Law digests: 18 March 2022

Costs

Tamiz v Offley and another [2022] EWHC 305 (QB), All ER (D) 86 (Feb)

The Queen’s Bench Division dismissed the defendant site (the site) occupier’s appeal against a county court order that she pay security for the costs of losing the counterclaim and the claimants’ costs of the application for security. The above order had been made in relation to proceedings in which: (i) the first claimant groundworker had claimed that, having entered the site to carry out excavations pursuant to a contract between the parties, the defendant had required £4,000 to be paid to her to secure the release of his vehicles which she had retained on the site; and (ii) the defendant counterclaimed that the two vehicles had been brought onto the site without permission and that the contract had been terminated as the first-claimant had excavated in the wrong location. The court held that the defendant had been a nominal defendant in the substantive claim and the counterclaim had been brought for the benefit of separate legal entities,