A civil court or other civil tribunal will invariably allow, and usually ask, each party's barrister to put down in writing, in what is known as a skeleton argument document, the bare bones of the legal arguments they intend to make at the hearing. The skeleton argument documents are then exchanged and sent in advance of the hearing to the tribunal. The barristers put "flesh on the bones" in oral argument at the hearing itself but it is helpful for the judge (and each side's barrister) to know from the skeleton arguments, before the hearing starts, broadly what arguments are likely to be eventually advanced by each side's barrister.
In addition to the skeleton arguments - which each concentrate on what one side is arguing in the dispute the tribunal will often direct that an Agreed Chronology and other summary documents should be agreed.
The value of agreed summary documents such as an Agreed Chronology is that they provide a framework, which the judge can rely on (when reading selected documents in the Final Hearing Bundle in advance of the hearing and later at the hearing as evidence emerges from witnesses). The judge can rely on the agreed summary documents because, under the adversarial system which applies to civil disputes, everything agreed is taken to be true with the judge only having to decide matters which are in dispute.
Because skeleton arguments and agreed summary documents will typically contain references to page numbers in the Final Hearing Bundle, they are normally produced after the Final Hearing Bundle has been finalised and are provided to the tribunal as PDFs which are separate from the bundle (even if provided to the tribunal at the same time as the bundle). However some tribunals direct that agreed summary documents, and perhaps also skeleton arguments, should be included within the bundle irself when provided to the tribunal. In order for this to be done it is necessary for a draft bundle to first be produced, so that the parties' barristers can finalise skeleton arguments and agreed summary documents with bundle page number references, and for the skeleton arguments and agreed summary documents to then be added to the bundle in such a way that page numbers do not change (for example by adding the documents to a new section at the end of the bundle or perhaps by reserving pages for them at the beginning of the bundle though that requires the number of pages in the documents to be predicted) before the final bundle is provided to the tribunal.
It is desirable that eBundle page number references in skeleton arguments and agreed summary documents should be hyperlinked. It is generally easier to add hyperlinks to documents if those documents are actually included in the eBundle but it is possible to add hyperlinks even if skeleton arguments and agreed summary documents are separate from the eBundle.
The documents which a tribunal will direct each side to try to agree will be the kinds of document which it is realistically possible for the parties to agree. Indeed documents such as an Agreed Chronology can be provided by agreement, if it is thought that they would be helpful, even if not specifically directed by the tribunal. The key point is agreement. Absent agreement on the contents of a summary document it cannot be provided as an agreed document. In that event each side could, of course, provide their own Chronology, for example, as an appendix to their skeleton argument, but an Agreed Chronology is much to be preferred.
The types of agreed summary document which a tribunal will often direct to be agreed are explained in more detail below.
A Chronology is a list of key dates with a brief description of what happened on each date. It is intended to save time at the hearing by providing the judge and the barristers with a time framework to use as a quick reference. For some events it may give the page number of a document (e.g. the minutes of a meeting) which is particularly relevant to that event.
It is usually possible for the parties to agree a Chronology because it does not have to include every event - only key dates - and it is normally possible to find a brief description of an event to be included which both parties can agree on. For example, if there is no dispute that a meeting took place between the parties on a particular date but what was discussed is disputed, the entry in the Agreed Chronology might simply say
4 May 2020 Meeting between Mr Smith and Mr Jones at Mr Jones' office in Bedford.
If it is not disputed that a meeting took place at Mr Jones' Bedford office sometime in April or May 2020 but the exact date is disputed or unknown then the entry in the Agreed Chronology could say
April/ May 2020 Meeting between Mr Smith and Mr Jones at Mr Jones' office in Bedford.
so as to keep the Agreed Chronology uncontroversial.
If one party says the meeting took place but the other party says there was no such meeting then the meeting might be simply omitted from the Chronology so as to keep it uncontroversial but if the alleged meeting is an important issue which does really need to be mentioned in the Chronology, it could be worded like this
4 May 2020 Mr Smith claims that he had a meeting with Mr Jones at Mr Jones' office in Bedford on this day. Mr Jones denies that there was any such meeting on that day or around that time.
so that both sides can still accept the Agreed Chronology document - in the case of this particular entry it is an agreed statement of the parties' (differing) assertions.
This is a brief "who's who" of the parties, the witnesses, and any other people whose actions played a significant part in the events which will be considered at the hearing. It should be objective and uncontroversial so that it can be readily agreed. For example it might include entries such as
John Jones Applicant, owner of Rose Cottage
Paul Smith Respondent, current owner of Lavender Cottage
Ruth Blade Owner of Lavender Cottage until April 2019
Joanna Smith Paul Smith's daughter
Frederick Manning postman
In the past some civil courts directed the side bringing the claim to produce a short Case Summary and to try to agree it with the other side, but often this was not very satisfactorily because a Case Summary is by definition a summary and with the best will in the world sometimes the sides cannot agree precisely what details a summary should mention and which it should leave out. Even if one side accepts that everything in a draft Case Summary proposed by the other side is correct as far as it goes, they may object because they feel that it is unbalanced - including too much material which tends to favour the other side's case and not including some details which favour their own case, or perhaps it describes the issues in dispute in a slanted, rather than a neutral, way. Describing something in a neutral way can require more words making trying to formulate a neutral summary difficult. So nowadays civil courts and other tribunals do not usually require an Agreed Case Summary to be produced but instead may direct that there should be a Joint Statement of Issues for Determination at the Hearing which is a concise agreed statement of what is still in dispute without much narrative. Alternatively a tribunal may simply direct the parties to agree a Joint Statement of Facts and Issues Not in Dispute.
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This page was lasted updated in March 2023. Disclaimer