document size for small claims court

[MaryS57]

, the court has the power to control evidence (under cpr 31.1) and may limit the amount of evidence if the judge considers too much has been put forward for the small claims track

Since the District judge was quoting eloquently from my hard copies of exhibits including an exhibit on page 109 in my small claims court trial hearing last Monday, - I don't think this is a problem at all on the small claims track as long as the Exhibits are highly relevant, well -labelled, and (perhaps) within clearly labelled tabs for easy reference and all securely held within a small ring binder with case number and parties' names on the front (and an index stuck on the inside cover - for good measure).

The district judge even returned the ring binder - after I had won at court.

[Pezza54]

Did your ring binder include just your witness statement and evidence? Or did you insert claim form, poc, defence, dqs etc?

[sergio33]

Congratulations Marys57, sounds like a lot of hard work was well rewarded!
My witness statement + evidence could probably be 40 pages, so I am tempted to just email. Is there a risk?

[sergio33]

Witness statement done, and under 50 pages, so OK to email. Court fee paid. Hearing date coming up. However I have an order setting out the Judge's directions stating:

1. I need to deliver to the other party and the court office copies of all documents I intend to rely on 14 days before hearing
2. I need to file at court an indexed/paginated bundle of documents as per rule 39.5, 3-7 days before trial. Parties must endeavour to agree bundle contents. Must include case summary/chronology. Even if remote trial (it's not) claimant should send a hard copy of bundle.

My questions:
A) When is the latest I can send my witness statement out to the defendant - presumably 14 days? And when would be sensible?
B) I'm unclear if I can still send electronically, but it looks like I cant for (2) but probably could for (1) -but would it be the same email address as before, now the court has been allocated?.
C) Would the bundle include the defendants documents too? And anything else? What is a bundle?

[pc52straw]

I'd personally not leave it too late because there'll be an expectation of a discussion during the 14 day period.

Agreement on components of the bundle might be easier; you then have time to assemble the agreed documents before tweaking the ones with contested elements before assembling the bundle and catalogue any disputes.

One case I know of, the claimant cc'd the court in on invitation emails to the defendant and after receiving no response sent the bundle by email and recorded post as a backup ahead of the deadline.

The defendant waited till 15 minutes before the 4pm court deadline to email their evidence in chief over, having made no other attempt to engage with the court or claimant... And alongside it, they made an application to dismiss the claimant's bundle plus any evidence in reply (arguing the claimant had failed to engage per instructions). But they'd also included in their pack a line by line rebuttal to the claimant's submission... Proving they received it weeks earlier and exploited it! Oops.

The judge took a dim view of the defendant's behaviour, threw out the defendant's complaint, and made an order extending the time for the claimant to respond to the defendant's last minute submission.

Sadly, not every court is this attentive. I've seen other cases where one side exploits the timely engagement and disclosure from the other side and falsely claims to have not received anything, and the presiding judge doesn't just ignore the blatant abuse of process on parade but THEN ignores any query/protest/complaint raised by the disadvantaged party.

Golden Rules if you suspect bad faith from the other side:

1. Use Royal Mail Tracked Recorded for postal submissions to court and other side (same date and time ideally; take a photo of the packages side by side). It's nigh on impossible to argue "I didn't get it" if the postal tracker says it was delivered/ signed for AND emails went to the court as well as the other side.

2. CC the court when emailing the other side offering to engage.

3. Be wary of shenanigans if emails/post is serially being sent asynchronously by the other side especially if they state "under different cover". In my experience this means the court gets its copies ahead of the deadline but the sender deliberately leaves it a few days before sending it to the other side. This trick can fool the court into thinking you missed a response deadline, when in fact you'd been deliberately denied the opportunity to respond in time.

[sergio33]

Many thanks - perhaps I'll email my witness statement 3 weeks before the hearing instead of 2.
If anyone has thoughts on my other questions, which are more procedural matters, (B and C above) I'd be grateful.

Also, when you say they'd be expectations of discussions during the 14 day period, presumably no documents/emails/records of these discussions can be brought to court - so would this be only to try to achieve a settlement prior to court?

[MaryS57]

My small claim court hearing (2025) , involved two bundles - one from me as claimant (I sent this by hard copy since easiest) and one from the Defendant (they sent in hard copies also) so unfortunately I'm unable to answer (B) or (C)

But our experience may be of use to you regarding your comment "presumably no documents/emails/records of these discussions can be brought to court - so would this be only to try to achieve a settlement prior to court?"

In our small claims court trial, the judge made a point of saying that CPR Part 36 "does not apply to the small claims track" (legal costs are limited in any event). The trial judge then went on to read out the respective "offers of settlement" that both parties had made ahead of trial. The Defendant had put all these details in their witness statement (perhaps in an attempt to curry favour with the judge) but I had deliberately left them out of my witness statement thinking that this wasn't allowed.

So it is good to hold evidence of these "settlement attempts" in person at trial (as opposed to perhaps in the bundle) in case the judge raises this point at the hearing, and then you will be able to provide chapter and verse.

[sergio33]

Thanks, that's good to know.
Just to update - I found this article which answers my question on the bundle:
https://www.advicenow.org.uk/get-hel...age-section-12

So I've now got my work cut out - quite a substantial bundle to put together including my own and defendants documents (to which he will undoubtedly add to once he gets my witness statement) all paginated into one document. The article says this doesn't apply to small claims courts, however the Judge has ordered it, so presumably it does in my case!

So how to I get the other party to limit their documents - now they've put in their defence (is that the same as a witness statement?) can they keep adding more and more? eg. responses to witness statements etc. and responses to responses... As mentioned, I am not dealing with a reasonable person, he is extremely painful to deal with, and thrives on wasting other peoples time.

[atticus]

Good find, thank you. I have added a link to that article to the resources for LiPs thread: https://legalbeagles.info/forums/for...ants-in-person

[sergio33]

I need to supply to the court the bundle 3-7 days before the hearing, including the chronology and case summary, which I need to try to agree with the defendant. I am currently trying to agree this - there hasn't been much response. Presumably when the disclosure deadline has passed (14 days) I no longer need to wait for any agreement, and can start compiling the bundle based on the documents disclosed. Say, for example, they disagree with my case summary 12 days prior to the hearing, is there still scope to amend it and put it in the bundle? Or is it too late and I should just use the previous version?

[sergio33]

UPDATE: My hearing was cancelled twice to to 'lack of judicial rescourcses' but is now set for an online hearing quite soon. They have asked me to email the bundle to court. (Just before the first hearing was meant to take place I dropped off a hardcopy - but that was months ago). I have an electronic bundle, which took me a while to complete, as it includes all the court documents, ad both claimants and defendants witness statement, however it's 23Mb and is larger than the court limit (I think 10Mb.). It's about 100 pages too - the limit for emails is 50pages. What can I do?

[atticus]

There are guides etc to bundles in the resources page, and not just the one you mentioned above - link in my signature (below).