Negligence claim over negligence claim thrown out

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High Court: Claim has no real prospect of success

The High Court has thrown out a £7.2m negligence claim brought against a law firm over its conduct of its client’s negligence claim against his previous lawyers.

Master Yoxall had also rejected a bid by the anonymous claimant, ‘BCD’, to disqualify City firm RPC from representing Simons Muirhead & Burton (SMB) due to an alleged conflict of interest.

BCD is a Russian who claims he made a forced and false confession to a bribery charge in his home country to secure his release from detention and torture. He left Russia and the criminal proceedings continued in his absence.

He was granted asylum in the UK in 2015 with the help of Blokh Solicitors and he also instructed the firm to apply to the European Court of Human Rights to challenge his conviction, which he said only arose as a result of him uncovering high-level corruption.

The complaint to the ECtHR was filed too late, however, for which BCD blamed Blokh and counsel Adrian Berry. Master Yoxall said they apologised to him in 2016 for the failure to file in good time.

BCD initially instructed Withers and then, from March 2017, SMB to try and salvage the ECtHR application and also to sue Blokh and counsel; the law firm was initially represented by RPC and subsequently Caytons Law.

In November 2018, BCD decided to represent himself and alleged SMB had been in breach of its retainer.

In February 2019, SMB – represented by RPC – denied the claim in full and also told him he was free to pursue his claim against Blokh and Mr Berry either with new solicitors or as a litigant in person. The limitation period ran until August 2022 but no claim was issued.

In March 2020, BCD complained about Blokh to the Legal Ombudsman. Master Yoxall said: “It appears that the ombudsman was reluctant to entertain the complaint given that the size of the claimant’s alleged losses substantially exceeded £50,000, the maximum possible award the ombudsman could award and given that a civil claim against Blokh remained a possibility.

“The claimant pressed the ombudsman to proceed. On 12 February 2024, the Legal Ombudsman provided a final decision awarding the claimant £50,000.”

His claim against SMB was over its alleged failure to fulfil its contractual obligations to instruct two expert witnesses. BCD claimed he was forced to abandon the lawsuit and suffered £7.2m in losses as a result.

Master Yoxall’s examination of the correspondence which agreed the scope of the law firm’s retainer led him to conclude that BCD did not have a real prospect of establishing that separate expert reports – “which might have been necessary for a different phase of the proceedings” – were agreed as part of the pre-action stage.

The claim also failed on causation as BCD offered “no acceptable explanation” for his failure to issue proceedings. The assertion that he was unable to file the claim also had no real prospect of success.

“The claimant had over three years to issue a claim against Blokh and/or Mr Berry. It is inconceivable that a trial judge could find that SMB caused the claimant’s loss of opportunity to bring the claim.”

The claimant argued that, having previously represented Blokh, RPC had access to confidential information.

Master Yoxall said the application to disqualify RPC from acting as “misconceived”. BCD could not show that RPC had or was likely to obtain information relevant to the dispute and there was a real risk of prejudice to him.

“He has not identified the confidential information or its relevance or why the court’s intervention is needed. He has failed to identify any real risk of prejudice.” The application was “totally without merit”.

The master gave summary judgment for SMB and dismissed the claim.

Earlier this year, Blokh & Co obtained reverse summary judgment against BCD (called KKK in the ruling by Duncan Atkinson KC, sitting as a deputy High Court judge) of his £2.3m claim that it had disclosed details from his asylum file that had endangered him and his family.