In group litigation it may be effective for the court to direct some claims to proceed as test or lead to claims, whilst staying the remaining claims, resulting in considerable time and cost savings.
As noted by the Court of Appeal in Alame v Shell (2024), "one of the advantages of the process of selecting lead cases is to concentrate the minds of the parties on the real issues in dispute and how to cover a wide spread of those issues using a proportionate number of lead cases as the vehicles for addressing them." Any decision made in respect of a test case will generally be binding on the remaining claims, at least in respect of the common issues in the action.
In some cases, claims may be selected on a random basis, but the court may alternatively order the parties to select test cases between them. Careful consideration will need to be given to identifying appropriate test claims for this purpose. For obvious reasons, the claimants will wish to present their strongest case, while the defendants will want the court to consider the weakest, but including too many cases will inevitably reduce the efficiencies of ordering test claims in the first place. The court will also be concerned to ensure that the test cases cover a range of fact patterns and that all of the common issues in the action are addressed, even if not every test case covers every issue.