Chancery Division

Published October 26, 2009

In re Ludlam (Bankrupts)

For an extended civil restraint order to be issued, making someone a vexatious litigant, three unmeritorious claims or applications were the bare minimum to satisfy the requirement of persistence.

Mr Edward Bartley Jones, QC, sitting as a deputy Chancery Division judge, so stated on August 6, 2009, in a reserved judgment when making extended civil restraint orders against John Michael Ludlam and Caroline Lesley Ludlam.

HIS LORDSHIP said that, for an extended civil restraint order to be made, it was a pre-condition that the relevant person had “persistently issued claims or made applications which are totally without merit”: see paragraph 3.1 of Practice Direction C in Part 3 of the Civil Procedure Rules.

When considering the making of such an order generally, the court was to engage in a graduated, and proportionate response to the identified abuse, which made it logical for the statutory scheme to have a higher precondition threshold for the making of an extended order as opposed to a limited or general order.

Thus, if the pre-condition threshold for a limited order was two or more applications which were totally without merit, the “persistence” in paragraph 3.1 had to require more than two unmeritorious claims or applications; and so, for an extended order, three such claims or applications had to be the bare minimum.

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