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Articles by LawTeacher
McBride v Scottish Police Authority [2016] UKSC 27
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
A fingerprint officer who had been kept off court work after a disputed identification was unfairly dismissed when she would not move to another role. The Employment Tribunal ordered her reinstatement, but the Inner House treated that order as an unlawful change to her contract. The Supreme Court held that the tribunal had restored the […]…
PJS v News Group Newspapers Ltd [2016] UKSC 26
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
The Supreme Court continued, until trial, an interim injunction stopping the Sun on Sunday from identifying PJS, an entertainer, and publishing details of sexual encounters he had had with another couple. The story had already appeared abroad and online, but the majority held that unrestricted newspaper coverage in England and Wales would be a further […]…
R (O) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2016] UKSC 19
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
O, a Nigerian woman with serious mental ill-health, was held at Yarl’s Wood for nearly three years while the Home Secretary pursued her deportation. The Supreme Court held that a failure to apply the published policy on detaining mentally ill people can make that detention unlawful, even where the statute says the person “shall” be […]…
Kennedy v Cordia (Services) LLP [2016] UKSC 6
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
Miss Kennedy, a home carer, slipped on snow and ice while walking to a client’s house and injured her wrist. The UK Supreme Court held that her employer had failed to make a suitable assessment of that known risk and to provide anti-slip attachments, and was liable under the Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations […]…
Asset Land Investment Plc and another v The Financial Conduct Authority [2016] UKSC 17
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
The Supreme Court dismissed an appeal by Asset Land Investment plc and its principal director, Mr Banner-Eve, and held that their plot sales were a collective investment scheme under section 235 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. Buyers took title to individual plots, but the arrangements were that the company would seek to […]…
The Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime v Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Co (Europe) Ltd and others [2016] UKSC 18
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
During the August 2011 riots, a fire started by rioters destroyed the Sony DADC warehouse in Enfield and the stock and equipment inside it. Insurers and businesses claimed compensation from the police authority under the Riot (Damages) Act 1886, including for consequential losses such as lost rent and lost profits. The Supreme Court held that […]…
R v Taylor (Appellant) [2016] UKSC 5
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
Jack Taylor was charged with aggravated vehicle-taking after a scooter rider was killed in a collision with a truck which the Crown said he had taken without consent. The Crown accepted that a jury could not be sure of any fault in the way he drove. The Supreme Court held that the offence is not […]…
Ministry of Defence v Iraqi Civilians [2016] UKSC 25
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
Iraqi civilians sued the Ministry of Defence in England over alleged unlawful detention and ill-treatment by British forces in Iraq. Iraqi law governed the claims and imposed a three-year limitation period, but the claimants said time had stopped running because Iraqi law made proceedings against the British government impossible in Iraq. The Supreme Court held […]…
Eclipse Film Partners No 35 LLP v Commissioners for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs [2016] UKSC 24
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
The Supreme Court decided that the First-tier Tribunal cannot use its case-management powers to order one party to pay the other’s costs of a hearing bundle where the costs rules forbid that order. Eclipse had opted out of costs liability in a Complex tax appeal, so the Tribunal could award costs only for wasted costs […]…
PST Energy 7 Shipping LLC and another v O W Bunker Malta Limited and another [2016] UKSC 23
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
The owners of the vessel Res Cogitans consumed bunkers supplied under terms that reserved title until payment but permitted use for propulsion. They contended that, because property had not passed, they were not liable to pay the price to the insolvent supplier under the Sale of Goods Act 1979. The Supreme Court held that the […]…
R (Nouazli) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2016] UKSC 16
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
Mr Nouazli, an Algerian national with a right of permanent residence in the United Kingdom as the husband of a French worker, was detained for about two months after a prison sentence while the Home Secretary considered deporting him, and was then kept on bail until a tribunal held that he could not lawfully be […]…
In the matter of N (Children) [2016] UKSC 15
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
The Supreme Court set aside a transfer of care proceedings concerning two Hungarian girls who had lived all their lives in England. A court considering article 15 of the Brussels II revised Regulation must treat the questions whether another court is better placed and whether transfer is in the child's best interests as separate, and […]…
Lynn Shellfish Ltd and others v Loose and another [2016] UKSC 14
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
On the east side of the Wash, the Le Strange estate has an exclusive right, gained by long use, to take cockles and mussels from a stretch of foreshore. The Supreme Court held that the seaward edge of that right is the lowest astronomical tide as it stands from time to time, but that a […]…
In the matter of B (A child) [2016] UKSC 4
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
The Supreme Court held by a majority that a child did not automatically lose her habitual residence in England when her mother lawfully took her to Pakistan intending to settle there. Parental intention was relevant but not decisive under the child-focused European concept of habitual residence. Because the child remained habitually resident in England on […]…
Youssef v Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs [2016] UKSC 3
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
In 2005 the Foreign Secretary, sitting on a United Nations sanctions committee, lifted the United Kingdom’s hold on listing Mr Youssef, an Egyptian national living in Britain, as a person associated with Al-Qaida. The listing led to an asset freeze. The Supreme Court dismissed his appeal, holding that the Secretary of State did not have […]…
R v Secretary of State for Justice [2016] UKSC 2
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
In R (C) v Secretary of State for Justice, the Supreme Court had to decide whether a patient could keep his identity private when challenging a decision about leave from hospital. Anonymity depended on the risks that identification posed in his particular case. The appeal did not revive the challenge to the Secretary of State’s […]…
Mirga v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2016] UKSC 1
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
A Polish national refused income support and an Austrian national refused homelessness housing assistance argued that United Kingdom residence conditions breached their EU rights. The Supreme Court held that neither had a right of residence as a worker or a self-sufficient person, so they could be excluded from those benefits. Refusing the benefits was not […]…
UBS AG and DB Group Services (UK) Ltd v HMRC [2016] UKSC 13
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
Two banks paid bonuses in shares whose forfeiture conditions had been designed to bring them within a tax exemption. The Court held that the legislation concerned genuine commercial restrictions. The employees received shares, and it was their value at acquisition that mattered. HMRC appealed in two cases concerning discretionary bankers’ bonuses paid in the 2003/04 […]…
R (Black) v Secretary of State for Justice [2017] UKSC 81
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
Mr Black wanted prisoners to be able to report second-hand smoke to the local authority through a confidential telephone line. Whether the authority could act depended on a question of statutory interpretation: did Parliament intend the smoking ban in the Health Act 2006 to bind the Crown, which operated the prison? Mr Black was a […]…
Four Seasons Holdings Incorporated v Brownlie [2017] UKSC 80
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
Lady Brownlie sought to sue a Canadian Four Seasons holding company in England for deaths and injuries caused by a car crash in Egypt during an excursion booked through the Cairo hotel. The Supreme Court held that the company was not a proper defendant, so the English court had no jurisdiction over the claims against […]…
Dover District Council v CPRE Kent [2017] UKSC 79
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
Dover District Council granted planning permission for a large housing and leisure scheme in the Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, restoring the applied-for 521 homes after its officers had advised a reduction to 365. The Supreme Court held that the Council had to publish the main reasons for that decision, and that comments […]…
O’Connor v Bar Standards Board [2017] UKSC 78
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
Ms O’Connor alleged that her professional regulator had discriminated against her by bringing and pursuing disciplinary charges. Her damages claim would be late if the one-year period ran from the disciplinary tribunal’s decision. It was in time if the regulator’s conduct continued through her successful appeal. The Court examined the role the Bar Standards Board […]…
R (Hysaj and others) and Bakijasi v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] UKSC 82
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
An application for British citizenship may contain serious lies. Does the grant then have to be formally withdrawn, or can the Home Secretary say there was never a citizen at all? The difference mattered both to the applicants’ right of appeal and to children whose status depended on theirs. In these two cases the grant […]…
Tiuta International Limited v De Villiers Surveyors Limited [2017] UKSC 77
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
Tiuta refinanced an existing loan and advanced some extra money on the strength of a new property valuation. If that valuation was negligent, how much loss had it caused? The lender would already have been exposed to the unpaid first loan. On the facts assumed for the appeal, only the additional lending could have made […]…
Scotch Whisky Association and others v The Lord Advocate and another [2017] UKSC 76
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
Scotland proposed a floor price for each unit of alcohol sold in shops and other licensed premises. The trade bodies challenging it accepted that protecting health was a legitimate aim. Their strongest objection was that a tax increase could achieve the same aim while interfering less with trade. The outcome turned on whose consumption each […]…
Gordon and others, as the Trustees of the Inter Vivos Trust of the late William Strathdee Gordon v Campbell Riddell Breeze Paterson LLP [2017] UKSC 75
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
The trustees spent money trying to recover two fields. They learned only later that their solicitors’ notices to quit were defective. For the five-year Scottish prescription rule the Court applied in 2017, did time start when the trustees knew they had incurred the expense, or only when they understood why it had been wasted? The […]…
Michalak v General Medical Council and others [2017] UKSC 71
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
Dr Ewa Michalak claimed that the General Medical Council discriminated against her in the way it pursued fitness to practise proceedings and in failing to investigate complaints she had made about other doctors. The Council argued that the Employment Tribunal had no jurisdiction because she could seek judicial review instead. The Supreme Court held that […]…
R (De Silva and another) v Commissioners for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs [2017] UKSC 74
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
Two limited partners used losses on film investments to claim income tax relief for earlier years. When the partnerships later agreed much smaller losses with HMRC, the partners said it was too late to alter their individual claims. The answer depended on which year’s tax return contained the claim and what HMRC had already taken […]…
R (C) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2017] UKSC 72
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
C challenged two benefits policies. One kept a record of changes to a customer’s personal details. The other limited who could see that record. Restricting access protected privacy but could itself prompt a question at the counter when an ordinary enquiry took longer. The Court had to assess both sides of that difficulty. C held […]…
R (HC) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and others [2017] UKSC 73
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
In 2017 the Court considered a parent whose right to live in the UK derived from her British children’s EU citizenship. Local authority support enabled the family to stay together in the UK. The question was whether that right also entitled the parent to the same mainstream benefits as a British national. HC was the […]…
Littlewoods Limited and others v Commissioners for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs [2017] UKSC 70
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
After HMRC repaid Littlewoods £205 million in overpaid VAT and £268 million in simple interest, Littlewoods claimed a further £1.25 billion in compound interest going back more than 40 years. The Supreme Court held that the Value Added Tax Act 1994 excludes any concurrent common-law claim to that interest. It also held that EU law […]…
Armes v Nottinghamshire County Council [2017] UKSC 60
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
A child in council care suffered abuse in two foster homes. Her claim raised two separate questions. Had the council itself undertaken to ensure that reasonable care was taken in the homes? Could it instead be liable for the foster carers’ wrongdoing because of the relationship between the carers and the council? The placements Ms […]…
Brown v The Parole Board for Scotland, The Scottish Ministers and another [2017] UKSC 69
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
After recall from licence, a prisoner serving an extended sentence argued that the failure to provide suitable rehabilitation courses made his continued detention arbitrary under article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Supreme Court held that the duty to provide a real opportunity for rehabilitation applies where a prisoner is detained during […]…
Mitsui & Co Ltd and others v Beteiligungsgesellschaft LPG Tankerflotte MBH & Co KG and another [2017] UKSC 68
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
After Somali pirates seized the chemical carrier Longchamp and demanded a US$6 million ransom, her owners negotiated for 51 days and paid US$1.85 million. That ransom was accepted as a general average expense, to be shared between ship and cargo. By a majority, the Supreme Court held that about US$160,000 in vessel-operating costs incurred during […]…
Aberdeen City and Shire Strategic Development Planning Authority v Elsick Development Company Limited [2017] UKSC 66
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
The UK Supreme Court held that a Scottish planning authority could not lawfully require developers, through supplementary guidance and planning obligations, to pay into a pooled transport fund where a development’s connection with some of the works was only trivial. Such a payment did not restrict or regulate the development of the payer’s land, as […]…
R v M, C and T [2017] UKSC 58
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
Can selling goods bearing a genuine trade mark amount to a criminal offence? M, C and T argued that only a counterfeit mark could engage section 92 of the Trade Marks Act 1994. The Supreme Court held that consent to applying the mark and consent to selling the marked goods were separate questions. This was […]…
MT Højgaard A/S v E.ON Climate & Renewables UK Robin Rigg East Limited and another [2017] UKSC 59
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
The Supreme Court held the contractor liable for the early failure of the foundations of two offshore wind farms. The technical requirements stated that the design of the foundations shall ensure a lifetime of 20 years, and that requirement was a binding contractual obligation which had not been met. Compliance with an international standard containing […]…
P v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis [2017] UKSC 65
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
A police officer dismissed by a misconduct panel claimed in the Employment Tribunal that her dismissal discriminated against her because of disability. The lower courts held that judicial immunity barred the claim. The Supreme Court held that EU law required police officers to have access to the Employment Tribunal for such claims, and that the […]…
R (Forge Care Homes Ltd and others) v Cardiff and Vale University Health Board and others [2017] UKSC 56
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
The Supreme Court decided how far the NHS, rather than local authorities or care home residents, must pay for registered nurses working in Welsh care homes. Section 49 of the Health and Social Care Act 2001 stops local authorities from providing or arranging “nursing care by a registered nurse”, but it neither covers everything a […]…
Taurus Petroleum Limited v State Oil Marketing Company of the Ministry of Oil, Republic of Iraq [2017] UKSC 64
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
An oil company sold cargoes under letters of credit issued by a London bank. The bank had to send the proceeds to an account in New York belonging to the Central Bank of Iraq. When an unpaid arbitration creditor tried to attach the money in England, the court had to distinguish the person entitled to […]…
Goldtrail Travel Limited v Onur Air Taşimacilik AŞ [2017] UKSC 57
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
The Supreme Court held that a company given permission to appeal cannot be required to pay the judgment sum into court if that condition would probably stop the appeal. The company must show, on the balance of probabilities, that its owner or another closely associated person would not make the necessary funds available to it; […]…
In the matter of an application by Jason Loughlin for Judicial Review (Northern Ireland) [2017] UKSC 63
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
A reduced sentence can secure a witness’s help before the prosecution knows how reliable that help will be. When two witnesses later gave some deliberately untrue evidence, the question was who should decide whether to send their sentences back for review. The Supreme Court upheld the prosecutor’s decision to leave the sentences in place. Robert […]…
BPP Holdings Ltd and others v Commissioners for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs [2017] UKSC 55
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
The Supreme Court dismissed HMRC’s appeal and upheld a First-tier Tribunal order debarring HMRC from defending the surviving VAT appeal. The bar followed HMRC’s failure to provide the further information required by a tribunal direction. An appellate court should interfere with such a case-management decision only where it is unjustifiable. The VAT dispute and the […]…
Sadovska and another v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] UKSC 54
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
Immigration officers stopped Ms Sadovska, a Lithuanian citizen living and working lawfully in the United Kingdom, from marrying Mr Malik, a Pakistani overstayer, and the Home Secretary decided to remove them both. The Supreme Court held that, because she already had a right of permanent residence, it was for the Home Secretary to prove that […]…
Benkharbouche v Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs [2017] UKSC 62
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
Two women dismissed from domestic jobs at foreign embassies in London wanted an employment tribunal to hear their claims. The central question was whether international law required the UK to give a foreign state immunity even when the employee cooked, cleaned or kept house. The answer mattered because the remedy available in 2017 depended on […]…
Reyes v Al-Malki and another [2017] UKSC 61
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
Ms Reyes alleged that a Saudi diplomat and his wife had exploited her while she worked in their London home. Once his posting ended and he left the country, immunity continued only for official acts. Hiring someone to work in his household fell outside that protection. Background Ms Reyes, a Philippine national, worked as a […]…
Birch v Birch [2017] UKSC 53
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
The Supreme Court held that a family court can hear an application to release a former wife from an undertaking, given in a clean-break consent order, to sell the former matrimonial home by a fixed date if she had not by then secured her former husband's release from the mortgage. By a majority it decided […]…
McDonald v Newton or McDonald [2017] UKSC 52
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
On a Scottish divorce, only the part of a pension referable to the marriage counts as matrimonial property. The Supreme Court held that this part is measured by the holder’s whole membership of the scheme up to separation, including years after contributions have stopped and the pension is already in payment, not merely the years […]…
R (UNISON) v Lord Chancellor [2017] UKSC 51
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
A worker owed a few hundred pounds in wages might be able to find the money for a tribunal fee and still have no sensible reason to bring a claim. That distinction between theoretical and practical access to justice lay at the heart of UNISON’s challenge to the 2013 employment tribunal fees. Until the Employment […]…
Khuja (Appellant) v Times Newspapers Limited and others (Respondents) (formerly known as PNM (Appellant) v Times Newspapers Limited and others (Respondents)) [2017] UKSC 49
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
Mr Khuja was named in open court during the trial of other people. He had been arrested during the investigation and released without charge. When newspapers proposed to identify him in reports of the proceedings, he sought an interim injunction. The difficult question was how much weight to give the harm that identification could cause […]…
