Has Part 36 spawned its own cottage industry? Matthew Caton & Clare Arthurs report
In the joined appeal of Gibbon v Manchester City Council, the Court of Appeal addressed Part 36 issues arising from two county court judgments (Gibbon v Manchester City Council; LG Blower Specialist Bricklayer Ltd v Reeves and another [2010] EWCA Civ 726, [2010] All ER (D) 218 (Jun)). The Court of Appeal panel was authoritative, comprising LJ Moore-Bick, LJ Carnwath, and Sir Anthony May (president of the Queen’s Bench Division). From 1 January 2007, LJ Moore-Bick was a member of the Civil Procedure Rule Committee that drafted the current version of Part 36, which came into force on 6 April 2007 with the 44th CPR Update.
Part 36 is a self-contained code
A brief overview of the background in Gibbon demonstrates how intransigence over a relatively nominal amount of money can lead to an expensive and unnecessary costs order for three levels of proceedings, not to mention immortality in Part 36 case law. In Gibbon, Mrs Gibbon sued the council for a personal injury sustained while