Diriye v Bojaj [2020]: What It Settled
Diriye v Bojaj settled the procedural half of impecuniosity: a claimant relying on it must plead it properly, with particulars, and failures carry real consequences under the courts' rules. It also decided a point of wider civil procedure on when “signed for” post is deemed served.
§ 01What was the case about?
Mr Diriye, a minicab driver, claimed credit hire charges and relied on impecuniosity to seek the full rate. Court directions required a reply properly particularising his impecuniosity case; what was served was late and inadequate, and the litigation descended into an argument about service by “signed for” post, relief from sanctions, and whether the impecuniosity case could proceed at all.
§ 02What did the court decide?
Two holdings. On procedure generally: a Royal Mail “signed for” letter is within the ordinary first-class post deemed-service rule in the Civil Procedure Rules, resolving a genuine uncertainty. On credit hire: the Court of Appeal treated the obligation to plead impecuniosity with proper particulars as substantive, not decorative — the reply served was deficient, the breach was significant, and relief from sanctions was refused applying the Denton principles. The claimant was accordingly shut out from asserting impecuniosity, with recovery limited to the basic hire rate.
§ 03What did it change in practice?
It completed the procedural framework begun in Zurich v Umerji (2014): after Diriye, an impecuniosity case must be pleaded early, particularised properly and supported by disclosure, or it can be lost before trial regardless of the underlying merits. Standard directions in credit hire claims reflect this. For the substantive threshold once the issue is properly before the court, the operative authority remains Irving v Morgan Sindall (2018).
§ 04Which later cases applied it?
Diriye is applied daily in county court credit hire lists as the sanction authority on defective impecuniosity pleading, and cited beyond credit hire for its deemed-service holding. Within this tracker it closes the sequence Lagden → Umerji → Irving → Diriye: rule, disclosure, threshold, pleading.
§ 05Related reading on this site
New judgments, summarised as they land
The Case Digest is a planned email briefing covering significant new credit hire judgments, drawn from this tracker. Subscription is not open yet; the page explains what it will carry and how it is written.