Practice

Direction for deferred disclose of experts reports - deferred until after time for requesting hearing date to be made - not irreconcilable with automatic directions - court entitled to treat as nullity for procedural purposes withdrawal of application for order for split trial to enable continuance of automatic directionsHawkins v Keppe Shaw Solicitors (a firm); CA (Waller, Latham and Mr Justice Astill); 20 July 2001 In 1990 the claimant was a passenger on a motorcycle injured in an accident in which the driver was killed.

In October 1991 he sued the estate of the driver.The estate instituted third party proceedings against the driver of the car with which the motorcycle collided.

In 1993 the action was struck out under the County Court Rules, order 17 rule 11(9) as amended.The claimant subsequently brought proceedings in negligence against the solicitors dealing with the action and a preliminary issue was tried as to whether or not automatic directions had been ousted by directions made by district judge in 1992 and by an application for a split trial in 1993.

The judge held that they had been ousted and that the original action had not been automatically struck out.Guy Mansfield QC and Toby Hooper QC (instructed by Trobridges, Plymouth) for the claimant; Alan Jeffreys QC and Duncan Macleod (instructed by Barlow Lyde & Gilbert) for the solicitors.Held, allowing the appeal, that an order which deferred disclosure of experts' reports until after a request for a hearing date would have to be made was not irreconcilable with the operation of automatic directions because it did not prevent the action as a whole being progressed towards a trial within the timescale envisaged by automatic directions; that while an application for an order for a split trial or trial of a preliminary issue would oust automatic directions, the court was entitled to treat for procedural purposes the withdrawal of an application for such an order as nullifying the application itself so that the case could proceed subject to existing automatic directions; that, accordingly, the action had been struck out in 1993.