K12. Multi-party Litigation
| 377. |
Special case management needs arise in
relation to cases with numerous parties or potential litigants. The procedural issues
arise in two main situations. |
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| 378. |
The first, involving situations which in the
United States may be dealt with by "class actions", is presently not catered for
by our system. However, strong arguments exist in favour of establishing procedures for
this type of litigation as a means of giving access to legal remedies presently
unattainable in practice. Lord Woolf, for instance, advocated new procedures which would
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"...... provide
access to justice where large numbers of people have been affected by another's conduct,
but individual loss is so small that it makes an individual action economically
unviable." (Note 325) |
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| 379. |
The absence of such procedures tends to be
felt particularly by those concerned with consumer protection, as was reflected in the
submission made to Lord Woolf by the UK's National Consumer Council, as follows:- |
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"As we become an
increasingly mass producing and mass consuming society, one product or service with a flaw
has the potential to injure or cause other loss to more and more people. Yet our civil
justice system has not adapted to mass legal actions. We still largely treat them as a
collection of individual cases, with the findings in one case having only limited
relevance in law to all of the others." (Note 326) |
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| 380. |
It is argued that procedures should be
established to allow a large number of small claims to be grouped together and effectively
pursued in a single action, assisted by special case management measures. If this can be
achieved, not only would small claimants acquire legal access previously denied,
defendants such as large corporate wrongdoers in product liability and other cases would
be faced with proceedings to be taken seriously, leading to long-term social benefits in
the form of higher safety standards vis- -vis consumers and others. |
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| 381. |
The other main multi-party situation does not
involve problems of legal access. It arises because, for some reason or other, a large
number of similar or related claims (each of which may be individually viable in financial
terms) are instituted at about the same time, posing challenges to the court's ability to
deal efficiently with such a multiplicity of proceedings. Lord Woolf describes this kind
of situation as one requiring the civil justice system to :- |
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"...... provide
expeditious, effective and proportionate methods of resolving cases, where individual
damages are large enough to justify individual action but where the number of claimants
and the nature of the issues involved mean that the cases cannot be managed satisfactorily
in accordance with normal procedure......" (Note 327) |
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| 382. |
Either, or indeed, both, of the situations
mentioned above can emerge in various different contexts. Examples given include :- |
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"...... local
housing and environmental actions, consumer cases, financial actions such as the Lloyds
litigation, single 'one-off' disasters and large scale complex environmental actions and
product liability actions, including pharmaceutical and medical cases." (Note 328) |
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In the public law context, the right of abode
litigation involving thousands of applicants provides another obvious example. |
Notes
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