Evidence, Practice and Procedure: Disclosure, discovery: the rules and common law

The recently published Imerman v Imerman [2012] EWHC 4047 (Fam) Moylan J does not reflect well on the breadth of Family Procedure Rules 2010; and shows how FPR 2010 leave much to a practitioner's interpretation of the common law. A High Court judge in the Family Division was forced to resort to a variety of sources to achieve what civil lawyers do daily in proceedings under Civil Procedure Rules 1998: namely prepare and serve lists of documents (in which privileged documents are referred to and exempted from inspection by statement in the list). A high level of representation was brought to bear in Imerman to crack what civil litigators would regard as a small nut.

The judge ‘was determining what directions if any [he should] give in respect of an informal application' by the wife for disclosure of documents said by H to be...

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