Appeals — SQE1 FLK1 Dispute Resolution

A two-day trial ends on 6 May 2026. The judge gives judgment orally, dismisses the claim, and refuses permission to appeal. The sealed order is drawn up and sent out on 20 May. The approved transcript lands on 3 June. The solicitor, careful and diligent, diaries 21 days from the sealed order and files the appellant's notice on 2 June 2026, comfortably ahead of his own deadline. He is six days late. Which date started the clock?

The judgment. Not the order, not the transcript, not the day the client picks up the phone. 6 May, and the 21 days expired on 27 May. This is Appeals, and it punishes the careless more reliably than any other topic. Keep that consultancy in mind. We come back for it.

Here is the route. What an appeal actually is, and the test the appeal court applies. Then the two gates, permission and time. Then where your appeal goes, which is the mechanical part the exam loves. Then grounds: law, fact, procedure. Then what the respondent must do. Then what the appeal court can order, and what it all costs.

Start with what an appeal is not. It is not a second trial. Under CPR 52.21 an appeal is limited to a review of the decision below. No witnesses, no cross-examination, and normally no new evidence. The judges have read the papers. Your job is to show that something went wrong, not to run the case again.

And there are only two ways it can have gone wrong. The appeal court allows an appeal where the decision was wrong, or where it was unjust because of a serious procedural or other irregularity in the proceedings below. That is CPR 52.21. Learn those words. Wrong, or unjust for serious irregularity. Everything else in this episode hangs off them.

Now the first gate. Most appeals need permission. Under CPR 52.3 you need it for an appeal from a decision of a judge in the County Court or the High Court. The exceptions are narrow: committal orders, refusal of habeas corpus, secure accommodation orders. Losing at trial buys you nothing. There is no right to a second hearing, whether the decision was interim or final.

Where do you ask? Two places, and the order matters. Ask the judge who has just decided the case, at that hearing. Cheapest, quickest, and the opportunity dies when the hearing ends. Miss it or get refused, and you ask the appeal court instead, in your appellant's notice.

And the test? CPR 52.6. Permission may be given only where the appeal would have a real prospect of success, or where there is some other compelling reason to hear it. Real means realistic, not fanciful. More than merely arguable, well short of probable. What is not the test: that your client is unhappy with the figure.

Second gate, and the one that ends careers. CPR 52.12. The appellant's notice must be filed at the appeal court within the period the lower court directs or, if it directs nothing, 21 days after the date of the decision. Computed as clear days under CPR 2.8, so a decision on 3 March gives you until 24 March. Once filed, a sealed copy goes to each respondent within 14 days.

Back to our consultancy. The decision was made on 6 May. Day one is 7 May, and the 21 days ran out on 27 May. The sealed order on 20 May did not restart anything. Nor did the transcript. Nor did the judge's refusal of permission, which does not suspend time: the application to the appeal court goes in within the same 21 days.

Already late? Do not despair, and do not relax. The deadline is strict but not jurisdictional. The appeal court can extend time, and the application goes in the appellant's notice itself, with evidence explaining the delay. But it is decided on relief from sanctions principles: how serious the delay, why it happened, all the circumstances. The merits of your appeal count for very little.

One more thing on permission. In the High Court and the County Court, the application is decided on the papers. Refused? You may ask for it to be reconsidered at an oral hearing, and the request must be filed within 7 days after service of the notice of refusal. That is CPR 52.4. The Court of Appeal is different, under CPR 52.5. There is no right to renew there at all, and an oral hearing happens only if the judge reading the papers directs one.

Now where does your appeal actually go? This is the mechanical part, and it is worth easy marks. The destination turns on the level of judge who made the decision. Not the court. Not the track. Not the value. And not whether the decision was interim or final.

The table is short enough to memorise. From a district judge of the County Court, up to a circuit judge. From a circuit judge, up to a High Court judge. From a master of the High Court, up to a High Court judge. From a High Court judge, to the Court of Appeal. It is set out in Practice Direction 52A.

There used to be a route sending final multi-track decisions straight to the Court of Appeal. It went in October 2016. So hold this one. A district judge strikes out a fast-track claim for breaching an unless order. Where does that appeal go? It comes back at the quick check.

But one route jumps the ladder. If the decision you want to challenge was itself made on appeal, that is a second appeal, and it goes to the Court of Appeal. Who can give permission? Only the Court of Appeal. The circuit judge who dismissed your first appeal has no power to grant it.

And the test is heightened. As well as a real prospect of success, the appeal must raise an important point of principle or practice. Or there must be some other compelling reason for the Court of Appeal to hear it. That is CPR 52.7. One level of appeal is generally regarded as enough, and two judges being wrong about one bespoke contract is not a point of principle.

Above the Court of Appeal sits the Supreme Court, and you need permission from one of them, under s.40 of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005. The criterion is an arguable point of law of general public importance which ought to be considered at that time. There is no monetary threshold. The size of your client's loss is irrelevant. The court's job is to settle the law, not to correct errors.

And occasionally you skip the Court of Appeal altogether. Take a High Court judge who is bound by an authority she thinks is wrong. If the point is one of statutory construction of general public importance, she can certify the case under the Administration of Justice Act 1969. The Supreme Court then decides whether to give permission. That is the leapfrog appeal.

Grounds now, and there are three families. The first and best is error of law. The judge applied the wrong test, misread the law, or failed to follow a binding precedent. Counsel takes the judge to a Court of Appeal decision that sets the test, the judge does not mention it and applies a stricter test of his own. That is an error of law, and correcting it is exactly what the appeal court is for.

The second family is findings of fact, and here the door is nearly shut. The trial judge saw the witnesses. He watched one of them shift position under cross-examination and go evasive about the payments. A transcript cannot give you that. So the appeal court interferes only where the finding is one no reasonable judge could have reached, or is otherwise plainly wrong. Believing the wrong man is not a ground of appeal.

There are two narrow ways in, and the exam distinguishes them. First, no evidence. A judge reduces damages by 25 per cent for contributory negligence, finding the claimant was not wearing a seatbelt. Nobody pleaded it, no witness was asked about it, and the reports are silent. The point appeared for the first time in the judgment. That finding has no evidential foundation at all, and it goes.

Second, perversity. Here there is some evidence, but it cannot rationally bear the weight. A trust instrument forbids a trustee to pay himself without every beneficiary's written consent. The judge finds a £500,000 payment to himself was authorised, on nothing but the trustee's own say-so, with no consent produced and two beneficiaries who had objected in writing. No reasonable judge could reach that.

The third family is procedural irregularity, and remember it has two limbs. The irregularity must be serious, and it must have made the decision unjust. Both. A judge who excludes the only witness who could speak to the only disputed issue, then talks over the cross-examination until counsel abandons his questions, has done both. A judge who miscounts the pages in the bundle has done neither.

What about new evidence? The appeal court does not receive evidence that was not before the judge, unless it orders otherwise. When it exercises that discretion it applies Ladd v Marshall. Three conditions. The evidence could not have been obtained with reasonable diligence for the trial. It would probably have an important influence on the result. And it is apparently credible.

The first condition is the one that bites. A distributor loses a trial, changes solicitors, and the new team finds a devastating email chain in the client's own archive. Indexed. Clearly labelled. Accessible throughout. It fails the first condition, and that is fatal however influential it would have been.

One more standard, for appeals against a judge's discretion. Case management decisions are the classic example: refusing a late amendment, refusing an extension. The appeal court interferes only on narrow grounds. The judge erred in principle, took account of the wrong matters, or reached a conclusion outside the generous ambit within which reasonable judges may disagree. That phrase comes from a case called G v G. A skeleton saying the balance could have been struck the other way has conceded the appeal.

Now the respondent, because this is where good candidates lose marks. Draw one line. If the respondent wants the order itself changed, that is an appeal, and it needs permission just like anyone else's. If the respondent is happy with the order and only wants it upheld for different or additional reasons, it files a respondent's notice and needs no permission. CPR 52.13 covers both.

And here is the gift. Either way the respondent gets a fresh clock. Where the lower court directs nothing, the respondent's notice goes in within 14 days after the relevant date. That is usually notification that the appellant has been given permission. It is then served on the appellant within 7 days of filing. So a respondent whose own 21 days expired months ago is not shut out at all.

Which brings a trap worth the whole episode. A logistics company defends a £200,000 negligence claim and wins. The judge finds it did breach its duty, but that the breach caused no loss, and dismisses the claim with costs. The board is furious about the breach finding and wants to appeal it. Can it? No. An appeal lies against the order, not against the reasons. That is the rule in Lake v Lake.

So there is nothing to appeal. If the claimant appeals on causation, the company files a respondent's notice asking the court to uphold the dismissal on the additional ground that there was no breach.

The appeal succeeds. What can the court do? Under CPR 52.20 it has all the powers of the lower court. It may affirm, set aside or vary any order or judgment. It may refer a claim or issue back to the lower court. It may order a new trial. It may make orders for interest, and orders for costs. Wide powers, and it is not limited to yes or no.

Which power it uses turns on the findings. If the primary facts are complete and unchallenged, and only the legal measure of damages is wrong, the court applies the right measure and substitutes its own award. No second trial. But if the decisive question was never investigated, because the wrong test made it look irrelevant, there is nothing to work with. It refers the issue back.

Last, the money. Costs follow the event on an appeal exactly as at trial. Lose and you pay the respondent's costs of the appeal, subject to the court's discretion. And a corporate appellant that probably cannot pay can be made to put up security. CPR 25.29 allows security for the costs of an appeal, on the CPR 25.27 grounds and on that additional one.

Most appeals fail. The appeal court starts from the assumption that the judge below got it right. Your job is to show it did not, on one of the grounds that exist.

A word on how SQE1 tests this. You will not be asked to recall a case name or a rule number. You get a set of facts, five answers, and one job, which is to pick the best one. So learn the rules. The three names in this episode are memory pegs, nothing more.

If you keep only three. Ladd v Marshall, for the three conditions before the appeal court will look at evidence the trial judge never saw. Lake v Lake, for the rule that you appeal the order and never the reasons. And G v G, for the generous ambit that protects a judge exercising a discretion.

Four traps. One: totally without merit. If the judge refusing permission on the papers records the application as totally without merit, there is no oral renewal at all. Not before that judge, not before another. The certification exists precisely to stop a hopeless application eating a second slice of court time.

Two: an appeal is not a stay. Under CPR 52.16 an appeal does not operate as a stay unless the appeal court or the lower court orders otherwise. Filing your notice does nothing. Getting permission does nothing. The judgment stays enforceable, so you apply separately, to the judge below at the hearing or to the appeal court in your notice.

Three: you cannot agree an extension with the other side. Only the court can enlarge the time for filing an appellant's notice, whatever the correspondence says. Four: your skeleton argument must be concise, must define and confine the areas of controversy, and must be self-contained. You cannot adopt your trial skeleton by reference, and the court can disallow the costs of one that does not comply.

Quick check, and you have met this one. A district judge in the County Court strikes out a woman's claim for failing to comply with an unless order, and refuses relief from sanctions. She had been in hospital when the date passed. The claim was on the fast track. Her solicitor tells her that because the decision was made in the County Court, the appeal will be heard by a High Court judge. Is he right?

Three candidate answers. One: yes, because an appeal from any decision of the County Court is heard by a High Court judge. Two: no, because the destination depends on the track to which the claim was allocated. Three: no, because an appeal from a district judge of the County Court lies to a circuit judge. Pause here if you want a moment.

The answer is three. The destination is fixed by the level of judge, not by the court. It is an appeal from a circuit judge that goes to a High Court judge. An appeal from a district judge goes to a circuit judge, and is heard in the County Court. Permission is still required.

Why the others fail. One confuses the court with the judge. Two reaches for the track, which has made no difference to the destination since October 2016, and nor has the fact that a strike-out is a final order. Same road as any other decision of a district judge.

Five things to take away. One: an appeal is a review, not a rehearing, and it succeeds only if the decision was wrong or unjust for a serious irregularity. Two: 21 days, running from the decision itself. Our consultancy filed on 2 June against a 27 May deadline, and no sealed order or transcript moved it.

Three: the destination follows the level of judge, not the court, the track or the value. Four: a second appeal goes to the Court of Appeal, which alone can give permission, and needs an important point of principle or practice. Five: you appeal the order, never the reasons, so a party who won cannot appeal a finding it dislikes. Next time, Enforcement of Judgments.

Practise this topic with exam-style questions at sqe1prep.co.uk. This episode is for education and exam revision only, not legal advice, and we are not affiliated with or endorsed by the SRA or Kaplan.