Sportsmen and the Court of Appeal

Cases involving sportsmen often receive much media attention and many historically have had wide ranging impact on sport and the law generally.

There was much media interest recently around the super injunction involving former England Captain, John Terry and this has been followed by significant internet speculation as to whether or not another England player has been able to successfully obtain a similar Order in circumstances where John Terry couldn’t. We may never know! What we do know is that it was downhill for Fabio from the moment the JT story broke.

Cases involving Sportsmen have often been at the forefront of Employment and Contractual Case Laws. George Eastham, the gifted Arsenal and Stoke City inside forward was involved in proceedings that were reported as long ago as 1963 claiming restraint of trade in relation to the retention and transfer system for professional footballers at the end of their contracts (Marc Bosman was clearly paying attention).

Those of us of a certain generation will remember the furore caused when the former England captain, Tony Greig, wicket keeper, Alan Knott and spin bowler, Derek Underwood and others wanted to play in the televised World Series Cricket Events in Australia. That case was about inducements to breach contracts of employment, the monopoly of the TCCB and the operation of the now repealed Trade Union and Labour Relations Act 1974. It is a fascinating read (honest).

These were cases that received significant media attention in their time (I’m assured in the Eastham case) and have had a fundamental impact in both sports. Against that background it is surprising that when the Sunderland Striker Darren Bent (should he have gone to the World Cup in place of Emile Heskey?) starred in the Court of Appeal recently we have heard little about.

In February 2007 while a Spurs player, Darren was involved in a road traffic accident while driving his £72,000.00 Mercedes Benz V12 6.3. The accident was not Darren’s fault but his car was damaged and in need of repair. The question for the court was whether Darren was entitled to hire an Aston Martin DB9 worth £105,000 as a replacement and run up credit hire charges in the sum of £63,406.90 which was about the cost of his own vehicle?

There were 2 issues. The Defendant’s accepted that Darren was in need of a replacement vehicle whilst his car was being mended and he was entitled to hire a broadly equivalent car to his own damaged Mercedes and that they would have to pay the appropriate hire charges. The argument was that by hiring a more expensive car the cost had been increased. The Defendant’s argued that the rate of hire should be the “Spot Market Rate” which would have been cheaper than the Credit Hire Rate. They provided Spot hire rates for 2009, although the hire had been in 2007 but the Judge in the County Court declined to assess the spot hire rate and found that it was reasonable for Darren to hire the DB9.

The case went to the Court of Appeal, who found that the Judge should have considered the evidence before him of the Spot hire rate and taken a broad and common sense approach to the evidence on the basis that working with comparables, and making adjustments, was the daily diet of judges concerned with valuation in all sorts of fields. They added that normally the replacement car need be no more than the same broad range of quality and nature of the damaged car.

The impact of this case in the credit hire field is significant, with Judges being required to look at the various spot hire rates for a better or worse vehicle and aim for a reasonable average, common sense really.

For more information on this subject please telephone Jim McGarrity or Navdip Gill on 01908 692769.