Articles
This site contains a substantial collection of writing on credit hire law and practice, developed over the past decade. The emphasis is practical: what the authorities mean, how the rules operate and where the real risks lie.
The latest specialist analysis appears below. If you are looking for a particular issue, the four gateways provide a quicker route into the archive.
Older articles should be read in the context of the law at the date of publication.
Damages
Impecuniosity, basic hire rates, need, period, mitigation and the recoverable measure of loss.
Agreements & Regulation
Enforceability, contractual liability, misrepresentation, credit hire and credit repair agreements, illegality and regulatory issues.
Evidence & Commercial Vehicles
Witness and documentary evidence, procedure, dishonesty, taxis, private hire vehicles, fleets and profit-earning chattels.
Evidence & procedure · Dishonesty & fraud · Taxi, fleet & commercial
Appeals & Costs
Appellate principles, QOCS, non-party costs orders and the procedural and costs consequences of credit hire litigation.
Recent analysis
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Part 45 and issue based costs Orders
Long term readers of this blog, will know that I tend to place articles I write on costs issues, on my other blog dedicated to matters of costs and litigation funding at www.costsbarrister.co.uk. However I am placing this article on this blog as it has a particular relevance to credit hire claims which fail at…
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The mailbox rule
It is frequently the case in credit hire litigation, that an issue arises as to whether correspondence that is said to have been sent, was actually received. It can be of the utmost importance to establish whether that was so, in for example an application to set aside default judgment or to establish whether an…
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Comparators considered part 3
Our consideration now turns to the second of the two appeals in the conjoined cases of McBride v UK Insurance and Clayton v EUI Limited [2017] EWCA Civ 144 that of Clayton. The case already has a degree of notoriety, for the intemperate language used by the District Judge sitting at first instance: 20. As appears…
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Comparators considered part 2
The decisions in McBride v UK Insurance and Clayton v EUI Limited [2017] EWCA Civ 144 in a sense represented a Springsteen-esque “last chance suicide drive” by a credit hire company desperate to escape the consequences of the Stevens decision, hence an attempt to persuade the Court of Appeal, that Stevens was wrongly decided as it…
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Comparators considered part 1
Last month saw the handing down of judgment in the conjoined appeals of McBride v UK Insurance and Clayton v EUI Limited [2017] EWCA Civ 144 the most recent credit hire cases to reach the Court of Appeal. The cases represented an attempt by the credit hire industry to salvage or at least improve their position after…
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No insurance ? No MOT ? No problem in 2017?
The common law on the doctrine of illegality as a defence to liability in its various forms changed last year, but the ramifications of the change have yet to find their way through to the law and practice of credit hire. It is still frequently raised as an issue in litigation that the claimant is barred from recovering…
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Return to the CMA: this time its personal
Anyone who undertakes work in the field of credit hire will be well aware of the distorting effect on the measure of damages that the seminal case of Lagden v O’Connor [2004] 1 AC 1067 has had, through the overturning of The Liesbosch [1933] AC 449 and the carving out of the principle, that an…
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Out with the old, in with the new
One of the more boutique areas of my work in credit hire litigation has involved drafting submissions to arbitrators appointed under the MIB Untraced Drivers Agreement and occasionally pursuing an appeal to the Commercial Court on a point of law when an arbitral decision has been rendered flawed by a mistake. It is with interest…
Researching an issue in a current case?
If the point arises in substantial litigation or an appeal and you would like specialist advice, please contact my clerks at Hailsham Chambers.