Michaelides v. Wilkinson.
(England and Wales) Supreme Court of Judicature (Court of Appeal), Gibson LJ, Blofeld J., 14th April 1999.
County Court small claims arbitration - whether the arbitrator erred in law or misconducted himself by refusing to admit relevant and potentially probative evidence.
[Editor's note. Small claims arbitrations in the County Court are not governed by the Arbitration Act 1996. Nevertheless, the grounds for challenging an award are similar.]
Facts:
The appellant and respondent were neighbours in dispute over the boundary line between their respective properties. Proceedings where commenced by small claims arbitration in the County Court. The district judge, sitting as arbitrator, refused to allow both parties to put in a substantial amount of evidence. In particular, he refused to allow the appellant to adduce two letters from the solicitors for her predecessors in title, concerning the boundary between the properties. The appellant appealed to the circuit judge from the district judge's award under the County Court Rules, rule 8(1). This rule provided that the district judge's award could only be set aside on the grounds that their had been misconduct by the arbitrator or that the arbitrator had made an error of law.
Her appeal was dismissed. She appealed to the Court of Appeal. Leave being given only in respect of the contention that the district judge had erred in law in not allowing her fully to refer to the content of the two solicitor's letters.
Held:
The appeal would be allowed. The relevance of the letters was that if the respondent's expert, who gave evidence in the arbitration about where the boundary line should be, had been asked about the contents of these letters, he might have answered that he was not aware of them or, indeed, might have said that they changed his opinion. Unfortunately, he was not allowed to deal with those matters since the district judge refused to allow these letters, along with a substantial amount of other evidence, to be put in by the parties, no doubt with a view to keeping the proceedings as simple as possible.
Nevertheless, the district judge was wrong in law to exclude relevant and potentially probative evidence by not considering these two solicitor's letters and the circuit judge failed to deal with this matter in a satisfactory manner when he gave judgement in the first appeal. The matter should be remitted for re-hearing.
For the Appellant: Ms Susan Gilmour (instructed by Messrs Timperley
Altrincham).
The Respondent appeared in person.
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