PI Brief Update

Strike-out of a scattergun claim - Lucy Stock, Temple Garden Chambers

23/10/26. KDY & Anor v Langham & Ors [2026] EWHC 2068 (KB) illustrates an increasingly familiar feature of modern litigation: a litigant in person pursuing diffuse, multi-cause-of-action, proceedings against numerous defendants. In a judgment handed down on 7 August 2026, Clare Padley, sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge, struck out the Particulars of Claim in KDY in their entirety, dismissing claims valued at approximately £2.8 million.

The First Claimant (“C1”) was a 13-year-old child with autism, ADHD and other conditions who had been the subject of an Education, Health and Care Plan since 2018. He brought his claims by his mother who acted as his litigation friend and pursued claims in her own right as the Second Claimant (“C2”). C2 required reasonable adjustments and was treated as a vulnerable party. The Defendants included head teachers sued personally, school governing bodies, a local authority, an NHS Trust, a housing association providing youth services, and the London Legacy Development Corporation.

The claim advanced causes of action in negligence and personal injury, discrimination under the Equality Act 2010, defamation, breaches of Articles 2, 3, 8, 14 ECHR, and Article 2 Protocol 1 ECHR, and misfeasance in public office. The alleged statutory breaches, or “continuing wrongs” spanned five and a half years, from March 2020 to September 2025 [13-14]. The claims were set out across 247 pages of Particulars of Claim served with a 574-page “medical evidence bundle”, separate “quantum” bundle, and various annexes.

All the Defendants acknowledged service and filed applications to strike out and/or for summary judgment. CPR 3.4(7) provided that the Defendants were not required to file a defence before the strike-out hearing had taken place, which saved the parties significant time and expense. The parties were in agreement that “broadly the same test should be considered by the court in relation to the defendants' applications to strike out the claim under 3.4(2)(a) and their summary judgment applications” [48]. The claims were struck out on the following grounds:

1. The Equality Act 2010 claims, for want of jurisdiction.
2. The Human Rights Act claims were barred by limitation, which also applied to some of the Equality Act claims, in respect of which the Court declined to exercise its discretion to extend time.
3. The remaining HRA claims under CPR 3.4 for...

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