BL-2025-000402 - [2025] EWHC 2974 (Ch)

Mr Grant submits that this case is not appropriate for summary judgment for a number of reasons.

Firstly, he submits that a fuller investigation of the facts will add to or alter the evidence before the trial judge in material respects. He points to the fact that Mr Pilling has filed no Defence or evidence setting out his explanation of why he pleaded the Underlying PoC as he did, and that neither Mr Pilling nor W&S have said that the documents they have disclosed are all the relevant working papers, drafts and attendance notes that they have. There may be more. There might therefore be further evidence on (a) what information was provided to Mr Pilling in conference and telephone calls and (b) what Mr Pilling considered at the time to be the strengths of the claim against Cradick.

I have taken into account the possible gaps in the evidence but do not regard any gaps as significant. It is highly unlikely that instructions were given to Mr Pilling in conference and in telephone calls leading up to the conference on 7 March 2018 which were not reflected in the subsequent further written instructions to Mr Pilling from W&S to settle the Underlying PoC. It is highly unlikely that telephone calls discussing the draft Underlying PoC contained anything relevant to this claim. The material instructions and information were given to Mr Pilling in his detailed instructions before and after his conference. A new legal team took over the case from W&S and Mr Pilling and conducted it for years to an eventual settlement. With all that knowledge of the case, it is telling that Powis is not able to even speculate about what material fact was or could have been known to W&S prior to 19 April 2018, and might have been disclosed orally to Mr Pilling, which is not included in the documentation that was put before him.

As for documents and evidence which shed light on Mr Pilling’s thought processes, on Powis’ pleaded case, Mr Pilling’s thought processes have no particular relevance. The key question is not why he did what he did, but whether no other competent barrister of similar standing and ostensible experience would have done the same thing on the information available to him.

The question for determination is whether there is a real prospect of Powis establishing that no reasonably competent barrister of Mr Pilling’s seniority and ostensible experience would have failed to plead the Relevant Claims. Mr Grant’s second submission as to why summary judgment is not appropriate is that this is a substantial task that is not analogous to the determination of a “short point of law or construction” and involves an impermissible “mini-trial”. It is relevant to this submission that Mr Mitchell accepts that all the pleaded facts in the Particulars of Claim against Mr Pilling must be assumed to be true. I have concluded that in this case the question to be determined is analogous to a point of law or construction, and if after a relatively short hearing of one and a half days, I can safely form a view that there is no realistic prospect of Powis succeeding in its claim against Mr Pilling then I should do so. Plainly, if the question for determination is one which would benefit from further evidence or more detailed submissions, then it would not be safe to do so. If, however, the answer is clear, then it is in the interests of justice and the overriding objective that a bad claim is brought to an end as soon as possible.