| 117. |
Waiting-times recorded
during the six-month period from October 2000 to March 2001 are contained in Table
12 and Table 13 of Appendix C. Table 12 sets
out the time it takes on average to get from listing to hearing (of the appeal or trial,
as the case may be). Records are presently kept on two bases. First, there is the
"Court Waiting Time", defined as the period from the date of listing to the
first free date offered by the court. Since the parties will sometimes seek an alternative
date (whether because of counsel's unavailability or otherwise), the court also keeps
records of the period referred to as the "Case Waiting Date" defined as the
period from the date of listing to the first day of the actual hearing. |
|
|
| 118. |
It will be apparent
that over this six-month period, court waiting-times have steadily increased. In the case
of the Court of Appeal, it has gone from 82 days in October 2000 to 151 days in March
2001. The waiting-time for CFI fixtures has risen from 187 days in October to 209 days in
March. CFI running list waiting-times have also deteriorated: from 121 days in October to
143 days in March. |
|
|
| 119. |
Appendix C, Table
13 deals with waiting-times over the same six month period for applications
before the Master. Such waiting-times vary substantially depending on the nature of the
application. With the increase in insolvencies experienced in recent years (see Table
4), it is perhaps not surprising that the waiting times in the bankruptcy and
winding-up jurisdictions are substantial. |
|
|
| 120. |
Table 14
of Appendix C deals with waiting-times over the same period for interlocutory applications
before the Judge. A hearing estimated to last less than 30 minutes can usually be heard
within about a week. If for more than an hour is estimated, the average waiting-time runs
to a month or 6 weeks. Master's appeals involve a wait of about 2 weeks for an appointment
of less than 30 minutes, about 6 weeks if more than an hour is needed and some 2 1/2
months if a whole day or longer is required. |
|
|
| 121. |
Appendix C, Table
15 shows what happened to the 648 cases that proceeded to the first day of trial
during the year 2000 (many of such cases obviously having been commenced in earlier
years). It shows that a very substantial percentage involve late settlements. |
|
|
| 121.1 |
Overall, the figure of
such settlements occurring at the start or during trial represented 27% of all cases
reaching trial. For HCAs, the percentage settling in this way came to 22%. |
|
|
| 121.2 |
With personal injury
cases, such courtroom door settlements dramatically represented 55% of cases coming to
trial. Why this was so is not clear. The fact that many of the defendants were probably
insurers may be relevant. It may also be relevant that many of the plaintiffs were
probably legally aided and so did not have to bear most of the costs risk themselves. The
figures do certainly suggest that substantial room for encouraging earlier settlement may
exist. |
|
|
| 121.3 |
In contrast, all 16
Commercial List and both Admiralty cases fought to the conclusion of the trial. Such
parties are likely either to be privately financing the litigation or to be insurers on
both sides engaging in litigation as a business expense. It suggests that parties in this
kind of action generally will try to settle earlier if possible and tend to take a matter
to trial only where settlement genuinely cannot be reached. |
|
|
| 122. |
Table 15
also tends to show that most trials last for 3 days or less, this or a lower figure being
the median value for trial durations in all categories except Commercial List Actions
(where the median was 4 days) and Construction List Actions (where the median was 7 days). |
|
|
| 123. |
Table 16,
Appendix C, indicates that the estimates of trial duration are inaccurate in a large
proportion of cases. To take the cases started in 1998, of the 218 cases that had
proceeded to trial by the end of 2000, there were over-estimates and under-estimates in a
total of 91 cases, representing 41.7% of the whole. Few estimates in personal injury
actions were accurate. They tended either to go short or to overrun except in about 10% of
the 1998 cases and 26% of the 1999 cases. |
