A judge attributed the errors to administrative staff
Birmingham County Court judge Andrew Charman has ruled that Raphael Newton, a solicitor with southeast London firm Gordon & Thompson Solicitors, need not go before the UK Solicitors Regulation Authority over fictitious citations made in a submission, reported the Law Society Gazette.
The judge attributed the inclusion of false cases in Newton’s submission to the firm’s administrative staff and said in a statement published by the Gazette that the failure was “in substance a failure of management at the firm more than the failure of Mr Newton as an individual solicitor.”
Nonetheless, Charman emphasized that including false cases in a submission was a serious matter. Per the official transcription of the extempore judgment in Ndaryiyumvire v Birmingham City University, an application was filed to amend the claimant’s particulars of claim in July. The application was signed with a statement of truth in Newton’s name, according to the Gazette.
The claim was struck out after the county court noted that the application had two nonexistent authorities: Qureshi v Qureshi and Z Ltd v A Ltd.
In a witness statement explaining his conduct, Newton said the application document was produced by software with a built-in research function, which automatically provided case law recommendations. Per the transcript, Newton thought the document was yet to be finalized, but he said the firm’s administrative team thought it was completed and filed it.
The firm immediately withdrew and recalled the document after it was made aware of the error and the defendant solicitors asked for copies of the nonexistent cases. Newton said there was no intent to mislead the court or the defendant, describing the incident as an “administrative oversight” in a statement published by the Gazette.
Newton told the court additional internal checks had been implemented at the firm to confirm that all legal authorities and case references were verified and supported by real decisions prior to submission. While Charman said in a statement published by the Gazette that Newton’s explanation regarding the draft submission was “somewhat inadequate,” the application was promptly recalled and were not used in a hearing so the matter was “not at the more serious end.”
The court referred the matter to the SRA due to the wasted costs order (pursuant to s51(7A) Senior Courts Act 1981) and invited submissions on the level of wasted costs to pay.
