, 49, was working at Aberthaw Power Station when the accident happened in...
A woman who fell from a boat during a pleasure cruise has been awarded compensation for the injuries she suffered as a result. The woman was at a Christmas party, with colleagues from work, when the accident happened. She and a friend had been dancing and...
A woman who paid more than 90 per cent of the cost of a £3 million property purchased for her daughter, in whose name the title is held, has failed in her attempt to have the ownership of the property changed to reflect her contribution. It would seem...
The law relating to the fiduciary duties of directors is stricter than many company directors might think, as a recent case illustrates . The director of a company was given the loan of ‘a second-hand excavator and dumper’ for his personal use,...
The High Court has upheld a challenge by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) to various terms found in some gym membership contracts – most notably lengthy minimum membership periods – ruling that such terms are unfair and therefore unenforceable....
A woman whose hearing was damaged as a result of exposure to excessive levels of noise at work has won just over £1,200 in compensation from one of her former employers. This comes on top of an earlier settlement of £2,700 from a different...
News that HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) are to create a dedicated team of investigators to ‘target’ restaurants suspected of evading their tax liabilities is no real surprise: the sector offers them rich pickings in terms of under-declared...
The Supreme Court has handed down its decision in a case concerning the employment status of 20 valeters who provided car-cleaning services to motor retailers and auctioneers ( Autoclenz Ltd. v Belcher and others ). The valeters had written contracts with...
The Supreme Court recently handed down its judgment in the case of Gaines-Cooper v Revenue and Customs . In what will be a suprising decision to many, the Court has ruled in favour of HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), who argued that businessman Robert...
The family of a former shipyard worker who was exposed to asbestos in more than one job has won compensation from three of his former employers. William Galloway began working as a lagger when he was 16 years old, and was exposed to asbestos during that...
On 1 October 2011, changes to the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 (normally called the Construction Act) came into force. The changes are contained in Part 8 of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 ...
The combination of a deathbed marriage, a millionaire and a new will was always likely to end in a court battle, and so it proved recently when a family challenged their late father’s will, which left everything to his new wife, who had been his...
A textile factory employee who suffered a serious wrist injury when he slipped at work has won £40,000 in an out-of-court settlement. The man, who is in his 60s, slipped on fluid that had leaked from a textile printing machine. He fell backwards and...
Following Lord Justice Jackson’s report on his review of civil litigation costs, a new law has been introduced to make it easier for small and medium-sized businesses to bring actions to protect their patent and design rights. The Patents County...
The Law Society is urging the nearly 70 per cent of the adult population who have not yet made a will to do so. There are many reasons why you should make a will. It is a mistake to think that it is only necessary if you have a substantial estate. Estate...
Subscribe to the Latest Legal News RSS feed and get news articles when they are added. Copy the address in the box below into your rss reader software: