Alleged Wrong Defendant and Civil Procedure Rule 16

[R0b]

Hi Enough,

When is the hearing date and what is the deadline for exchanging witness statements? Usually it is 14 days before the hearing date but the court may have ordered something differently for your case.

At first glance, your witness statement looks to be very short. Not that it is wrong as such, just that your witness statement is your chance to tell your side of the story and opportunity to persuade the judge as to why they should find in your favour.

There is an example of a witness statement on the shortcuts section of the site at the top right side of the page (if you're on a laptop or computer) that you may want to have a look at but I'll see if I can find an example witness statement that you can use to follow and provide some pointers as to what you might want to consider including - may be some time over the weekend as I am pretty busy at the moment.

You will also need to ensure your evidence is referred to as exhibits and they will need to go to the back of your witness statement as well.

[Enough]

Hi R0B,

The deadline for exchanging is next Friday. I thought it was better to keep the witness statement short and to the point so I'm not sure what else to include?

Do I need to reference each piece of evidence within the witness statement somewhere or will a list of evidence items suffice?

Thanks,


E

[atticus]

Include anything you need or want to tell the judge about the case.

[islandgirl]

I do not understand why low water pressure made you unable to sleep? How was it next morning? Perhaps you need to explain why this meant you did not have a good night....

[Enough]

Hi IslandGirl,

We had a day of exploring, returned late at night on a hot day in summer tired and exhausted and wanted to have a shower before going to bed.

The shower pressure was pathetic and if you've ever had a shower with crap water pressure you'll know that you don't leave it feeling clean and relaxed you leave it feeling frustrated and not completely clean. We didn't feel clean and relaxed so we didn't have a good night's sleep.

I'd expect a better shower in a hotel and luckily the hotel offers (and boasts about) a good night guarantee whereby they will refund your stay if you are not happy.

I am not happy, I followed the instructions in the terms and conditions, so they ought to refund it. Simple.

Thanks,


E

[Enough]

Include anything you need or want to tell the judge about the case.

Thanks Atticus.

Even if that means giving them a couple of weeks heads up to come up with an excuse for their company name shenanigans?


E

[atticus]

Well, if you don't want the judge to know what you have to say, then don't tell anyone and don't complain afterwards.

Look, if they are going to come up with an explanation, you will have a chance to show how far-fetched it is, and contrast it with the complete lack of transparency that we previously discussed.

[islandgirl]

HI Enough thank you for explaining that is fair enough. But the judge may also question this so perhaps it would be good to explain why the room failed the good night guarantee?

[Enough]

Thankyou both, I take your points.

Earlier in the thread R0B provided a link to prove the current contents of the Premier Inn website. Can anybody advise as to how I would use that as evidence and how I would file/serve it to the court/defendant please?

[atticus]

Prepare a statement which includes details of links followed (quoting full and exact url). Then include screenshots and/or quote the text on the pages that you get to when following those links. Think of your statement as a written presentation of the facts that you want to put before the judge.

I agree with islandgirl that you should explain what was so bad about your night if you are wanting the judge to force this defendant to honour its good night guarantee.

And as I said earlier, if you choose not to say something, that is your decision.

[R0b]

Here's an attached example template witness statement layout, ignore the content as it's not relevant to your case. Also, below is a link to a good guide on how to draft witness statements, what to include and what not to include so that should help you somewhat in what you need to write

Preparing Witness Statements for Court: Step by Step Guide (template) (hallellis.co.uk)

Based on your currently drafted statement, it suggests the that the basis of your claim is breach of contract of some kind, related to Premier Inn's 'Goodnight Guarantee'. However, when you draft your witness statement you also need to account for what is being said in the defence, as I suspect there will be questions about whether you are suing the correct premier inn entity so it would be worthwhile addressing that also - not directly as a witness statement is a statement of fact, not legal argument or opinion.

Based on what I understand so far, if I were drafting a statement like this I would probably want to consider including the following (some of which you may have already covered off):

- First of all think about consistency when you refer to Premier Inn. It's common to refer to them as the Defendant but you can also define them as something else throughout the witness statement. For example, if you want to refer to Premier Inn, you could say something like:

I made a booking for a 3 night stay at one of the Defendant's hotel on XX XX 2023 (I will refer to the Defendant throughout this statement as Premier Inn)

1. Begin with your purchase and how the contract was entered into.
- You made a booking via the premier inn website
- Where was the location of the hotel
- What was the total cost of the stay, how was the stay paid for, cash or card or something else?

2. Include the terms and conditions and the Good Night guarantee as part of your exhibited evidence. Now, as for referencing the online terms and conditions you could say something like the following but feel free to adjust how you like. Note, there could be an argument that printing a set of terms after the booking was made could be irrelevant so you may want to use the wayback machine to see if there is a footprint saved closer to the time you made the booking just in case they try to argue that this evidence is not admissable or should be disregarded.

I refer to Premier Inn's online terms and conditions ("Booking Terms") on page XX of Exhibit XX1 which I have taken from a website known as the 'Internet Archive'. Internet Archive is a non-profit organisation founded in 1996, with the intention to provide a collection of digitised materials including, amongst other things, websites. The organisation also provides a service called 'The Wayback Machine' which archives a digital footprint of any web page on any given date or time. These Booking Terms were archived on 15/11/2022 and a direct link to the archived Booking Terms can be found at [insert wayback machine link]. I also refer to a copy of the Good Night guarantee which at page XX of Exhibit XX1 which printed on XX XX 2023.

3. Given that there may be a dispute about whether or not you are suing the right Premier Inn entity, it may be wise to refer to the confirmation booking, invoice and any other relevant materials that show the entity could be considered Premier Inn Limited as opposed to any other premier inn affiliate company. Again, making references to the page numbers of those exhibits.

4. You may then want to go into the issues you were having during the period of the stay and you should be explicit and sufficiently detailed. For example, you may want to say that on the first or second night of the stay, you experienced a poor night's sleep because of certain issues and then you go on to list those issues that you felt did not enable you to get a good sleep.

5. Following the bad night's sleep, what happened next and more importantly, what did you do? If you complained, who did you complain to and what was the response? If there were email responses are they relevant that they need to be exhibited to your witness statement? Can you make a reference to the Good Night guarantee terms that back up your right for a refund or discount or whatever it is you're seeking?

6. Round it off with anything else you might want to do that is relevant and that you believe Premier Inn are not complying with their end of the bargain.

Obviously you are getting short on time so don't underestimate how long this might take you, at least a good few hours I reckon to pull out your first draft then maybe a few more refining, tweaking, getting the references and exhibits in order etc. but please do not leave it to the last minute as you will regret it when you have to rush out something and missed what you wanted to say.

Feel free to post up any revised version for feedback and comments.

[Manxman]

I now have a hearing date set and I wondered if anybody would be willing to take a look at the witness statement I have drafted and offer any further advice please?

I'm not sure how much information I should leave out of it regarding the misleading company name, in order to prevent the defendant from coming to the hearing prepared for that battle. Though likewise, I don't know how much I should include such that I can rely on it if the case isn't immediately ruled in my favour.

I've attached it below.


Many Thanks,

E

Apologies if I've missed something, but am I right in thinking that this is the first time that you have mentioned that Premier offered you £60 "to go away" before you issued a claim against them for £101?

If the room cost £101 and your susbstantive complaint is that water pressure in the shower was low - thus causing you to have a bad night's sleep - I'd have to say that I might consider £60 a reasonable outcome - irrespective of the strict wording of their good night's sleep guarantee.

I'd also be concerned that a court might see it the same way. You'll note that both myself and islandgirl have both queried how the low water pressure affected your sleep as the link may not be immediately obvious to everybody.

Again, apologies if I've misunderstood or got the amounts of money wrong.

[Enough]

Hi Manxman,

The room was £161, I've only claimed for the difference after the £60 Good Will payment they sent me.

For any other hotel £60 would be a nice gesture for a poor nights sleep, however Premier Inn advertise and boast about their good night guarantee and it's generous terms. They advertise it on the radio, in posters, on their website and on TV which makes them more appealing to me and others as I know (or thought I knew) that if anything's not good, they will refund the cost of the stay.

It turns out however, the Good Night Guarantee isn't a guarantee at all, all you're actually guaranteed is that someone from head office will try to barter with you instead of offering you a refund. Why should a company be able to get away with that? I doubt the terms and conditions would be open to reasonable interpretation if for example a guest had cancelled a stay because they were ill. The company would just point to the terms and conditions and say no refunds.

It feels like when a company is at fault the individual has to justify not only the legal basis for a claim but their whole story behind it, yet when an individual is at fault a company need only highlight a line of text in some terms & conditions.

In this case, the conditions merely say that if the guest feels they have not had a good nights sleep and complains within 7 days the room will be refunded. My reasons should be irrelevant, technically I should be able to claim a refund because the colour of the walls gave me nightmares or because the bed wasn't made of marshmallows, it doesn't matter.

R0b and Atticus, thankyou so much for your input, this has come at a really bad time because I have a lot going on at work but I'm hoping to be able to have a proper stab at it before the deadline! I'll let you know how I get on.

Thanks,

E

[Manxman]

Then I'd say your WS is a bit confusing because it mentions that £60 was offered, but doesn't say that you accepted it.(?)

I hope you made it clear to them that you weren't accepting the £60 as a final settlement? (It probably doesn't matter, but if you did make it clear it will avoid any potential pitfalls)

[Enough]

Hi,

The £60 good will gesture is detailed within the email correspondence which I am using as evidence but I will try and make the WS clearer too.

The first mention of the good will payment was Premier Inn telling me it had always been processed.


E