Slip rule — Interim award — Errors by claimants — Whether tribunal may correct errors — Whether Arbitration Act 1950, section 17, applies — Tribunal exercises discretion to correct errors under slip rule
By an interim award issued in April 1990 the tribunal determined that the compensation payable to the claimants for the compulsory purchase of four shops was £475,000. The tribunal ordered that a particular area of land should not be included in the conveyance to the council and invited further submissions relating to the effect which this omitted land might have on the valuation of the acquired land. At the adjourned hearing in November 1990 it was submitted on behalf of the claimants that errors had been discovered: in one case a shop was undervalued by £31,000 because the floor areas were wrong, and the sum for goodwill was in consequence overstated by £3,716; and in respect of a second shop the claimants failed to include redundancy payments and an element for loss of rents in valuing the freehold of a shop.
The claimants submitted that the tribunal had power and discretion to correct an interim award: see Pittalis v Sherefettin [1986] QB 868; Mulholland v Mitchell [1971] AC 666 and under the Arbitration Act 1950, section 17 as applied by the Lands Tribunal Rules 1975 (1975/SI 299), r 38.
Held The hearing was adjourned for the parties to make further submissions.
An award of the tribunal is final and binding on the parties subject only to the power under the “slip rule” in the Arbitration Act 1950, section 17, to correct any clerical mistake or error arising from any accidental slip or omission. The interim award made in April 1990 was final and binding on the parties as to the issues it decided subject only to the slip rule: see Fidelitas Shipping Co Ltd v V/O Exportschleb [1966] 1 QB 630 and Merediths Ltd v London County Council No 2 (1957) 9 P & CR 258. The slip rule may extend to errors of the parties. The tribunal may correct purely clerical errors or miscalculations but not an error or oversight in the production of evidence or argument. Accordingly, the tribunal could not reopen the issues in respect of the loss of rent and redundancy payments. The error of floor measurement made by the claimants’ valuer, and not demurred from by the council, was a clerical mistake within the slip rule; it could be corrected because the tribunal determined the value of the shop on the basis of zone A values per sq ft. The overpayment of goodwill could also be corrected.
John Holt (instructed by Daynes Hill & Perks, of Norwich) appeared for the claimants; and John Male (instructed by the county solicitor to Norfolk County Council) appeared for the acquiring authority.
