Emails and Courts seem to be flavour of the month in this blog with this post What Is It About The Email Subject Line? arising from filing documents at Court.
Following the recent matter with Central London Country Court highlighted in the post What Is Wrong With Email? we then very recently had a development with Liverpool Business Property Courts (“Liverpool BPC”).
We attempted to file some documents with Liverpool BPC and a response sprouted declining to file the same notwithstanding that within the document attached to the email to the Court was a reference. We received the following response:
In order for the court to assist I would need a county court claim number
Without this the court cannot action or assist in your query
In fairness to Liverpool BPC in order to discover the Court reference it would have had to open the document attached, and then scroll down to page three to find the reference. However, in response, we supplied a copy of a relevant Court Order in respect of the case and attached the same to the email in response.
The next response from Liverpool BPC to this was:
You will need to resubmit the original documents sent this morning as I have not actioned your email and you must quote the case number in the subject line and in the email with the attachments
We had provided a document for filing and then a Court Order to address a request for a Court reference. We thought this would be sufficient to comply with the request for a Court reference. It seems we were wrong.
A third email was therefore then issued, this time with the Court reference from the Court Order attached to the second email now inserted into the email subject line.
We queried the declination to file the documents upon receipt of the second email which had all the relevant information readily accessible. We requested documents not be declined on the basis of the reference not being in the subject line of an email.
Unlike Central London County Court who after being provided with a complaint reference could not initially find the complaint, Liverpool BPC responded promptly within a couple of days. In response a Liverpool BPC Team Leader said:
… The email still did not provide us with a Liverpool County Court court case number in the subject line, as previously requested by the team.
HMCTS has strict guidelines of collating the correct information from court users before proceeding with requests in order to prevent data disclosure incidents.
I appreciate the delays this may have caused you, and appreciate that the member of staff could have been more clear in the first email sent to you with what information was required. I have provided them with this feedback.
We have since sought further clarification on the source of the rule that requires a Court’s reference to be in the subject line of the email.
Insolvency Guidance From HMRC
Notably, Liverpool BPC is not the only government department that appears to ascribe significance to the subject line of an email.
Insolvency Guidance from HMRC dated 7 September 2022 for tax clearances requests in a Members Voluntary Liquidation said:
Please make sure you write ‘Clearance – [Name of Insolvency Case]‘ in the subject line.
Legal Developments Ahead?
The Court of Appeal in Hudson v Hathway [2022] EWCA Civ 1648 confirmed the position set out in the case of Green v Ireland [2011] EWHC 1305 (Ch) that the typing of a person’s name at the end of an email amounted to a signature.
So will the email subject line assume far greater legal significance in the future?
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