Court of Appeal gives important guidance on the application of the res judicata doctrine in public law proceedings

The Court of Appeal has today handed down judgment in XYZ v DBS [2025] EWCA Civ 191.

The appeal was brought by a teacher against a decision of the UT dismissing his appeal against a decision of the DBS to include his name in the children’s barred list.

As the Court of Appeal noted, the appeal raised “a number of important issues which [the Court had] not previously considered”. These included whether the UT was bound by findings of fact made in disciplinary proceedings before a different body (in this case, the Teaching Regulation Agency) and, if not, whether the res judicata doctrine imposed any other constraints on the extent to which the UT could depart from those findings.

The Court of Appeal held that the UT was not bound by findings of fact made in disciplinary proceedings before a different body, whether under the statutory regime that governs the DBS’s functions or by reference to the principles of abuse of process or cause of action estoppel (both species of the res judicata doctrine).

Samantha Broadfoot KC and Barney McCay appeared for the DBS.