The Manchester Civil Justice Centre was recently regaled with tales of theft and unlawful landlord visitation at the Cumbria Safari Zoo in the case of Cumbria Zoo Company Ltd v The Zoo Investment Company Ltd. The landlord and tenant had enjoyed a long and fractious relationship, which in 2021 had seen the landlord forfeit the tenant's lease by peaceable re-entry.
The reasons for the forfeiture included an alleged failure to provide, on reasonable notice, the landlord with access to the lease premises and theft of various items said to be owned by the landlord. The tenant had immediately sought, and obtained, an injunction allowing it to go back into possession. Litigation then followed. The tenant's proceedings appear to have included a claim for relief from forfeiture, but before getting there the Court had to decide whether the landlord's reasons for the forfeiture were made out.
From the Judgement, this does not appear to have been a straightforward exercise. The allegations were factually detailed and arose from a complex history. On top of this, the Judge described how the "dispute between the warring factions" (two big cats squabbling in a bag? – Ed) in the case had led to a tendency towards a "partisan approach" which "aggravated the usual difficulty in relying on the oral evidence of witnesses when it is not supported by contemporary documentation".
The facts themselves are enjoyably colourful, but the Judgement lengthy, so we are not necessarily suggesting reading it as a way of passing a pleasant hour. However, for this readership it serves as a useful reminder in a couple of areas. One is in relation to the form of witness statements, which must comply with the rules set out in Practice Direction 57AC of the Rules of Court. Of particular significance is the need to limit these to an account of relevant facts, and not to include commentary on other evidence, or on matters that are not within the knowledge of the witness. According to the Judge, this case involved wholesale departures from these strictures. The second is that detailed factual disputes are inevitably costly and their outcome uncertain and that however bad the relationship between the parties, it is always worth seeking to mediate or find some other resolution besides a detailed judicial determination. Indeed, one might say the worse the relationship, the more important this is likely to be.
In this case, the landlord was not entitled to have exercised its right of forfeiture for the reasons it purported to do so. The Judge is hoping the parties now find a way to "bridge their remaining differences without the expense of further litigation." We shall see.
