Striking out

I am applying on behalf of clients for a new business lease under the provisions of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954, in the Watford County Court.

The procedure that is being used is that contained in the new CPR 56 and practice direction 56.

The respondent landlord, with the tenant's agreement, has asked for and got a three-month stay of the claim.

As part of the stay, the court has ordered that by a date shortly after the end of the stay, the tenant must make a request for further directions or 'the case will be struck out without further order'.

I wrote to the Lord Chancellor's Department asking whether it had any view on such a draconian order, bearing in mind that the current CPR do not contain provisions for automatic strikeout, and the Woolf Report, Access to Justice, says that 'striking out an entire claim or defence must remain as a weapon in the court's armoury but I accept that it is a draconian sanction and that it should not be imposed too readily.

Cases should be kept running if possible.'

I finally obtained a reply from the Court Service stating that it had no view on this matter and it would appear likely that 'the judge had considered the order within the general powers of case management as stipulated in CPR 3.4.' CPR 3.4 makes no provision for automatic strikeout and it would be odd indeed if the courts were to use this part of the CPR as a general authority, to make automatic strikeout provisions.

I wonder whether anyone else has come across such orders.

Neil Spurrier, Gregory Rowcliffe & Milners, London