Deadline to initiate court action against district council?

[R0b]

Re: Deadline to initiate court action against district council?

I don't believe the court would ask why you took so long to bring the action.
It would be for the defendant to claim your action was statute barred.
If you are within the time limits, and the claim is then dismissed by the court for an unacceptable delay, you would have grounds for appeal (although not that it would be financially worth it!)

A party can raise a defence that they have been prejudiced due to the length of time it has taken to bring the claim and therefore the defendant may not have the relevant documents or information it may have done lets say 3 years ago. There was a local court case a few years ago where exactly the same issue arose. Company A employed Company B to clean their offices and in error made a duplicate payment of over £10,000. despite raising the error not long after the payment was made, Company A decided to wait 5 years and 9 months before bringing a claim - judge threw it out and criticised company A for waiting such a long time before deciding to bring a claim against them for restitution. Just because you have 6 years to bring a claim the court will also look at other circumstances and issues surrounding the matter.
[MENTION=19966]ploddingon[/MENTION] - its your choice, if you feel strongly about it then go ahead and make the claim, its unlikely I think that the council will raise the prejudice issue but they may argue that it is de minimis (a legal doctrine which the court refuses to consider trifling matters). As the money you are seeking may be deemed a nominal sum, the court could dismiss it on this basis.

Sorry if I have asked but have you tried to settle this one last time before you make a claim? Sending a letter to the council explaining that you have not reached the resolution you have expected and will offer 7 days to compensate you to the sum of 30 quid or however much you want, otherwise you shall commence proceedings.

[des8]

Re: Deadline to initiate court action against district council?

R0b, can you give a link to this case you mention.
I have never come across a case which has been rejected because the judge felt there was an unreasonable delay whilst the claim was lodged within
the time limits of the Statute of Limitations.
In fact the case of Venulum Property Investments Limited v Space Architecture Limited and Others [2013] EWHC 1242 (TCC).
would imply that a delay in bringing a claim, so long as it was brought within the limitation period of six years cannot be disallowed.

[R0b]

Re: Deadline to initiate court action against district council?

I can't recall the case but it is only a CC case. The point I was trying to get at was that the court takes into account all of the circumstances surrounding the case and a delay in proceedings will be something the court will likely take into consideration and a party raising the point that they are prejudiced by the delay in commencing proceedings just before the limitation period ends is a valid point.

I have had a quick look at that case, not familiar with it but an article by weightmans who had acted/advised for one of the defendants has made some comment in particular this:

Mr Justice Edwards-Stuart’s ruling is the first to combine the sentiment of the Jackson reforms and the approach outlined in previous Court of Appeal rulings on the likely impact of the new rules. He explained that:“In general, it is not satisfactory or in the interests of justice to have claims brought in the closing weeks or months of a long limitation period. Delay is bad for justice.”
And in his conclusion remarked that:


“In my judgment, when the circumstances are considered as a whole, particularly in the light of the stricter approach that must now be taken by the courts towards those who fail to comply with rules following the new changes to the CPR, this is a case where the court should refuse permission to extend time. The Claimant has taken quite long enough to bring these proceedings and enough is now enough.”

http://www.weightmans.com/press/2013...sed-deadlines/


A quite common defence of prejudice is raised in industrial deafness cases for defendants, many of them have either long gone under or it was such a number of years ago there are no documents or evidence available. The defendants always raise the point that the claim is prejudiced due to the length of time since the breach occurred and the claim being made, albeit doesn't always work.

any defendants didnot raised the issue of prejudice so I assume the point was not considered.

[des8]

Re: Deadline to initiate court action against district council?

This was a professional negligence claim in which the claim form had been served in time but the particulars of claim had not. There was therefore an application to extend time for service of the POC.
The application was refused, but if the POC had been served at the same time as the claim form, the claim would have proceeded.

Warning to Ploddington: if you are close to time limit serve POC with claim form!!
If you still intend to go ahead.
R0b and I have at least agreed on risk of "de minimis"

[R0b]

Re: Deadline to initiate court action against district council?

Appreciate it was already out of time, but the judge appeared to have taken into account both non-compliance with CPR and the fact that there was a delay of over 5 years before deciding to instruct solicitors. Anyway, a house of lords case has sprung to mind on this if you would like further reading, Grovit v Doctor 1997 and a newer case Bates v Weston 2015 QBD.

slightly off track but yes de minimis could be a problem here.

[ploddingon]

Re: Deadline to initiate court action against district council?

I don't believe the court would ask why you took so long to bring the action. It would be for the defendant to claim your action was statute barred. If you are within the time limits, and the claim is then dismissed by the court for an unacceptable delay, you would have grounds for appeal (although not that it would be financially worth it!)

No, I wouldn't let it get to that stage. There are other peaceful ways of getting even...

In fact the case of Venulum Property Investments Limited v Space Architecture Limited and Others [2013] EWHC 1242 (TCC). would imply that a delay in bringing a claim, so long as it was brought within the limitation period of six years cannot be disallowed.

This is what would make sense to me. I guess the judge could make some allowances for any perceived serious disadvantage to one of the parties, caused by the time taken to reach court, when giving his verdict.

This was a professional negligence claim in which the claim form had been served in time but the particulars of claim had not. There was therefore an application to extend time for service of the POC. The application was refused, but if the POC had been served at the same time as the claim form, the claim would have proceeded. Warning to Ploddington: if you are close to time limit serve POC with claim form!! If you still intend to go ahead. R0b and I have at least agreed on risk of "de minimis"

Understood and understood.

A party can raise a defence that they have been prejudiced due to the length of time it has taken to bring the claim and therefore the defendant may not have the relevant documents or information it may have done lets say 3 years ago. There was a local court case a few years ago where exactly the same issue arose. Company A employed Company B to clean their offices and in error made a duplicate payment of over £10,000. despite raising the error not long after the payment was made, Company A decided to wait 5 years and 9 months before bringing a claim - judge threw it out and criticised company A for waiting such a long time before deciding to bring a claim against them for restitution. Just because you have 6 years to bring a claim the court will also look at other circumstances and issues surrounding the matter.

I can't recall the case but it is only a CC case. The point I was trying to get at was that the court takes into account all of the circumstances surrounding the case and a delay in proceedings will be something the court will likely take into consideration and a party raising the point that they are prejudiced by the delay in commencing proceedings just before the limitation period ends is a valid point.

Appreciate it was already out of time, but the judge appeared to have taken into account both non-compliance with CPR and the fact that there was a delay of over 5 years before deciding to instruct solicitors. Anyway, a house of lords case has sprung to mind on this if you would like further reading, Grovit v Doctor 1997 and a newer case Bates v Weston 2015 QBD.

Yes, that is all very interesting and it does make sense. I guess it primarily boils down to meticulously keeping all of the paperwork accumulated in any given case. However, it does alarm me a little bit, as the statute of limitations should be something set in stone. If Company A hadn't raised the issue soon after it occurred, then I would sympathise with what the judge said. As they did though, I find it hard to understand why the judge didn't allow the case to proceed, albeit with the particulars of claim being submitted after the claim form. It's not as if Company B would have been any more disadvantaged that way; as opposed to the particulars of claim being submitted with the claim form. Still, thankfully, it must be a very rare scenario where one component of a claim is on time and the other component is out of time. Personally, aside from all of that, I would set the statute of limitations at 5 years, as is the case in Scotland.

@ploddingon - its your choice, if you feel strongly about it then go ahead and make the claim, its unlikely I think that the council will raise the prejudice issue but they may argue that it is de minimis (a legal doctrine which the court refuses to consider trifling matters). As the money you are seeking may be deemed a nominal sum, the court could dismiss it on this basis.

I don't think the council could easily raise the prejudice issue, in relation to time taken for me to initiate court action, as I did make an official complaint at the time, I did give them notice of my intention to take legal action and I have absolutely all of the correspondence ready at hand. Just in case they might have 'lost it'. My common sense tells me that I should scrape over the de minimis threshold too, but I guess you can't take anything for granted.

Sorry if I have asked but have you tried to settle this one last time before you make a claim? Sending a letter to the council explaining that you have not reached the resolution you have expected and will offer 7 days to compensate you to the sum of 30 quid or however much you want, otherwise you shall commence proceedings.

No, I haven't yet done so, but I guess I will have to, if I am going to proceed further. To be completely honest, the chap who dealt with my official complaint on this matter also happened to deal with my subsequent council tax complaint. I ended up telling him, bullet point style, why I thought he was a total imbecile. I was very factual and wasn't at all rude, but I don't think he was very pleased and I believe he got the hump over it. Therefore, I am adamant it will do no good, as I know he still works there, but for the sake of best practice I would do it. I am always open to building bridges.

slightly off track but yes de minimis could be a problem here.

Yes, so my 3 concerns are not having exhausted the council's full complaints procedure; being able to justify getting my claim in at the 11th hour; and possibly being hampered by the principle of de minimis. I will sleep on it all and make a final decision in the morning then. I also just had the thought that Christmas is only a few weeks away and I don't really want this impacting on my enjoyment of the festive period in any way at all. Hmm.

Thank you again for all the advice given Des and Rob.

[R0b]

Re: Deadline to initiate court action against district council?

Hi Ploddingon

Under the CPR, the court will take into account all of the circumstances of the case (it used to be 8 or 9 things but that changed) and therefore bringing a delay will be part of that consideration. It does not mean that the court will dismiss the claim on that basis but will weigh up whether the case can continue in light of what has happened. You said that you gave them notice of intended legal action but if you did this at the very start when you first sent the council letters, and then did nothing for 4-5 years until the limitation period is about to run out then the court might ask you why was there a gap between your intention to bring proceedings and actually doing so. If the council were prejudiced by the delay for whatever reason e.g. the employees at the time do not work there and require them to be witnesses but are unable to locate them now that could be validly argued against you. I don't know when you put the council n notice or indeed how long you have left to bring a claim but that's just a simple example.

So you didn't follow the full complaints procedure, which the council may raise but if you do make a claim then you can counter that by saying you offered to settle once more (suggested 7 day letter n previous post) and you agreed to mediation which shows you exhausted as many options before court action being the only route.

The harder argument I guess will be de minimis, sure I 've seen a couple of cases go to court for less than £50 but those were different circumstances in which the defendant ignored everything. In this case the council has gone about putting things right and putting you in the same position as you were previously as if it never happened. The judge therefore may thing that the matter is so trivial it isn't worth bringing a claim.

If you do decide to go ahead and make a claim, then i'm sure we can steer you in the right direction

[ploddingon]

File closed.

I want to again thank everyone who offered me helpful advice on this matter. In the end, it was so close to Christmas that my wife recommended I best just leave it. I didn't want it dragging on over Christmas and I didn't see fit to bother anyone at the council with it over Christmas either. I still feel that I was treated unfairly, but for reasons already well explained on this thread I didn't feel able to take it any further at the time. This wasn't my fault and it wasn't the council's fault either. It was just unfortunate and such is life on occasion. I did still learn a thing or two regardless, from what was discussed, and that was good.

At the very least, I think the council got a very strong message about my displeasure over this errant direct debit at the time. It is only right that council employees should be taken to task, if they are not performing appropriately. Furthermore, the council employee, who I deemed as the wally most responsible for not sorting out the other parking ticket matter, did also got his comeuppance after he was forced to manually process all of my FOI requests in relation to parking appeals. He initially tried to refuse, so I had to get the council compliance officer involved, who was very helpful in helping lay down the law with me. I wasn't being frivolous and the various figures I obtained were quite shocking. I think that this chap just sat on his throne indiscriminately turning down appeals every week. This is not right in my opinion.

I guess the moral of the story is deal with one thing at a time and, after getting started, see it right through to the end as quickly as possible. Not always easy, but I will do my very best to stick to that from now on. I only have a few more things to sort through now, hanging around from the past, and I can then happily get on with my year. I hope everyone had a pleasant festive period.