Use Of Disclosed Documents For Another Purpose & Addition Of Additional Party To Proceedings – Rooney V Vardy

1. An application by Rooney to add as a party to the proceedings by way of an additional claim an individual by the name of Ms Watts for misuse of private information and breach of GDPR in addition to an application for permission to use documents disclosed by Vardy in the proceedings against Ms Watts;
2. An application by Rooney for an order requiring the parties to make a joint request for information to Instagram; and
3. An application by Rooney to re-amend her defence.

“In summary, for the reasons I have given:

20. i) The defendant’s application for permission, under CPR 20.9(1)(a) to make an additional claim is refused;
21. ii) The defendant’s application for an order that this claim and her proposed Part 7 claim against the respondent shall be tried on the same occasion and managed together is refused;

iii) The defendant’s application for permission pursuant to CPR 31.22(1)(b) for the use of documents disclosed in this claim in her proposed Part 7 claim against the respondent is refused;

1. iv) The defendant’s application to amend is refused, save to the extent that I grant permission to make the amendments referred to in paragraph 106 above;
2. v) The claimant’s application for further information is refused;
3. vi) With respect to the defendant’s disclosure application:
4. a) A specific disclosure order, requiring a manual search and disclosure of material meeting the test in CPR 31.6, is granted in respect of the WhatsApp communications between the claimant and the respondent during the relevant period;
5. b) An order pursuant to paragraph 2 of the defendant’s amended draft order is granted (if the documents have not yet been provided in the unredacted form);
6. c) The claimant should provide a supplemental list, including a disclosure statement, in relation to the specific disclosure ordered, or if the search results in no supplemental disclosure, provide a witness statement confirming the search undertaken and the result;
7. d) Save as aforesaid, the defendant’s application for disclosure is refused;

vii) The claimant’s disclosure application is refused, however, steps should be taken with the assistance of the experts to seek to obtain the information...

viii) The defendant’s application for an order to make a request to Instagram is granted (subject to some amendment of the terms of the proposed order…).”

“There is undoubtedly a strong factual connection between the main claim and the additional claim. The question whether the respondent disclosed the Car Crash, Gender Selection, and Flooded Basement Posts to the Sun is, of course, an overlapping issue. Insofar as the question whether those Posts were private is a factual one (rather than a legal question), it also arises in both claims. It is likely that there would be only limited further disclosure in the additional claim, and a substantial overlap in relation to witness evidence. Some additional evidence would be required, such as evidence from the defendant in relation to the damage and distress she claims has been caused by the publication of the three Posts which are the subject of the additional claim, but any additional witness evidence would probably be limited…”

“In my judgement, against the background that I have described above, given the centrality of the communications between the claimant and the respondent, and given that I have found the claimant’s representative has taken too narrow a view of the information that meets the standard disclosure test, it is necessary and proportionate to order that the claimant’s WhatsApp communications with the respondent during the relevant period should be manually reviewed.”

1. it is extremely unlikely that a fresh claim against a third party will be permitted to be added very late in a claim unless there is an extremely good reason to do so; and
2. The Court will only allow permission to rely upon documents disclosed in a case to be used for a collateral purpose in very rare circumstances.

How can we help?

Kevin Modiri is a Partner in our expert Dispute Resolution team.

Should you have any concerns about the use of your private information, please do not hesitate to Kevin or another member of the team in Derby, Leicester, or Nottingham on 0800 024 1976 or via our online enquiry form.

Previous blogs

• “Wagatha Christie” – A Premier League Case Of Defamation
• Wagatha Christie Continues…But Only In Part
• A Costly Exercise