The appellants were found to have modified their claims without applying for permission to amend
The UK Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal in a data protection rights infringement suit filed against global firm DWF after the court found that the appellants modified their claims without applying for permission to amend, reported the Law Society Gazette.
In his lead judgment on Kul & Ors v DWF Law LLP, lord justice Mark Warby concluded that “the appeal has been wasteful of time and resources in a way that is, fortunately, highly unusual, and without any good reason being apparent,” per the Gazette. He noted that the claims in the suit had been amended at least once during the appeal.
The issue began when DWF acted for the appellants in personal injury matters. The firm used the appellants’ information in other litigation to back a contention that the claims were fundamentally dishonest.
A hundred and twenty-seven individuals joined the initial group claim accusing DWF of violating their data protection rights; about 124 claims were dropped before trial. Justice Jennifer Eady presided over this trial and dismissed the claims after determining that DWF’s use of the personal information was “lawful, fair, and compliant,” per the Gazette.
The appellants challenged Eady’s judgment, saying that the processing of the data was disproportionate and violated the UK GDPR. They claimed that the judge should have ruled that DWF could process personal information this way in the future and declared it unlawful.
Warby pointed out that the issue with DWF processing personal information in the future constituted a new case raised for the first time at the appeals hearing. He said that the argument was legally and factually inconsistent with the appellants’ previous stance.
He noted that the appellants did not file an application for permission to change their statement of case or grounds of appeal. The court was not presented with draft re-amended particulars of claim or draft amended grounds of appeal. Moreover, the appellants did not cite a good reason for omitting the new argument.
The change in approach was unfair to DWF, Warby said.
“The appellants need the court’s permission and relief from sanctions to change their position at this late stage. Assuming the court has jurisdiction to allow this, I can see no good reason for doing so. It would be prejudicial to DWF, and to the interests of justice more generally. The merits of the new case do not outweigh that prejudice,” Warby said in the ruling, a snippet of which was published by the Gazette.
