Summary judgment
Disputes & Litigation

Summary judgment is available to a claimant in in civil legal proceedings (under Part 24: Civil Procedure Rules) where there is no real defence to the claim. In some cases, defendants file a defence to delay judgment. In instances such as these, an application for summary judgment may be filed with a view to showing the court that there is no real defence to the claim, and obtain judgment.

The court may give summary judgment against a claimant or defendant on the whole of the claim or on a particular issue if it considers that:

• the claimant or defendant (as the case may be) has no real prospect of succeeding on the claim or defence; and
• there is no other compelling reason why the case or issue should be disposed of at trial.

An application for summary judgment should not be filed by a claimant before a defence is filed. The defendant may make an application after filing an acknowledgement of service. It would be an extraordinary case where evidence was not required in support of the application, or in resisting it.

Applications are usually made before an allocation questionnaire are filed. Significant delay in bring an application may be fatal to the application.

In order to obtain summary judgment, the applicant must show that there are no real prospects of success. Thus, applications are not determined by a court on the balance of probabilities, or even that the respondent to the application has an arguable case - it is whether there is a realistic (as opposed to a fanciful) prospect of success or not. This may be achieved by successfully showing:

1. a substantive defence (eg contributory negligence)
2. a point of law destroying the claimant's cause of action (eg Statute of Limitations bars the action)
3. a denial of the facts underlying the cause of action
4. further facts undermine the cause of action.

The court may be moved to strike out the defence or claim that has no basis in law under CPR 3.4(2).