Lunatic's money claim and Practise direction 3.a striking out a claim

[HeadacheEarthquake]

Being pursued for compensation by the owner of a venue I hired.

The signed contract between him and myself contains no references of damage, the person being taken to SCC isn't the hirer, I am, and the claimant has no proof of the damages either.

(It's over a stained tablecloth)

He obviously hasn't replaced them and shown us a receipt, he's sent an invoice that we're of course not obliged to pay.

How can I speed up this case being struck off, can I do something to apply for it to be thrown out under section 3.4

(3) those which contain a coherent set of facts but those facts, even if true, do not disclose any legally recognisable claim against the defendant.
Do I write to the court office?

It was a plain tablecloth, they helped me decorate the venue and they collected the items the next day. They were due to dismantle stuff but the owner broke our agreement and threw everything out of the doors before the derig slot we agreed.

He is suing my friend on the grounds that he was there decorating with me so must be responsible for water marks that are apparently unremovable on the tablecloth. Apparently this has happened to 4 tablecloths of 7 used on the day but no proof has materialised. He originally pursued me but I asked him to provide images or some form of explanation about any of it so he went after my friend while I was on honeymoon.

I would feel sour about it if I paid him off so I wouldn't be happy, yes it was my wedding and he made a tonne of money from us - whoever heard of a party venue, restaurant, bar, asking customers to pay for tablecloths.

How did the claimant even get your friend's name and address to serve the claim form on him?

It's very unlikely this claim will be struck out, though it may well fail. In due course the claimant will have to disclose evidence of the alleged damage and evidence of his losses (e.g. cost of replacement tablecloth). He is under a duty to mitigate his losses, so e.g. should have tried to get the stain out by laundering the tablecloth (presumably that would have been cheaper than just buying a new one).

I paid a £90 fine last month which sickened me to pay but I just couldn't justify the war in disputing it.

The fine was a police fine and the fine was for 'wasting police time'. The reason? Because when the police arrived, they were being dickheads and they asked me 'why have you called us?' and I sarcastically replied 'oh because I like wasting police time'. 😂

Last time I attempt sarcasm with a cop haha.

Sometimes the prize isn't worth the war.

At uni, the rugby team got fined and banned from the SU for "impersonating another society" because security asked "are you the rugby team?" and they said "nah, we're hockey" sarcastically...they were playing rugby at the time...

I would definitely file an application for summary judgment- using the N244. It doesn’t matter that you’ve responded- you use this when you think that the claimant has no real prospect of success, which in you case (no invoice, no pics) sounds likely. Also it could take a while to get to court and it sounds like this guy is going to be a PITA from start to finish. You fill in the form, put your evidence in part C and pay a fee when you make the application. The rule for summary judgement is Civil procedure rule 24.2 (the practice directions just tell you how to do things- they don’t say what the courts can and can’t do).

You'll laugh - he says his "laundry advisor" tells him they're ruined.

My Union rep told me the same, that his duty of care is to mitigate the loss with his own insurer before attempting to claim the excess from me.

And absolutely about the cost of replacing the cloths themselves.

He has the name and addresses of all who helped on the day from the PLI we sent him before decorating that we agreed to get in case we fell off a ladder or anything.

Oh my god...

But OP has no basis to think he has no real chance of success from a legal standpoint. She hasn't seen his evidence because he hasn't provided her with his evidence. For all she actually knows he could have the damaged table cloths, the cost of repair from three different table cloth fixers, the cost of replacement from the distributor and CCTV that shows OP's friend causing the damage. Now, obviously, that's highly unlikely to be reality because her friend is saying he didn't cause the damage and, if the guy had all that evidence, it's unlikely he'd refuse to show OP, but unlikely doth butter no parsnips here.

At this point, filing this would mean throwing away more money than the claim itself on a hail Mary.

My rapier wit is not all it's cracked up to be. Expensive lesson.

Once I paid the fucking thing though, I calmed down. Wrote it off and actually haven't even thought about it since!

Thankyou - it's all such a minefield

I'm considering framing my fine lol. My finest work.

But surely if he has all that evidence he'd have declared it on the claim form where it asks you what evidence you intend to use at the hearing

If he's been asked for it by me, by my friend, and by the claim form, and refused to provide it, he can't then suddenly whip it all out at court and say "ha ha surprise" because that's misleading, and will show him up when he's asked why he didn't provide it straight away, he was given many opportunities to do so and assured that if he could prove it we would reimburse him.

@Mummbles but from what I understand it she’s asked for the evidence, he hasn’t provided it, anc they’ve even been through a failed mediation. Of course worse case scenario you might lose the fee but in this situation you’re likely to get some pretty stringent case directions (like you must provide evidence by x or summary judgment in the defendant’s favour). The only situation where you’d be correct is if there had been a direction for evidence to be served by X date and that date hasn’t passed yet, in which case I agree it would be premature.

He's not obliged to try to recover the loss through his insurance, your union rep is wrong about that. It does all sound like a lot of hoo-ha over one tablecloth though.

If he's had advice from a laundry expert that the stain couldn't be removed, then that advice would also be disclosable as relevant evidence.

I would write to him noting that the claim is progressing after the failed mediation and as such, he will be required to disclose documents relevant to the disputed issues, and you therefore invite him to provide it to you now in the interests of narrowing the issues between you as is required under the Civil Procedure Rules.

The evidence he will be required to disclose will include photographic evidence that the stain ever existed, evidence of the cost of the new tablecloth and evidence that he in fact bought one, and evidence that the stain could not be removed in laundry. The evidence should be disclosed in its native format with metadata intact so that you can verify that it is contemporaneous (and not, for example, a photograph of a tablecloth used at someone else's event).

This very much is your friend's decision. It's he who has the claim against him. If they're a relaxed sort, and are not fazed by it, I'd let it run its course. If it's stressing your friend, I'd pay the idiot.

@Mummbles my faith that at some point someone would look at the nonsense the claimant was spouting & throw the claim out was misplaced. By the time of the final hearing she didn’t even have a specific amount that she was claiming (having changed the amount so often (and from a few thousand to over 20k at one point) that the judge seemed to just let it go).

I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.

He has until 14 days before the hearing as standard. Unless we're within that time frame, he's entitled to not show his hand (although the court may well keep that in mind when determining a costs order).

I think the timeline here is relevant, in that he claimed all of this five weeks before the money claim, so it was us asking him repeatedly for five weeks to show us the "diagnosis" from his laundry advisor (he doesn't have one) or any photos or receipts. It wasn't all in the space of a week, it was repeatedly made clear to him that we required evidence for five weeks, where he just repeatedly said no, pay me or I'll take legal action.

As standard, he has until 14 days before the hearing to let you know of his evidence. You're applying far too much common sense and logic to a system that doesn't always work that way. If the legal system worked on common sense then lawyers wouldn't exist.

Hear hear to that!

If he has evidence failed to include it on his claim form, and he failed to show it to us for five weeks before filing it despite being repeatedly asked to show us.

I totally get that you don’t want to give him money. He is a jerk and you don’t want to reward him.

however. You have to ask yourself though - is it really worth fighting? It may take a lot of time, energy and headspace to bring this to a close. And so any victory will be pyrrhic. Redefine winning as making this go away for a relatively small amount of money.

In your shoes, galling as it is, I would give your friend the money to settle and put this nonsense behind you.

@HeadacheEarthquake

"I think the timeline here is relevant, in that he claimed all of this five weeks before the money claim, so it was us asking him repeatedly for five weeks to show us the "diagnosis" from his laundry advisor (he doesn't have one) or any photos or receipts. It wasn't all in the space of a week, it was repeatedly made clear to him that we required evidence for five weeks, where he just repeatedly said no, pay me or I'll take legal action."

None of that makes any difference to his claim.

Given the minimal value of this claim, I would strongly recommend ignoring the advice on this thread (which appears to come from non-lawyers) to spend a £275 court fee filing an application for strike out or summary judgment, both of which would be likely to fail. Your friend is the defendant in this claim. Why on earth would he want to spend more money than the sum actually claimed on speeding up the process? Just let it run its course to a final hearing (which will take ages, annoying the claimant), and on the basis of what's been said on this thread, the claimant will probably lose.

Or just pay the £60 or £120 or whatever it is and move on. Points of principle are not points to litigate, unless you have Rebekah Vardy's wallet. And even she regretted it.

How does your friend feel about this? Is it stressing them out?

I know you feel responsible as you've been put in an almost impossible situation - your friend was helping you out and they now have a court case (some people find that incredibly stressful).

TBH - the cost of the application sounds more costly than actually paying £150 to a solicitor.

I know it's hard to let go sometimes. But when you let go and let them have their victory, it's you who wins in the end.