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DECISIONS OF PROFESSIONAL
INTEREST
Privilege upheld where copy of hospital case notes made for
purpose of advising plaintiff in personal injuries claim.
For the purpose of assisting and advising the
plaintiff in connection with a claim for damages for
personal injuries, and after the proceedings were
clearly contemplated, the plaintiff's solicitors pre
pared a copy of the case notes made and kept by the
hospital at Birkenhead which the plaintiff had
attended.
In the action the defendants applied for
disclosure of the copy.
Held by the Court of Appeal (Lord Evershed,
M.R., and Willmer, L.J.) affirming Elwes J. that as
the copy of the case notes had been prepared by the
solicitors for the purposes of the action, the docu
ment was privileged from production.
Per Lord Evershed, M.R. :
On being afflicted
with meningitis, the plaintiff went to a hospital in
Birkenhead, and, in accordance with routine practice,
case notes were made and kept by the hospital of
his condition. As counsel for the defendants pointed
out, no doubt rightly, meningitis may be of two
kinds, traumatic or infective, and, according as it
is one or the other, it may be deduced whether it
was or was not the result of the accident.
It seems to me that in this case, the document
with which we are concerned is a copy which was
made by the plaintiff's advisers for the purposes of
the litigation in which the solicitors were acting for
the party. That being so, it seems, I think, clear
that the learned judge was right to say that he could
not make the order.
As a matter of common sense, I felt sympathy
with counsel for the defendants, because plainly his
conduct of the defence, including the matter of
possible payment into court, would be materially
affected by the medical evidence which the case
notes would supply.
I am, however, happy to say
that anxiety and sympathy on those grounds is
greatly lessened because counsel for the plaintiff has
pointed out that he has, or that those advising him
have—very sensibly, if I may say so—offered to
disclose these documents provided that a similar
courtesy or facility is shown on the other side, that
offer being expressed to be without prejudice to
what the strict rights may be ; and that counsel for
the defendants has not accepted that offer, preferring
to treat this as a matter of right or principle which,
he says, may be important.
I am happy to think
that those advising the parties in practice have
shown good sense in trying to assist to reach a
conclusion of the matter.
(Watson
v.
Cammell
Laird & Co.—(1959) 2 All E.R. 757.)
Disciplinary Committee need not find express finding in
respect of each separate complaint by solicitor.
The Divisional Court (The Lord Chief Justice,
Mr. Justice Ashworth and Mr. Justice Edmund
Davies) dismissed this appeal by a solicitor from an
order of the Disciplinary Committee of the Law
Society made on August 20, 1959, that he should be
suspended from practice for one year from September
i, 1959.
The Lord Chief Justice, dismissing the appeal on
this and other grounds, said that the most serious
complaints made against the solicitor were that he
had utilised moneys in his clients' account for
himself and that he had utilized the moneys for the
benefit of other clients.
The Disciplinary Committee had held that it was
unnecessary to make any findings in respect of the
complaints. It had been contended on behalf of the
solicitor that it was the duty of the Disciplinary
Committee
to make express
findings on each
complaint. His Lordship could not see as a matter
of law that that was so.
The Disciplinary Com
mittee must hear and determine the application as
a whole.
At the same time, as a matter of fairness to the
solicitor concerned, it would sometimes be the case
(as it was here) that the Disciplinary Committee
should make definite findings on all the complaints
made. These two complaints were very serious and
the solicitor had had no exoneration from them.
Where such complaints were not alleged in the
alternative and were serious matters, it was only
fair that the Disciplinary Committee should say
whether they were justified or not justified.
Leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal would be
granted.
(In Re a Solicitor—"
The Times,"
22
October, 1959.)
On a taxation, the party ordered to pay costs is not
entitled to see the contents of a brief delivered on behalf of
a third party.
Mr. Justice Stevenson held that on taxation of a
bill of costs, the party who had been ordered to
pay costs was not entitled to see the contents of a
brief delivered on behalf of another party.
At the end of a hearing of a contested divorce
suit, which lasted a day and a half, the husband, Mr.
Robert Hobbs, of Kampala, Uganda, was on Feb
ruary 10, 1959, granted a decree nisi of divorce
from Mrs. Dorothy Patricia Hobbs, of Kensington,
on the ground of her adultery with the co-respondent.
The co-respondent was ordered to pay the husband's
costs.
These costs, which amounted to about £800,
included an item of £228 in respect of the husband's
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