Civil Procedure Rules
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The Civil Procedure Rules (CPR) were introduced in 1997 as per the Civil Procedure Act 1997 by the Civil Procedure Rule Committee and are the rules of
civil procedure Civil procedure is the body of law that sets out the rules and regulations along with some standards that courts follow when adjudicating civil lawsuits (as opposed to procedures in criminal law matters). These rules govern how a lawsuit or ca ...
used by the
Court of Appeal An appellate court, commonly called a court of appeal(s), appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to Hearing (law), hear a Legal case, case upon appeal from a trial court or other ...
,
High Court of Justice The High Court of Justice in London, known properly as His Majesty's High Court of Justice in England, together with the Court of Appeal (England and Wales), Court of Appeal and the Crown Court, are the Courts of England and Wales, Senior Cour ...
, and County Court in civil cases in
England and Wales England and Wales () is one of the Law of the United Kingdom#Legal jurisdictions, three legal jurisdictions of the United Kingdom. It covers the constituent countries England and Wales and was formed by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. Th ...
. They apply to all cases commenced after 26 April 1999, and largely replace the
Rules of the Supreme Court The Rules of the Supreme Court (RSC) were the rules which governed civil procedure in the Senior Courts of England and Wales, Supreme Court of Judicature of England and Wales (since 2009 called the Senior Courts) from its formation in 1883 until ...
and the County Court Rules. The Civil Procedure Rules 1998 is the statutory instrument listing the rules. The CPR were designed to improve access to justice by making
legal proceeding Legal proceeding is an activity that seeks to invoke the power of a tribunal in order to enforce a law. Although the term may be defined more broadly or more narrowly as circumstances require, it has been noted that " e term ''legal proceedings ...
s cheaper, quicker, and easier to understand for non-lawyers. As a consequence of this, many former, older legal terms were replaced with "plain English" equivalents, such as "claimant" for "plaintiff" and "witness summons" for "subpoena". Unlike the previous rules of
civil procedure Civil procedure is the body of law that sets out the rules and regulations along with some standards that courts follow when adjudicating civil lawsuits (as opposed to procedures in criminal law matters). These rules govern how a lawsuit or ca ...
, the CPR commence with a statement of their "overriding objective", both to aid in the application of specific provisions and to guide behaviour where no specific rule applies.


History

In 1994, the
Lord Chancellor The Lord Chancellor, formally titled Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, is a senior minister of the Crown within the Government of the United Kingdom. The lord chancellor is the minister of justice for England and Wales and the highest-ra ...
instructed the then
Master of the Rolls The Keeper or Master of the Rolls and Records of the Chancery of England, known as the Master of the Rolls, is the President of the Court of Appeal (England and Wales)#Civil Division, Civil Division of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales ...
, Lord Woolf, to report on options to consolidate the existing rules of civil procedure. On 16 June 1995, Lord Woolf published an interim report on ''Access to Justice''. The interim report was the subject of extensive academic commentary. For example, American law professor Richard Marcus Jr. pointed out that the interim report was clearly inspired by the experience of the US federal courts with case management, which grew out of their experience with managing complex litigation. During the 1960s, a massive
antitrust Competition law is the field of law that promotes or seeks to maintain market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct by companies. Competition law is implemented through public and private enforcement. It is also known as antitrust l ...
scandal in the American electrical equipment industry had led to the enactment of a multidistrict litigation statute in 1968 and the creation of the
Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation The judiciary (also known as the judicial system, judicature, judicial branch, judiciative branch, and court or judiciary system) is the system of courts that adjudicates legal disputes/disagreements and interprets, defends, and applies the law ...
. In 1969, the Panel published the ''Manual on Complex Litigation'', which proposed that American judges should take a more active role in the management and development of complex cases during the pretrial phase of litigation. This recommendation touched off the case management movement of the 1970s and 1980s in American courts. On 26 July 1996, Lord Woolf published his final ''Access to Justice Report 1996'' in which he "identified a number of principles the civil justice system should meet to ensure access to justice. The system should – Lord Woolf listed two of the requirements of case management as "fixing timetables for the parties to take particular steps in the case; and limiting disclosure and expert evidence". The second thread of the report was to control the cost of litigation, both in time and money, by focusing on key issues rather than every possible issue and limiting the amount of work that has to be done on the case. The report was accompanied by draft rules of practice designed to implement Lord Woolf's proposals. These rules granted wide management powers to the court, proposed that cases be allocated to one of three tracks depending on their nature, limiting or requiring specific actions, and introduced the concept of proportionality to the costs regime. The Civil Procedure Act 1997 (c. 12) was enacted on 27 February 1997. It conferred the power to make civil procedure rules. It also established the Civil Justice Council, a body composed of members of the judiciary, members of the legal professions and civil servants, and charged with reviewing the civil justice system. The Civil Procedure Rules 1998 (SI 1998/3132) were made on 10 December 1998 and came into force on 26 April 1999. The draft rules of practice formed their core.


Contents


The overriding objective

Implemented as a result of reforms suggested by Lord Woolf and his committee, one of the innovations of the rules is the "overriding objective" embodied in Part 1 of the Rules, which states: The rules are written to be intelligible not just to lawyers but also to litigants in person.


Part 6: service of documents

Part 6 identifies the valid ways in which legal documents in general, and specifically a claim form, may be served. Personal service to an individual or to an organisation involves giving the document to the individual, to "a person holding a senior position within the
company A company, abbreviated as co., is a Legal personality, legal entity representing an association of legal people, whether Natural person, natural, Juridical person, juridical or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members ...
or corporation" or, in the case of a in a business
partnership A partnership is an agreement where parties agree to cooperate to advance their mutual interests. The partners in a partnership may be individuals, businesses, interest-based organizations, schools, governments or combinations. Organizations ...
, to one of the partners or to a person who exercises "control or management" of the partnership at its principal place of business.


Part 7: service of a claim form

Proceedings are started when the court issues a claim form at the request of the claimant (CPR 7.2). Service of a claim form must take place within four months of the date when the claim form is issued, or within six months if it is to be issued outside the jurisdiction of the court, i.e. outside England and Wales and any part of the
territorial waters Territorial waters are informally an area of water where a sovereign state has jurisdiction, including internal waters, the territorial sea, the contiguous zone, the exclusive economic zone, and potentially the extended continental shelf ( ...
of the United Kingdom adjoining England and Wales.


Assessing proportionality

Two approaches to the assessment of proportionality arose in the case of ''West v Stockport NHS Foundation Trust'' (2019), in particular on appeal from the initial trial. The appeal judges referred to a "debate between the parties as to whether a proportionality challenge was limited to the circumstances of the particular case ('the narrower interpretation'), or whether it was to be assessed by reference to all the circumstances, and so encompass matters which were not necessarily related to the case in question ('the wider interpretation')". On a reading of CPR 44, which contains general rules about costs, it was felt to be clear that "questions of proportionality are to be considered by reference to the specific matters noted in 44.3(5) and, if relevant, any wider circumstances identified under r. 44.4(1). Accordingly, the wider interpretation is correct."


Tracks


Small Claims Track

Claims with a value of not more than £10,000 (the amount increased on 1 April 2013) are usually allocated to the Small Claims Track unless: the amount claimed for pain, suffering, and loss of amenity is more than £1,000.00; or the cost of the repairs or other work to residential premises claimed against the landlord by a tenant is estimated to be more than £1,000 – whether or not they are also seeking another remedy – or the financial value of any claim in addition to those repairs is more than £1,000. A claim for a remedy for harassment or unlawful eviction relating to residential premises will not be allocated to the Small Claims Track even if it meets the financial limits.


Fast Track

Claims with a financial value of no more than £25,000 (£15,000 for claims issued before 6 April 2009) for which the Small Claims Track is not the normal track are usually allocated to the Fast Track unless: the trial is likely to last for more than one day; oral expert evidence at trial will be in more than two fields; or there will be more than one expert per party in each field.


Multi Track

Any case not allocated to either the Small Claims Track or the Fast Track is allocated to the Multi Track.


Pre-action Protocols

To support the ethos of narrowing the issues prior to the use of proceedings and encapsulate best practice, the CPR introduced "pre-action protocols". They are given force by ''Practice Direction – Protocols''


Purpose

Pre-action protocols outline the steps that parties should take in particular types of disputes to seek information from, and to provide information to, each other prior to making a legal claim. Pre-action protocols, which entails setting out the claim in full to the defendant in an attempt to negotiate a settlement. The emphasis is placed on co-operation to identify the main issues. Failure to co-operate may lead cost penalties, regardless of the eventual outcomes of the case. Paragraph 1 of the Practice Direction defines the purpose of pre-action protocols as: * encouraging the early exchange of all information relating to the prospective legal claim * aiding settlement of the claim without the commencement of proceedings * producing a foundation for efficient case management where litigation cannot be avoided


Current Pre-action Protocols

This list was last updated on 6 September 2007.


Penalties

Paragraph 2 indicates that the Court may add terms to any order if it feels a party has breached a protocol. These will place parties in the same position as if the breach had not occurred (or as close as possible). The court may, amongst other remedies, order that the party in breach: * pay some or all of the costs of another party * pay costs to another party on an indemnity rather than standard basis * pay a higher rate of interest on particular damages awarded, or for a particular period. * forgo interest on a particular item of damages or for a period. For instance, where a party commences proceedings prior to supplying important information to the other party(s) then the Court might disallow interest for the period prior to the information being provided. In addition, the protocol might provide grounds to show a party had or had not behaved so unreasonably as to merit penalty under another Rule (for instance CPR 44.3).


Cases not covered by a protocol

Where no protocol has been published Paragraph 4 states that parties should conform to CPR 1 and the Overriding Objective. It also sets out what would normally be considered reasonable behaviour prior to issue. Where a case has been commenced prior to the protocol coming into force, but after publication the protocol is not binding. However, the degree to which a party has attempted to follow it anyway might be persuasive.


Creation of the Rules

Section 2 of the Civil Procedure Act 1997 requires that the CPR are made by a committee called the Civil Procedure Rule Committee. Members of the committee consist of: ''
Ex officio An ''ex officio'' member is a member of a body (notably a board, committee, or council) who is part of it by virtue of holding another office. The term '' ex officio'' is Latin, meaning literally 'from the office', and the sense intended is 'by r ...
'': * the
Master of the Rolls The Keeper or Master of the Rolls and Records of the Chancery of England, known as the Master of the Rolls, is the President of the Court of Appeal (England and Wales)#Civil Division, Civil Division of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales ...
/Head of Civil Justice * the Deputy Head of Civil Justice (if there is one) Those appointed by the Lord Chief Justice: * either two or three judges of the Senior Courts * one Circuit judge * either one or two district judges * one person who is a Master referred to in Part II of schedule 2 to the Senior Courts Act 1981 Those appointed by the
Lord Chancellor The Lord Chancellor, formally titled Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, is a senior minister of the Crown within the Government of the United Kingdom. The lord chancellor is the minister of justice for England and Wales and the highest-ra ...
: * three persons who have a Supreme Court qualification (within the meaning of section 71 of the
Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 The Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 (c. 41) was an Acts of Parliament in the United Kingdom, act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed the legal profession and courts of England and Wales. The act was the culmination of a series ...
(CLSA)), including at least one with particular experience of practice in the County Court * Three persons who have been authorised by a relevant approved regulator to conduct litigation in relation to all proceedings in the Senior Courts, including at least one with particular experience of practice in the County Court * two persons with experience in and knowledge of the lay advice sector or consumer affairs The Lord Chancellor's appointments are made in consultation with the Lord Chief Justice and all authorised bodies which have members who are eligible for appointment.


Rulemaking procedure

Rules must be approved by at least eight members of the committee, and submitted to the Lord Chancellor who may allow or disallow them. Where he decides to disallow, he must express his reasons for doing so in writing.


Changes to legal terminology

England and Wales began to diverge from the common law (and from other common law jurisdictions) with the
Rules of the Supreme Court The Rules of the Supreme Court (RSC) were the rules which governed civil procedure in the Senior Courts of England and Wales, Supreme Court of Judicature of England and Wales (since 2009 called the Senior Courts) from its formation in 1883 until ...
in 1883, which replaced the traditional "complaint" and "answer" with the "statement of claim" and "defence". The CPR went much further by replacing several dozen traditional legal terms. For example, the "writ of summons" and the "statement of claim" were replaced, respectively, with "claim form" and "particulars of claim". The CPR implemented a new system of radically different legal terminology in order to bring
plain English Plain English (also referred to as layman's terms) is a mode of writing or speaking the English language intended to be easy to understand regardless of one's familiarity with a given topic. It usually avoids the use of rare words and uncommon euph ...
to the legal system of England and Wales. This was intended to help laypersons comprehend legal terms more easily and to make the judicial process faster and less expensive. However, Bryan A. Garner has noted that the new system seems to have replaced "old jargon with new, even less-comprehensible jargon".


See also

* Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments Act 1982 * Lord Woolf * Practice Direction


References


Bibliography

* Dwyer, D, ''The Civil Procedure Rules Ten Years On'', Oxford University Press (2009).


External links


Civil Procedure Rules Committee official website
*. To see the Rules as they are in force today, use the "Latest available (Revised)" button on the left. * * {{English law types Codes of civil procedure 1998 in British law English civil law Statutory instruments of the United Kingdom English civil procedure