PracticeCommercial court - stale claim - claimants writing unilateral letter to court asking for directions - letter not preventing automatic stayReliance National Insurance Company (Europe) Ltd and Another v Ropner Insurance Services Ltd: CA (Chadwick and Latham LJJ): 1 December 2000On 19 April 2000, in an attempt to avoid the automatic stay provisions in CPR pt 51 Practice Direction para19, the claimants sent a letter to the court asking that a judge make directions or direct that there should be a case management conference.The letter, which had not been approved by the defendants, went before a judge who considered that the claimants had taken insufficient steps to progress their claim and applied the automatic stay.

They appealed on the ground that the judge's consideration of the letter amounted to the proceedings 'coming before the court...

on paper' for the purposes of para 19.Tom Adam (instructed by Hextall Erskine) for the claimants.

Rebecca Sabben-Clare (instructed by Holman Fenwick & Willan) of the defendants.Held, dismissing the appeal, that in the light of para 15(1) of the practice direction the expression 'come before a judge...

on paper' was intended to denote an occasion on which a judge considered exercising his powers in accordance with the Civil Procedure Rules; that the court could only exercise those powers on an application in accordance with Part 23 or of its own initiative pursuant to CPR r.3.3; that the claimants' letter did not constitute a notice of application and the judges' response to it could not properly be construed as an exercise of his powers underCPR r 3.3; and that the appeal would be dismissed.See Benchmarks, page 53