A group litigation order (or GLO) is an order of a

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England and Wales England and Wales () is one of the three legal jurisdictions of the United Kingdom. It covers the constituent countries England and Wales and was formed by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. The substantive law of the jurisdiction is Eng ...

, which permits a number of claims which give rise to common or related issues (of fact or law) to be managed collectively.

History

Prior to the introduction of the

Civil Procedure Rules The Civil Procedure Rules (CPR) were introduced in 1997 as per the Civil Procedure Act 1997 by the Civil Procedure Rule Committee and are the rules of civil procedure used by the Court of Appeal, High Court of Justice, and County Courts in civil ...

the courts of England and Wales had used a number of techniques to manage multiple claims. In particular representative claims permitted a

plaintiff A plaintiff ( Π in legal shorthand) is the party who initiates a lawsuit (also known as an ''action'') before a court. By doing so, the plaintiff seeks a legal remedy. If this search is successful, the court will issue judgment in favor of t ...

(now

claimant A plaintiff ( Π in legal shorthand) is the party who initiates a lawsuit (also known as an ''action'') before a court. By doing so, the plaintiff seeks a legal remedy. If this search is successful, the court will issue judgment in favor of the ...

) who shared the same interest in a claim as a group to either begin or continue a claim as a representative of that group. The court could also consolidate one or more claims so that they were managed or heard together. The final ''Access to Justice Report'', published in July 1996, concluded that these methods were not sufficiently flexible and recommended that a system for group litigation be introduced. Group litigation orders were added to the Civil Procedure Rules from 2 May 2000.Rule 9,

Procedure

Any party to a claim may apply for a group litigation order to be made before or after issue of the claim. A single court will be assigned to manage the GLO. A Group Register will then be set up listing all claims which have become part of the GLO. Any party to a case may apply to be added or removed from the group register. All claims that from part of a GLO will be automatically allocated to the multi-track and will be moved to the management court. There is great flexibility in how group litigation may be managed and directions should be tailored to the specific needs of a particular set of claims. As a

class action A class action, also known as a class-action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class actio ...

, a claimant must explicitly "opt-in" to most claims. In 2015 an "opt-out" basis was established for violations of the

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and

Consumer Rights Act 2015 The Consumer Rights Act 2015 is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom that consolidates existing consumer protection law legislation and also gives consumers a number of new rights and remedies. Provisions for secondary ticketing and ...

Examples

Notable cases in which such an order has been issued include the McDonald's Hot Drinks litigation in the

High Court of Justice The High Court of Justice in London, known properly as His Majesty's High Court of Justice in England, together with the Court of Appeal and the Crown Court, are the Senior Courts of England and Wales. Its name is abbreviated as EWHC (Englan ...

Queen's Bench Division The King's Bench Division (or Queen's Bench Division when the monarch is female) of the High Court of Justice deals with a wide range of common law cases and has supervisory responsibility over certain lower courts. It hears appeals on point ...

, proceedings against the Royal Liverpool Children's Hospital in the Liverpool District Registry, and the case brought by subpostmasters against the Post Office in the

British Post Office scandal The British Post Office scandal is a miscarriage of justice involving the wrongful civil and criminal prosecutions of an unknown or unpublished number of sub-postmasters (SPMs) for theft, false accounting and/or fraud. The cases constitute the m ...

. A full list of current GLOs is available on Her Majesty's Courts Service website.

External links

Practice Direction 19B covering group litigationList of Group Litigation Orders

References

{{reflist English law Civil procedure