Company rejected my Without Prejudice Save as to Costs offer, now...

[Barbelith]

...now making an offer of more than that.

What it says on the tin.

I made the offer to settle for £250 four months ago. Soundly rejected.

The final hearing is in three weeks. I have spent 20 hours putting together evidence, etc.

They now have made an offer of £350. Total claim is for £300.

Are they now therefore responsible for paying for my time? As per the 'save as to costs' ?

[Celestine]

No - ‘without prejudice save as to costs’ means that the details of a without prejudice offer can only be revealed at a costs hearing after judgment.
your Litigant in Person costs are £19ph. 20hours spent on a £300 case may not wash with the Judge.
When you say the total claim is 350, does that include your filing fees?
Probably worth considering on balance.

[Barbelith]

Confused. A company can make this sort of offer to protect themselves from costs further down the line, so does it not work both ways? I offered to settle for less than they are now offering, and have spent a significant amount of time pursuing these things.

[ostell]

So you are the claimant. It wasn't clear. They have offered more than the original offer

[Barbelith]

Yes ostell . Does that mean they are liable for costs re: time?

I offered to settle three times for less than the claim amount, all soundly rejected.

Now offering £50 more 3 weeks before the hearing and after my hard work is done.

[des8]

Anyway, as this is probably on the small claims track costs (other than filing fees basically) aren't claimable (except for unreasonable behaviour)
So IMO take the £350 and avoid all the stress!

[Barbelith]

des8 I can tell you now, they have definitely behaved unreasonably. Their system/infrastructure led to the issue which triggered certain costs. I contacted them to ask them to deal with it, a call that was recorded and I have a copy of, and they told me it was not their fault, it was a third party. Then told me togo ahead and take them to Court. Then again gave me bad information when I called again trying to resolved this. I incurred £200 of costs dealing with the issue. Then found absolute proof that their system was at fault -something their staff, including their legal rep, failed to disclose in any Court filings. also told the Court that they had already settled all this, when that was a previous compensation payment paid before this issue had even occurred. I can show I REPEATEDLY pleaded with them to look at this properly and stop dealing with it as if it was another claim entirely.

In the year this was going on, attempted to settle three times for less than the claim amount, and turned down three times.

now they have come to their senses, after firing the previous legal rep. who caused this issue to snowball, and want to settle.

Oh, and made an application to strike out and asked for a Civil restrain order against me, which thE Judge promptly dismissed.

And other things - telling the Court that a previous claim was settled and I had cashed a cheque when this was nonsense. My having to escalate to the manager of this fired legal rep. because she was covering up her multitude of mistakes.

I have never been more certain that their behaviour is unreasonable.

So what are my grounds for recovering my time? I am determined that I should be compensated for this, and I think a Judge would award such.

[des8]

I can only speak from experience that judges in the county court dealing with small claims are reluctant to make a finding of unreasonable conduct.

Also bear in mind that pre-action costs will not be recoverable anyway, unless claimed separately as damages.

A party's conduct will be regarded as unreasonable in the absence of a reasonable explanation.
Altho' you may not believe their actions were reasonable, it will be the judge who decides.


Try and up their offer