Service By Email – A Survivor's Guide

Unauthorised or non-compliant service by email is causing problems for litigants and their solicitors. We review the rules and the prospect of getting relief from the court.

In 2018 the Supreme Court in Barton v Wright Hassall  took a strict line about the unauthorised service of claim forms by email. Mr Barton was a litigant in person and hadn't spotted the special rules in Practice Direction 6A paragraph 4 about service by fax and email. He'd already had some email correspondence with the defendant's solicitors and assumed he could serve the claim form on them using the same method.

The court refused to help him out using its powers to validate defective service under CPR 6.15.  He should have read the rules.  He had courted disaster by issuing the claim at the very end of the limitation period.  He then made no attempt to serve the claim form until the very end of its four month period of validity.