"Damages to be assessed" costs and Chief Constable name

[paramel]

Hi everyone. I'm doing the N1 claim form, suing the police in small claims for trespass, for nominal and aggravated damages. I've managed to research most of the details you need, having had basically an empty reply to the letter before action. But there are a couple of details I can't find anywhere.

Firstly, for these damages to be assessed, the associated guidance says you need to specify a value of "not more than £10,000" instead of "not more than (a sufficiently small limit of your choice)". Since that field is used to assess costs, this would seem to suggest that even the smallest uncertain claim would necessarily involve the costs of a £10,000 claim, but that seems very strange. If the particulars are specifying a far lower damages limit, how do the costs work out?

And secondly, the Chief Constable is a bit of a special case when naming him as the defendant. Since the court cases I can find all seem to say "Chief Constable of (area) Police", do you give the defendant as "Chief Constable of (area) Police", (address)? Or do you include his actual name?

[wales01man]

Re: "Damages to be assessed" costs and Chief Constable name

How much are you trying to claim? and have you spoken to a Solicitor about this .

Expect a fight from the Police if you can make a claim and beware of the possibility of costs against you
I wold expect its not easy to get a judgement for more advice from others on LB you will need to provide some more details of your claim and the background to it

[stevemLS]

Re: "Damages to be assessed" costs and Chief Constable name

Actions to and by the police are always taken/brought against "The Chief Constable of ......" rather than in their own name.

Afraid I don't know about the other question.

[nemesis45]

Re: "Damages to be assessed" costs and Chief Constable name

The Limit of £10K is the limit for a small claim, you are simply being asked for an assessment within that limit.
The limit implies nothing more than the fact that a claim via the small claims track is so limited.

nem

[stevemLS]

Re: "Damages to be assessed" costs and Chief Constable name

The Limit of £10K is the limit for a small claim, you are simply being asked for an assessment within that limit.
The limit implies nothing more than the fact that a claim via the small claims track is so limited.

nem

As I read the OP he anticpates recovering much less than £10k but wants to leave it to the court to decide the appropriate award of "nominal and aggravated" damages (which seems a bit of any oxymoron to me) and can't work out what the issue fee should be?

[wales01man]

Re: "Damages to be assessed" costs and Chief Constable name

If this is not a money claim with a figure attached what court will it be in?
thought costs are possibly awarded in courts so if the OP loses ?

[paramel]

Re: "Damages to be assessed" costs and Chief Constable name

As I read the OP he anticpates recovering much less than £10k but wants to leave it to the court to decide the appropriate award of "nominal and aggravated" damages (which seems a bit of any oxymoron to me) and can't work out what the issue fee should be?

Yes, that's it.

It seems that if you're claiming any sort of damages which can't be calculated, you're supposed to claim "damages up to £figure" in the particulars. (If it's possible to just claim a fixed sum, and maybe the court will just award less, this would be great, because I could use the online service, but how to calculate damages which aren't associated with monetary costs?)

And then my n001a-eng.pdf states clearly that you're supposed to enter "I expect to recover not more than £10,000" under "Value", rather than being able to say not more than some smaller figure. Saying something like "damages up to £1,000" in the particulars is supposed to be a good idea to limit your court fees, so the obvious deduction is that you say "not more than £10,000" under "Value" but pay an issue fee based on the total damages limit described in your particulars.

But I'm not confident in deducing this, given that the "value" box is apparently used to calculate fees, and some people might send the particulars separately, so the court might not even have them at first. The logical set-up would seem to be to say something like "I expect to recover not more than £1,000" under "Value". But the guidance implies that you can't.

Hence my confusion.

What's ironic is that I don't actually even care about damages, you just need something to make your case about. This is entirely for me a matter of principle, and legal clarity. I've tried to go through the complaints system, and it just goes:

Police: Our officers would never do that.

Me: I have video evidence.

Police: We said our officers would never do that. (There is no way to make them view the evidence.)

[stevemLS]

Re: "Damages to be assessed" costs and Chief Constable name

Obviously you have given no information about the cause of action so nobody can comment on the merits of the case.

You have already correctly identified that you cannot use the online service for a non fixed sum.

I would either ring the court and ask https://courttribunalfinder.service....ss-centre-ccbc

Or, given that you have said nominal and given the relatively large jump between <£3k and <£5k decide which you are prepared to pay and limit it to that.

Expect the police to defend themselves vigorously whatever transgression you think they have committed.