Help needed with county court claim against me..

[Djpaintstar]

Hi all! new to site, I run a small buessiness and we are the defendant in county court case, ill keep it short but it involved a customer who left his car with us for repair and Mot and said there was no rush to repair and we could take as long as needed but turned up the next day ranting and swearing because it was not ready, just charged him £30 for mot and asked him to leave, he then issued a summons against us for £370 for breach of contract, he actually issued the summons in my managers personnel name even though he does not own the ltd company and his just paye employee, we had a quick first hearing the district judge ruled to serve witness statement by 23/8 and the claimant to issue a statement why he thinks the manger is personally libel, and trial was set for 20/11 he did not serve any witness statements or the required libel statement on us, when we got to trial date, the judge asked why he had not served anything on us or court, he said he thought it was a nonsense and he had attached everything important to the original POC, she said he has to now serve everything thing again by 27/11 including a POC on our company name so the company can defend the claim aswell, the claimant has now just sent a new witness statement,this is his own witness statement and is different from the one attached to the original POC sheet he has been able to change some stuff because we served the last ones in time to him and off course he's read these now ( he addressed it to a private house down the road completely wrong address) but he has ignored the judge and did not put any POC sheet so now there is no defence sheet there to use for my company's defence,And our ltd company has never had a POC served on it for this because it was issued against our manager personerly, I have until the 03/12 to defend as per judges last hearing, can I just apply to have this case dismissed as the claimant has now ignored 3 judges order request,To be honest its all a big mess, thanks in advance for advice anyone...

[teaboy2]

Re: Help needed with county court claim against me..

Hi all! new to site, I run a small buessiness and we are the defendant in county court case, ill keep it short but it involved a customer who left his car with us for repair and Mot and said there was no rush to repair and we could take as long as needed but turned up the next day ranting and swearing because it was not ready, just charged him £30 for mot and asked him to leave, he then issued a summons against us for £370 for breach of contract, he actually issued the summons in my managers personnel name even though he does not own the ltd company and his just paye employee, we had a quick first hearing the district judge ruled to serve witness statement by 23/8 and the claimant to issue a statement why he thinks the manger is personally libel, and trial was set for 20/11 he did not serve any witness statements or the required libel statement on us, when we got to trial date, the judge asked why he had not served anything on us or court, he said he thought it was a nonsense and he had attached everything important to the original POC, she said he has to now serve everything thing again by 27/11 including a POC on our company name so the company can defend the claim aswell, the claimant has now just sent a new witness statement,this is his own witness statement and is different from the one attached to the original POC sheet he has been able to change some stuff because we served the last ones in time to him and off course he's read these now ( he addressed it to a private house down the road completely wrong address) but he has ignored the judge and did not put any POC sheet so now there is no defence sheet there to use for my company's defence,And our ltd company has never had a POC served on it for this because it was issued against our manager personerly, I have until the 03/12 to defend as per judges last hearing, can I just apply to have this case dismissed as the claimant has now ignored 3 judges order request,To be honest its all a big mess, thanks in advance for advice anyone...

You need to apply for an unless order, though first contact the court/judge and inform them of the claiments failures etc to get guidance from the judge.

[Djpaintstar]

Re: Help needed with county court claim against me..

You need to apply for an unless order, though first contact the court/judge and inform them of the claiments failures etc to get guidance from the judge.

Thanks for reply, is it best just phone the court or do it by letter, just a bit worried that the judge told me (the company)we should issue a defence by the 3/12 but has yet the company has not been served a POC so now have no defence sheet to fill in...?

[Djpaintstar]

Re: Help needed with county court claim against me..

Do you think it's time to let a solicitor deal with it?

[teaboy2]

Re: Help needed with county court claim against me..

Phone the court, as you clearly can not issue a defence when the claiment has failed to issue the correct documentation. I suspect the claiment is a vextatious litigant and therefore purposefully failed to include the defense forms to prevent you issuing a defence, it may put them in contempt of court too as a judge had ordered them to issue POC to the company.

You could bring in a solicitor as they may well be abl eto turn things around and enable you to go after the claiment by counter claim for repudiation of contract, i.e. he did tell you to take your time and no set time or date for the car to be ready was given, therefore by turning up unexpectedly expecting the car to be ready the next day, they repudiated the contract in regards to the "No need to rush" and no time scale, which would mean the term for the car being ready would be a simple reasonable time scale i.e. no less than 3-5 days depending on the work needed to be done.

[Djpaintstar]

Re: Help needed with county court claim against me..

Thankyou for your help, I'll phone them and let you know what happens next..

[Djpaintstar]

Re: Help needed with county court claim against me..

Phone the court, as you clearly can not issue a defence when the claiment has failed to issue the correct documentation. I suspect the claiment is a vextatious litigant and therefore purposefully failed to include the defense forms to prevent you issuing a defence, it may put them in contempt of court too as a judge had ordered them to issue POC to the company.

You could bring in a solicitor as they may well be abl eto turn things around and enable you to go after the claiment by counter claim for repudiation of contract, i.e. he did tell you to take your time and no set time or date for the car to be ready was given, therefore by turning up unexpectedly expecting the car to be ready the next day, they repudiated the contract in regards to the "No need to rush" and no time scale, which would mean the term for the car being ready would be a simple reasonable time scale i.e. no less than 3-5 days depending on the work needed to be done.

The other thing that worries me about all this is, that everytime the claimant ignores a date for witness statements to be in, he then gets to read ours that were on time and then amend his own next statement and add or takeaway bits , I really think that if a judge orders statements to be in a set date then anything submitted after that date should not be allowed, it gives the other side a very unfair advantage to change things..let u know what happens next

[teaboy2]

Re: Help needed with county court claim against me..

True, but don't worry a judge will be more than aware of this and will most likely take it all into account. I doubt the judge is very happy with the claiments behaviour as it is so is likely giving him/her more rope to hang themselves with. It wouldn't be the first time a judge did so!

[Spartadomingo]

Re: Help needed with county court claim against me..

Hi, just joined the site and hope to soon start my own threads but can I just Clarify why anybody can claim breach of contract - in this situation - unless there was a specific reference to the car repairs being completed within 24 hours?