Ridgewood abandons fresh claim in Texaco filling station dispute

The Ridgewood Properties Group has abandoned a fresh claim over an ultimately failed plan to build flats and offices above 10 filling stations. Ridgewood discontinued its latest claim, against lawyers that advised them, after a judge struck out a key head of damages. Ridgewood and associated companies earlier saw their previous claim against Valero Energy, owners of the Texaco chain – in which it alleged that Texaco’s sale of 10 filling stations to Azure Properties Ltd and supermarket chain Somerfield constituted repudiatory breach of airspace agreements, under which it planned to develop the sites – dismissed by Proudman J last year. Proudman J found that, by selling the filling stations in 2005, Texaco did put itself out of its power to perform the airspace agreements, she ruled that Ridgewood had nevertheless consciously and deliberately affirmed the agreements and cannot now claim repudiatory breach. She adjourned an alternative claim for damages for breach of contract put forward by Ridgewood for further argument, but ultimately rejected that too on the basis that it had suffered no loss. Ridgewood pursued an alternative damages claim against Kilpatrick Stockton LLP (KS), Finers Stephens Innocent LLP(FSI) and Steven Woolf for breaches of their duties of care. Ridgewood had been advised by Mark Johnstone, who is a solicitor and was a partner in KS until August 2005, when he moved to FSI, and KS instructed Mr Woolf in August 2005 to advise on whether Texaco had breached the Airspace Agreements and, if so, whether an action for damages could be brought against Texaco. They claimed damages including for the loss of the opportunity to terminate the Airspace Agreements and to bring a claim for damages for loss of the chance of securing planning permission and developing the sites for profit, alternatively for the expenditure wasted prior to the termination of the Agreements. But the defendants successfully applied to strike out that key head of loss, Arnold J ruling that it was an “abuse of process” because it amounted to a collateral attack on previous judicial findings. In a postscript to his judgment, he revealed that the claim had now been abandoned in the light of his findings. He said: “After this judgment had been circulated to the parties in draft, the claimants discontinued their claim in its entirety.”  Ridgewood Properties Group Ltd and ors v Kilpatrick Stockton LLP and ors Chancery (Arnold J) 25 July 2014David Turner QC and Adam Rosenthal (instructed by Mishcon de Reya) for the claimantsPatricia Robertson QC and Christopher Knowles (instructed by Bristows LLP) for the first defendantDavid Halpern QC (instructed by BLM LLP) for the second defendantEmer Murphy (instructed by Browne Jacobson LLP) for the third defendant