The Court of Appeal has finally delivered its verdict on Jolyon’s attempt to overturn his lost case against the DHSC, and as has become customary, it’s resulted in yet another loss for the fox-beater and his learned friends. Co-conspirators will recall how Jolyon first lost this case back in July, after missing the claim submission deadline by emailing the forms to the wrong address. Something for which he blamed government lawyers, accusing them of “technical games”. The technical issue being he didn’t file by the deadline.

Now his attempts to undo his schoolboy error have resulted in another failure. Today the Court of Appeal slapped down the GLP for its “serious carelessness”, with Lady Justice Carr adding:

“Parties who fail, without good reason, to take reasonable steps to effect valid service, in circumstances where a relevant limitation period is about to expire, expose themselves to the very real risk of losing the right to bring their claim… Service of a claim form requires the utmost diligence and care to ensure that the relevant procedural rules are properly complied with… In the event, this was serious carelessness.”

The Court of Appeal also rejected Jolyon’s insistence that the High Court was wrong to end a claim of “significant public interest” because of a service error, with Carr reminding Jolyon, “the rules apply to claims with a public interest element with as much force as they do to any other type of claim”. Two losses for the price of one…