Court Error?

[saljo]

I filed a Money Claim Online for a specific amount for breach of contract completing the claim form as required. The other party then submitted a Defence and the matter was referred to the local county court for a hearing date.

The judge then made an order for me to file particulars of claim by a certain date or be struck out and, if complied with, for the Defendant to file and serve a Defence by a specific date. As claimant I have complied with the order and served my claim on the defendant by the date required. However, the defendant has not entered (another?) Defence and the date for doing so has now passed. It would, therefore, appear that I may now in a position to apply for judgement by default.

It appears the court/judge could have made an error as both myself and the defendant have already complied with the requirements of MCOL. The court concerned does not respond to telephone queries or offer legal advice. Any ideas on how should I proceed would be greatly appreciated.

[Pezza54]

I can only surmise what happened
You filed a claim form with brief particulars of claim, with full particulars of claim to follow
The court issued the claim form to the defendant and the defendant filed the Acknowledgement of Service, but not their defence as they had not received your full PoC
You failed to file and serve your PoC
The court ordered you to file and serve your PoC which you did
The defendant has failed to file their defence by the date set by the court, so you can apply to the allocated court for judgement in default

[saljo]

Thank you for your comments PEZZA54. Well I did file a full particulars of claim with MONY, served a copy on the Defendants and completed and served the Directions Questionnaire. The Defendants responded by filing a Defence but did not serve their DC on me. I pointed this out to MONY, they did not respond: the Defendants may have submitted their DC to MONY, I don't know. The matter proceeded to mediation without a result and was then transferred to the county court for a hearing. So I believe the MONY process was correctly followed and somewhere following the transfer to the court, communication has broken down between the court and the judge resulting in his order to effectively start the whole process again. I have, therefore, submitted a further particulars of claim as ordered in time, serving a copy to the defendants but there has been no further defence filed, as ordered, and they are now out of time, hence my query. Thanks again for your comments.

[Pezza54]

So you sent the allocated court with a second copy of your original PoC?

Sounds like the court mislaid documents during the court transfer.

All you can do is wait to see what is the next action the court takes

If you receive notice of a hearing date, the latest dates to file and serve witness statements and pay the hearing fee, you know the trial is going ahead

[saljo]

Pezza54 thank you for your further comment. In my PoC to the court I referred to the first PoC version filed with MCOL and the Defence filed. I also took the opportunity to further clarify my claim but did not alter or add to the content. I feel an email to the court office asking if the way is now clear to apply for judgement by default, as the defendants are out of time, might be productive.

[Pezza54]

Please read MCOL User Guide
If the claimant ticks the box "detailed particulars of claim to follow" on the claim form, the claimant does not file these detailed particulars with the court, but only serves them on the defendant. The claimant then files completed form N215 Certificate of Service with the court.
The claimant waits to the claim is allocated to the county court before filing the detailed particulars of claim with this court

Did you tick this box on the claim form?

[saljo]

Yes, I did. The issue is that the Defendant has been ordered by the judge to file a defence by a date that has now expired. It seems to me that as I have complied with that order and the defendant has not, it should be open to me to apply for judgement by default.

[Pezza54]

When you first sent the defendant the detailed PoC, did you file a copy of this document or just file N215?

When you made amendments to your PoC did you send the defendant a copy of this amended PoC?

The defendant may have 2 different versions of the PoC

Wait to see if the court follows through with the order and strikes out the defence