Previous case overturned

[Perrymason]

Hi can anyone give advice regarding a quite recent court decision which has overturned a case which was heard 20 plus years ago. It seems like the law was interpreted wrongly at the time and this has now been recognised. Does anyone know how you would go about looking into this and if anything can be done?

[PallasAthena]

A few more details would help.....

What area of law?

What was the recent case?

[Perrymason]

Hi the case was based on Scottish Law, and involved insolvency law. The recent case went as far as the Supreme Court, which, via its decision overturned previous decisions including the one I was involved with, which was up until then used as case law. Mine was decided in the late 90’s and in the recent one they have said the law was interpreted wrongly at that time and the decision then should not be followed.

[PallasAthena]

Well the UK Supreme Court only decides about 50 cases a year and they are all listed in chronological order on its website so if no-one identifies the case you have in mind you could just work backwards through their cases until you find it.

Decided cases - The Supreme Court

[Perrymason]

Hi thank you, I know the case details it was more whether anything could be done to rectify this now it’s been identified as an “error” by the Supreme Court that I’m not sure of. Or who to approach in the first instance regarding this.

[PallasAthena]

Please link to the case on the Supreme Court website so we can see what you are talking about.

[Perrymason]

Hi is is case UKSC57/2019 (but this case has nothing to do with me personally) it is more the decision made regarding the treatment of “Gratuitous Alienations” and that the law had previously been wrongly interpreted.

[R0b]

UKSC57/2019 is not the actual case but the citation, and using that can be difficult especially where there are several court decisions relating to the same case. The citation is typically based on the [Year] [Court] [Case Number] so the case I think you are referring to is MacDonald and another v Carnbroe Estates Ltd [2019] UKSC 57.

Looking at various articles, the court has remitted the case back to the Inner House for determination so I suspect there is a further case decided by the Scottish Court following the 2019 decision which you may want to check out.

As for whether you can do anything following this decision I do not know because I don't personally know the Scottish civil procedure rules. In England and Wales, you would effectively be asking the court to 're-open' the case and we have a procedure for doing that but it is very limited and usually in exceptional circumstances i.e. where it is necessary to avoid a real injustice.

Scottish rules may have something similar but I am not able to point you to anything.

[Manxman]

Hi can anyone give advice regarding a quite recent court decision which has overturned a case which was heard 20 plus years ago. It seems like the law was interpreted wrongly at the time and this has now been recognised. Does anyone know how you would go about looking into this and if anything can be done?

I'm not sure what you mean by "... if anything can be done?"

A case that was decided 20 plus years ago was decided according to what was the prevailing view of the law 20 plus years ago.

The fact that the Supreme Court may now have decided that the prevailing view of the law 20 years ago was "wrong", or was "not properly understood", has no effect on a case decided over two decades ago.

[Perrymason]

Hi there - Rob - can I ask if you would point me in the direction of the English law relating to re-opening of cases. Thanks for the replies.

[R0b]

Link below, but I would caution as to what has already been said. If your case was so long ago you are unlikely to get anything overturned. The courts emphasise that there must be a point where there is a finality to proceedings. One cannot be expected to be looking over their shoulder hoping that the other side is not going to be bringing proceedings at a later date for something already determined.

https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/pr...les/part52#VII