The Good Law Project (GLP) has lost a bid to revive a judicial review which was thrown out after the legal campaign group served a claim form one day late.

GLP’s failure to validly serve the claim form amounted to ‘serious carelessness’, the Court of Appeal said in a ruling today. ‘It is important to emphasise (again) that valid service of a claim form is what founds the jurisdiction of the court over the defendant,’ Lady Justice Carr said.

‘Parties who fail, without good reason, to take reasonable steps to effect valid service, in circumstances where a relevant limitation period is about to expire, expose themselves to the very real risk of losing the right to bring their claim.’

GLP sought to challenge the Department of Health and Social Care’s decision to award a £102.6m contract for face masks to Pharmaceutical Direct, filing its claim last April and emailing an unsealed claim form to a ‘newproceedings’ email address supplied by the defendant.

The High Court issued a sealed claim form the following day, which GLP’s solicitors Bindmans emailed to three people at the Government Legal Department but not to the ‘newproceedings’ address.

The day after time for service of the claim form expired, GLD raised the issue of validity of service and a copy of the sealed claim form was sent to the ‘newproceedings’ email address later that day.

GLP’s application for an order that the steps it took to bring the claim form to the attention of the defendant constituted good service or, alternatively, for an extension of time was refused by the High Court last year and its appeal was dismissed by the Court of Appeal today.

She added: ‘Service of a claim form requires the utmost diligence and care to ensure that the relevant procedural rules are properly complied with,’ Carr said. ‘In the event, this was serious carelessness.’

The court also rejected GLP’s argument that the High Court was wrong to end a claim of potential significant public interest because of an error in service, with Carr saying: ‘The rules apply to claims with a public interest element with as much force as they do to any other type of claim.’

However, Lord Justice Phillips – who agreed that GLP’s appeal should be dismissed under CPR 3.1 – said that the failure to effect valid service of the claim form ‘was highly technical and did not have (and was never likely to have) any practical consequences whatsoever’.

‘If service is not to be validated retrospectively in such circumstances, form really has triumphed over substance and litigation has become a game of forfeits: the overriding objective, to deal with cases justly, has itself been overridden,’ he added.

GLP said that it will seek permission to appeal to the Supreme Court.

 

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