Liquidated damages vs penalty charge...

bundysdecision?

I have been forced to withdraw from a university course due to their strict attendance policy coupled with the fact that I had been served jury service. They are now threatening to take me to court over a cancellation charge which amounts to fees I would have otherwise paid - this is a significant sum, far beyond administration charges.

My question is - would a court likely see this as liquidated damages or a penalty charge - it is essentially an organisation claiming that I owe them money for a loss of profit given a breach in contract... can liquidated damages include a loss of profit?

DVardysShadow

Did you breach the attendance policy solely due to jury service?

Did you seek to have jury service postponed?

Did you make the university aware beforehand?

bundysdecision?

DVardysShadow wrote: »

Did you breach the attendance policy solely due to jury service?

In my letter I cited minor surgery also but jury service was the deciding factor and I made this clear.

Did you seek to have jury service postponed?

Did you make the university aware beforehand?

- I had already postponed the jury service so could not postpone the second

- I was not informed of the strict attendance policy until the induction - at which point I made my inability to complete the course clear to the course leader

neilmcl

What sort of course was it?

neilmcl

bundysdecision? wrote: »

I had already postponed the jury service so could not postpone the second

Why, if you already knew you had a deferred jury service hanging over you did you accept to start the course in the first place.

Also, I don't see why you couldn't have been granted an excusal for this second jury service based on you being a full-time student during term time.

bundysdecision?

neilmcl wrote: »

Why, if you already knew you had a deferred jury service hanging over you did you accept to start the course in the first place.

It was a masters degree - usually it wouldn't be an issue on a course but this course had unusual attendance requirements which were not mentioned during interview process.

Also, I don't see why you couldn't have been granted an excusal for this second jury service based on you being a full-time student during term time.

I did not attempt to postpone it a second time as I believed that no second exception would be made - as stated in the literature.

Freddie_Snowbits

bundysdecision? wrote: »

I have been forced to withdraw from a university course due to their strict attendance policy coupled with the fact that I had been served jury service.

University is an allowable excuse for not doing Jury Service, you can be deferred. When you recieved your warning notice, you were advised to notify them of dates thyat you were unavailable. The Jury service wouldlook favourably at this if you notified them.

As when I did Jury service in 1999, I informed the Jury service 18 month in advance that I was still doing a University Course, and I was excused until this was complete. The wait after finishing was about two weeks and the high court at that!

As for those who did not turn up on the Monday, the Judge soon extracted a £2,000 fine from them on the Tuesday moring, before proceding with the attempted murder case.

Hintza

Something not quite right here.

What university and what course?

neilmcl

It sounds like the OP is using the Jury service as an excuse to drop out of a masters degree which he found out is going involve a bit more hard work than he first thought. What masters degree was it? In my experience most university prospectuses do say how much work, in terms of attendance, will be involved from the outset.

bundysdecision?

neilmcl wrote: »

It sounds like the OP is using the Jury service as an excuse to drop out of a masters degree which he found out is going involve a bit more hard work than he first thought. What masters degree was it? In my experience most university prospectuses do say how much work, in terms of attendance, will be involved from the outset.

Thanks for that, although it is also worth note that the title is particualrly relevent to matter at hand - whether a loss of profit from cancellation of a contract can be justified as liquidity damages... which is what I sought to establish.

pinkshoes

When did this course start?
Did you know about Jury Service when you signed up to the course?
Did you complain about the unfair attendance condition straight away?

I'm not sure I understand this fully, and being at university is a perfectly good reason to defer.

Have you already done Jury service? If not, then just phone them up, ask to postpone again (stating you can't have time off from your course), and continue with your course.

They are quite entitled to charge a fee for you dropping out, as someone else could have had that place.

No offence, but it does come across as if you are making excuses, so perhaps you could be a little more clear over this.