‘Professional Liability and Coverage Update: what happened in 2024 and what’s in store in 2025?’
4 New Square, 6th January 2025
Source: www.4newsquare.com
‘Ali v HSF Logistics Polska SP ZOO [2024] EWCA 1479. This was a very simple case that illustrates in a nutshell the courts’ approach to the principle of “ex turpi causa”: the notion that prevents a claimant from seeking a legal remedy if the claim arises in connection with their own illegal or immoral act. Even in a civil case, courts are reluctant to allow a party to benefit from their own wrongdoing, as it may be seen as contrary to the interests of justice and social morals. However, it cannot be a blanket rule, as we shall see from the case below. Proportionality has to to be applied.’
UK Human Rights Blog, 10th December 2024
Source: ukhumanrightsblog.com
‘Mr Ali had incurred credit hire charges of over £21,500 following an accident in which his car was damaged. The Defendant argued that since Mr Ali’s car did not have a valid MOT, and there was no evidence of any intention to obtain one during the period of the car hire, the claim for credit hire could not succeed on grounds of illegality. The car was parked at the time of the accident.’
Pump Court Chambers, 19th October 2023
Source: www.pumpcourtchambers.com
‘In Ecila Henderson v. Dorset Healthcare University NHS Trust Foundation [2020] UKSC 43 the Supreme Court has revisited the defence of illegality (“ex turpi causa”) in the context of a claim for clinical negligence.’
UK Human Rights Law Blog, 3rd November 2020
Source: ukhumanrightsblog.com
‘In the case of Kelly Wallett (on her own behalf and on behalf of the dependants of Ian Hill (Deceased)) v Vickers [2018] EWHC 3088 (QB) the High Court considered (heard on 14.11.2018) issues of joint criminal enterprise in the context of the ex turpi causa defence.’
Zenith Chambers, 26th November 2018
Source: www.zenithchambers.co.uk
‘In the case of Kelly Wallett (on her own behalf and on behalf of the dependants of Ian Hill (Deceased)) v Vickers [2018] EWHC 3088 (QB) the High Court considered (heard on 14.11.2018) issues of joint criminal enterprise in the context of the ex turpi causadefence.’
Zenith PI, 26th November 2018
Source: zenithpi.wordpress.com
‘Smith appealed against the decision of the MIB not to meet his personal injury claim when it was discovered that the First Defendant was an uninsured driver.’
Zenith PI Blog, 20th January 2016
Source: www.zenithpi.wordpress.com
‘Personal injury arises out of criminal acts as well as legal ones. The good news is this is not a bar to recovery.’
Zenith PI Blog, 8th May 2015
Source: www.zenithpi.wordpress.com
Jetivia SA and another (Appellants) v Bilta (UK) Limited and others (Respondents) [2015] UKSC 23 (YouTube)
Supreme Court, 22nd April 2015
‘Where a claimant’s injury had two separate causes, one of which was his own criminal conduct in a joint enterprise with another, amounting to turpitude for the purposes of the defence of ex turpi causa, and one of which was a third party’s negligence, the relationship between the claimant’s turpitude and his negligence claim against the third party was not such as to debar his claim against the defendant in reliance on the principle of ex turpi causa. The correct approach of the court in such cases was to give effect to both causes of the injury by allowing the claimant to claim in negligence against the third party but, if negligence was established, by reducing any recoverable damages in accordance with the principles of contributory negligence so as to reflect the claimant’s own fault and responsibility for the injury.’
WLR Daily, 22nd April 2015
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
‘The defence of ex turpi causa non oritur actio is not available to company directors in a claim by the company for conspiracy to defraud the company because the directors’ conduct cannot be attributed to the company in the context of its claim for a breach of the directors’ duties. Section 213 of the Insolvency Act 1986 has extra territorial effect and can be invoked against the directors.’
WLR Daily, 22nd April 2015
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
‘The recent case of AB v Chief Constable of X Constabulary provided the High Court with an opportunity to review the doctrine of ex turpi causa and its application in personal injury cases.’
Zenith PI Blog, 15th January 2015
Source: www.zenithpi.wordpress.com
Supreme Court, 29th October 2014
Les Laboratoires Servier and another v Apotex Inc and others [2014] UKSC 55; [2014] WLR (D) 452
‘Although acts which constituted “turpitude” for the purposes of giving rise to the defence of ex turpi causa non oritur actio were not confined to criminal acts but included quasi criminal acts which engaged the public interest, civil wrongs which offended against private and not public interests did not give rise to the defence. Infringements of patent gave rise to private rights of a character no different from rights under contract or tort and there was no public policy which would give rise to a defence of ex turpi causa.’
WLR Daily, 29th October 2014
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
“The press would have us believe that criminals can do what they like and then merrily sue all and sundry for the unfortunate consequences of those actions. Sadly for tabloid journalists this is simply not true as the Court of Appeal recently remind us in Joyce v O’Brien [2012] EWHC 1324 (QB), [2012] All ER (D) 202 (May). The case is a useful reminder of the rule often shortened to “ex turpi”, namely that the court will not allow a party to profit from a loss arising from that party’s own criminal or immoral activity.”
New Law Journal, 27th June 2013
Source: www.newlawjournal.co.uk
Joyce v O’Brien and another [2013] EWCA Civ 546; [2013] WLR (D) 182
“Where the character of a joint criminal enterprise was such that it was foreseeable that a party or parties might be subject to unusual or increased risks of harm as a consequence of the activities of the parties in pursuance of their criminal objectives, and the risk materialised, the harm could properly be said to have been caused by the criminal act of the party suffering it even if it resulted from the negligent or intentional act of another party to the criminal enterprise. Therefore, in such circumstances the principle of ex turpi causa non oritur actio would provide the negligent party with a defence to a claim for negligence by the injured party.”
WLR Daily, 17th May 2013
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
Domestic and Personal Injury Newsletter (PDF)
Thirty Nine Essex Street, June 2012
Source: www.39essex.com
Les Laboratoires Servier and another v Apotex Inc and others [2012] EWCA Civ 593; [2012] WLR (D) 138
“The court was able to take into account a wide range of considerations in order to ensure that the ex turpi causa defence only applied where it was a just and proportionate response to the illegality in question. Although a party claiming compensation on a cross-undertaking in damages for lost sales of products the manufacture of which infringed a foreign patent was relying on an unlawful act sufficiently causative of its claim to engage the defence in principle, the defence did not apply where the party had believed reasonably and in good faith that the patent was invalid, and the illegality was recognised by making a deduction in the assessment of damages for the amount which the foreign court would have awarded in patent infringement proceedings.”
WLR Daily, 3rd May 2012
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
Delaney v Pickett and another; [2011] EWCA Civ 1532; [2011] WLR (D) 390
“In looking to the possible application of the defence of ‘ex turpi’ in a claim of negligence arising out of a road traffic accident it could be crucial to ask whether the injury in issue was truly a consequence of the claimant’s unlawful act or whether it was a consequence of the unlawful act only in the sense that it would not have happened if the claimant had not been committing an unlawful act. In other words, could one say that, although the damage would not have happened but for the tortious conduct of the defendant, it was caused by the criminal act of the claimant; or was the position, rather, that, although the damage would not have happened without the criminal act of the claimant, it was caused by the tortious act of the defendant ?.”
WLR Daily, 21st December 2011
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
“Economically speaking, the law is generally thought to be a counter-cyclical profession.”
Law Society’s Gazette, 12th May 2011
Source: www.lawgazette.co.uk
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