Tort Of Malicious Prosecution Can Arise From Civil Proceedings

This one is actually binding on a very small number of people, being an appeal from the Cayman Islands -- but given that it's a Privy Council decision, it's likely to be influential: Crawford Adjusters v Sagicor General Insurance (Cayman) Ltd, [2013] UKPC 17. The case arose from building works undertaken to repair hurricane damage. Sagicor, the insurer of a residential development, retained Alastair Paterson as a loss adjuster and made payments to Hurlstone, a building company, to repair the development in accordance with the terms of the policy. There were other storms brewing. A senior VP at Sagicor had an animus against Paterson and alleged that Paterson and Hurlstone had perpetrated a fraud on Sagicor; he also told a reporter that Paterson had made misrepresentations, causing damage to Paterson's reputation once the reporter published the information. Paterson counterclaimed for breach of contract and with a tort claim for malicious prosecution. The Cayman trial judge held that the tort claim could not succeed: while the allegations against Paterson had been made maliciously and without reasonable cause, and had caused him significant financial and other loss, they did not arise from previous criminal proceedings. The judge relied on a relatively recent House of Lords decision which declined to extend the tort of malicious prosecution to civil proceedings: Gregory v...