UK Legal Latest Key cases and updates from the Eversheds Sutherland Corporate Claims Team

Cases

Liability

Mohammed v Ali [2026] EWHC 401 (KB)

• A Recorder wrongly considered that he could not appoint a substitute litigation friend without first determining the claimant’s litigation capacity.
• A separate capacity hearing was procedurally flawed, unnecessary and costly, lacking the full evidential context and amounting to an expensive detour.

The claimant suffered significant injury in a road traffic accident. He claimed to lack capacity and was represented by his mother as litigation friend. Liability was admitted. However, the defendant disclosed evidence that both the claimant and his mother had exaggerated the extent of those injuries and alleged fundamental dishonesty. The claimant applied to replace his mother as litigation friend and then withdrew that application. This conduct called into question both the claimant’s mother’s ability to act as litigation friend; and whether the claimant really lacked capacity at all. The High Court concluded that it could not appoint an alternative litigation friend on the basis of the claimant’s evidence alone in the event of a dispute and laid down a hearing to determine capacity as a preliminary issue. The defendant appealed successfully; a litigation friend should have been appointed without a preliminary hearing and the question of capacity reserved to trial.

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MIM v Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust [2026] EWHC 562 (KB)

• Events involving the negligent management of labour do not amount to an ‘accident’, and therefore cannot succeed in a claim for psychiatric injury.

The King's Bench Division struck out the claimant's, MIM, claim for damages for psychiatric injury suffered as a result of witnessing his wife's labour and the delivery of his son, who was born with an acute profound hypoxic brain injury due to the defendant's admitted negligence. The key issue was whether what MIM witnessed constituted an ‘accident’ as required by the Supreme Court decision in Paul v Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust [2024] UKSC 1 for a secondary victim claim to succeed. The defendant admitted negligent management of labour, as delivery by 0941 to 0944 would have avoided all injury, but the baby was not delivered until 0947. The court held that the claim fell to be struck out under CPR 3.4(2)(a). The court found that the facts pleaded could not amount to witnessing an accident. The ordinary person would describe the circumstances as a negligently caused medical crisis rather than an accident. The matters pleaded did not constitute ‘a discrete event...something which happens at a particular time, at a particular place, in a particular way’ as required by Paul. The injury had arisen from the period of hypoxia during the bodily process of labour and birth, not from an unexpected and unintended event causing injury by violent external means.

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Mazur appeal

• Unauthorised individuals may perform litigation tasks but must not do so independently of an authorised person 
• An authorised person must retain effective control over the case, awareness of key steps and responsibility for decisions within litigation.

This saw the appeal of Julia Mazur and anor v Charles Russell Speechlys LLP [2025] EWHC 2341 (KB) which established that only authorised individuals may conduct litigation, even under supervision. On appeal, the Court of Appeal decisively rejected this and adopted a functional and purposive reading of the statute, holding that “conduct of litigation” concerns those who have legal responsibility for the case, not who mechanically performs individual tasks. Delegation, the Court recognised, is key in litigation practice and cannot have been intended to be criminalised. Unauthorised persons may therefore carry out litigation tasks on behalf of an authorised individual. The authorised person remains the one “conducting” the litigation, provided they direct, supervise, and take responsibility for the work. Crucially, the Court emphasised that supervision must be genuine and effective: responsibility may be delegated, but accountability cannot. This clarified the statutory provisions within the Legal Services Act 2007.

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Costs

Atuanya v Ministry of Defence [2026] EWHC 758 (KB)

• Fundamentally dishonest claims can still be penalised, even if the original claim is discontinued.

The King’s Bench Division held that the Claimant’s claim was fundamentally dishonest within the meaning of CPR 44.16(1), thereby disapplying qualified one way costs shifting (QOCS). Although the Claimant, a former Grenadier Guards soldier, suffered a genuine mild non freezing cold injury (NFCI) and a moderate depressive episode, the court found he had consciously exaggerated his sensitivity to cold and need for warm clothing in order to inflate his damages claim.
The dishonesty centred on the Claimant’s presentation to medical experts. Covert surveillance showed a stark contrast between his heavily clothed, symptomatic appearance during expert examinations on 8 March 2024 and his behaviour the following day, when he wore only a T shirt, walked normally and undertook a lengthy drive in similar temperatures. Applying the test for dishonesty in Ivey v Genting Casinos, the court found that this exaggeration was deliberate and dishonest, even if motivated by a desire to “convey suffering” rather than calculated fraud.

The court distinguished this conscious exaggeration from the Claimant’s genuine psychiatric difficulties and accepted that some symptoms fluctuated. However, the exaggeration was fundamental because it underpinned his claimed £150,000 disadvantage on the open labour market, based on alleged inability to work in cold or outdoor environments. Accordingly, the court ruled that a costs order could be made against the Claimant despite the discontinuance of his claim.

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Motor Insurers’ Bureau v Raphael De Lima Santiago

• Interpreter fees are recoverable under the fixed costs regime, provided they meet the criteria of reasonableness and proportionality.

The claimant, Mr Raphael De Lima Santiago, required interpretation services for his personal injury claim, which settled for £20,000 plus costs under the fixed costs regime. The court ruled that such fees were genuine disbursements and not impermissible agency costs or disguised profit costs, even though the services were procured through a company related to the claimant's solicitors. The judgment emphasised that the court's role is to assess the reasonableness and proportionality of such costs, applying CPR 44.3 and relevant case law, such as Callery v Gray.

This addressed the issue of whether interpreter fees could be considered recoverable disbursements under the fixed costs regime. The King's Bench Division dismissed the Motor Insurers' Bureau's (MIB) appeal, upholding the lower court's decision that the interpreter's fee of £794.40, including VAT, was reasonable and proportionate.

The case has significant implications for UK law, particularly in the context of fixed costs and access to justice. It clarifies that interpreter fees, as a form of disbursement, are recoverable under the fixed costs regime, provided they meet the criteria of reasonableness and proportionality.

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Attersley v UK Insurance Ltd [2026] EWCA Civ 217

• Fixed recoverable costs apply in ex-protocol claims when a Part 36 offer is accepted after allocation to the multi-track.

The Court of Appeal held that a claimant who accepts a Part 36 offer late in an ex RTA Protocol claim is restricted to fixed recoverable costs under Part 45, even if the claim is later allocated to the multi track. The decisive issue was which costs rule applied. The court held that CPR rule 36.20, rather than the general rule 36.13, governed the costs consequences because the claim fell within Section IIIA of Part 45 at the time the Part 36 relevant period expired.
The claim initially proceeded under the RTA Protocol, exited it, and therefore became an ex Protocol case within rule 45.29A. Although it was later allocated to the multi track, this did not retrospectively remove it from the fixed costs regime. The phrase “for so long as the case is not allocated to the multi track” simply means that fixed costs apply up to allocation, not that allocation rewrites earlier costs consequences.

Under rule 36.20(4), where a Part 36 offer is accepted after the relevant period, the claimant is entitled only to the costs applicable at the date the relevant period expired. On that date, fixed costs applied, so fixed costs remained recoverable. The court emphasised that this interpretation promotes certainty and the purpose of Part 36 by encouraging early settlement and preventing higher costs arising from late acceptance due to events beyond the parties’ control.

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Updates

UK Supreme Court announces fee increases effective 1 April 2026

The UK Supreme Court has announced that its fees will increase from 1 April 2026 following recommendations from the Lord Chancellor. The increases reflect Consumer Prices Index inflation of 5.9% measured between March 2023 and March 2025, with the permission to appeal fee rising to £1,470 and the notice of appeal filing fee increasing to £9,500. These adjustments represent the second increase since 2011, following a 2024 decision to implement biennial fee reviews to account for inflation. Parties that have already filed permission to appeal applications will be subject to the new fees for any subsequent stages of their appeal proceedings.

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