Joyce v Liverpool City Council; Wynne v Liverpool City Council

Breach of repairing covenant — Claim for specific performance — District judge sitting as small claims arbitrator — District judge and county court on appeal holding that small claims arbitrator might grant specific performance — Court of Appeal dismissing appeal against that conclusionJ was a weekly tenant of 58 Grovehurst Avenue, Liverpool 14. On May 13 1994 she issued proceedings against her landlords, the council. She alleged that the council had failed to comply with their repairing obligations implied into the lease, despite notice of the defects. She claimed damages not exceeding £5,000. Her claim included an application for specific performance. W lived at 14 Eldersfield Road, Liverpool. On June 23 1994 he issued proceedings in the county court against the council as his landlord, alleging that the council had failed to comply with their implied repairing obligations under section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. He claimed specific performance of the council’s repairing covenant and damages or damages in lieu limited in total to £1,000. A question arose whether, in proceedings by a domestic tenant alleging a breach by his landlord of a repairing covenant, a district judge, sitting as a small claims arbitrator, had power to grant relief by way of specific performance or injunction. In each case it was held that district judges exercising their small claims arbitration jurisdiction could order specific performance and grant injunctions and that claims for such relief did not preclude the exercise of that jurisdiction. Both tenants challenged that conclusion on appeal. Held The appeals were dismissed. 1. A circuit judge, acting within his jurisdiction and subject to express exceptions, might exercise all the powers of a High Court judge. These included the power to grant interlocutory and final injunctions whether or not there was any claim to money or any other relief within the jurisdiction of the county court. 2. That power covered proceedings automatically referred for arbitration by the district judge since those were undoubtedly proceedings which the district judge had power to hear and determine. 3. Specific performance was, by its nature, a remedy ordinarily granted as a final and not an interlocutory order. Subject to that, there was no basis for drawing a distinction between injunctions and specific performance. 4. Where, as here, the plaintiff’s claim was by a tenant against a landlord for breach of a repairing obligation, section 17 of the 1985 Act envisaged that the court dealing with that claim would have jurisdiction to grant specific performance. 5. Despite the safeguards in place cases would arise in which, despite the smallness of the sums involved, justice could not be done to an unrepresented claimant under the arbitration procedure. Trial might then be ordered. However, for the great mass of small and relatively simple claims the arbitration procedure had to be the norm. Section 11 claims could not form any general exception. Reasonable housing conditions were a condition of ordinary human happiness. But the evidence suggested that court trial of minor section 11 claims yielded a benefit to the legal profession out of all proportion to that gained by the tenant and diverted the minds of local authority landlords from purposes more germain to their public function. Timothy King QC and David Bennett (instructed by Gregory Abrahams, of Liverpool) appeared for Mrs Joyce; Timothy King QC and Grant Lazarus (instructed by Stephen Irving, of Liverpool) appeared for Mr Wynne; Edward Bartley Jones and Tania Griffiths (instructed by the solicitor to Liverpool City Council) appeared for the council.