County Court (Small Claims Track) and Multi Track)

Equaliser123

alistair.long wrote: »

Court Rules state that the claim is small claims so costs are limited, your friend can also claim £9.25 an hour under CPR 48.6 limited to 2/3 of what a solicitor would get (£80 for a solicitor).
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Litigant in person costs are not claimable in Small Claims.

Equaliser123

gordikin wrote: »

sombrero read the last 4 words of post 20 and ignore everything before that.

Totally agree...

alistair.long

Equaliser123 wrote: »

Litigant in person costs are not claimable in Small Claims.

I did think this before because the small claims is thought as the no cost court, however if a solicitor can claim £80 while at small claims, a individual can then claim 2/3 of £80 which is about £52.80 .
I only found about about it in February so have added it to my latest claim.

alistair.long

gordikin wrote: »

sombrero read the last 4 words of post 20 and ignore everything before that.

That means that all the claims that I have taken to court I have only lost once, and when I lost I did not pay costs. Dont see how I could have lost, and people say I shouldnt have lost.
I have won a lot I can remember how many, but I know its over 5.
At present I have 4 claims in court with hearing dates near.
and 3 to go in soon, of which 2 are linked to the outcome of a claim which will be in august.

sombrero

I would like to thank everyone for their imput. Its been very helpful not least because we feel that we should feel the need to be scared.

Alister Longs comments have been great and in answer to his point I would state:

1. We clearly still are scared because of the massive costs cited by the solictors but despite this we have told them we will not backk down and are prepared to take this all the way because we have nothing to lose. Your omments on this make us feel easier about the situation.

2. This case is still in Small Claims Track. We called the Court on Thursday and they say (after our application to have stay removed) its with a judge who will most likely justs et a hearing date in Small Claims Track. Solictors for university have told us by email that they will make an application to court to have the case moved to Mullti Track. They lost on this when they tried to have the case struck out as the second motion was to move to Multi Track. They are going back to court alleging that friends son has committed a fraud by amending a university time table. What happened was that he was given a date for an exam and when he turned up found out the exam was a few days later. He passed the exam. We do not know if the university made a mistake or if when friends son printed out the timetable he may have made a mistake by amending a date. Notwithstanding this...we never made this a part of our claim because we could not prove a mistake nor was any damage done as the exam was passed. Solicitors for university will try and argue that because of this the case is complex. To us it is a red herring. First we heard of this was at the case management hearing but now its come up again in emails from solicitors for university as part of their plan to get the case moved up to Multi Track. I would reiterate that this was not mentioned in our Claim or indeed in any correspondence prior to the Claim.

3. We are in touch with the Court and we will call next week to get an update. We have requested the say be lifted as the original decision of the the court was going to OIA. We said we go to OIA but only on basis of both parties bearing their own costs. We also mentioned how much in the way of costs the solicitors want from us to go to OIA.

4. We told the court we are happy to go to Court Mediation and that the university and solicitors both say no.

5. As you can see they tried to get case stsruck out once in Court. Barrister made extensive legal arguments and they lost.

6. We will put a without prejudice offer to settle this week on basis of both parties bearing their own costs.

7. You say that if we lose in small claims track that our costs will be about 80.00 Thats reassuring for us although I feel it might be a little higher as they will have one witness and travel costs and so I feel 200.00 max. First Judge said we had a case (and no strike out) but that clearly does not mean we will win.

Question - what I dont understand is why university would risk losing so much in the way of fees in this if they are telling us the truth about them paying costs of the case Could they have indemnity insurance in case they are sued? I have professional indemity insurance in case I do something wrong and if someone sued me for negliglance I would have an insurance policy to assist me.

To us the case is all about solictors fees. They do not care if the get to multi track and we lose and go bankrupt. It almost seems that someone has covered their fees. Is this correct?

Thanks again for great advice on this.

paddyrg

sombrero wrote: »

what I dont understand is why university would risk losing so much in the way of fees

It may be important for them to avoid being seen to lose - otherwise they may get more claimants on other fronts. Maybe it is now a brinksmanship thing - they went public with a big scary defence and are now daren't lose face by backing down?

alistair.long

Complex claim - if fraud is alleged then this will mean that the claim may be sent to a higher court, as costs are normally higher. However strict proof is needed to show this, and should be asked for before they file an application, while in the application for removing the stay their barrister may ask for it.

Part 36- part 36 offers donot apply to small claims, try a "calderbank offer". make a offer to the other side in normal letter format.

At present the case is in small claims so I believe the Solicitor by law cannot charge more then £80.
Question is who paid for the barrister in application to stay?

If you are claiming £4k, the University has more then that each year when people join. They have plenty of money

sombrero

Alister

1. Its not really a complex claim. Our case is mainly based on evidence (letters of confirmation from University) that errors and mistakes were made in the course. We will detail these errors/mistakes and prove by letters from the university. Obviously friends son will give evidence about what happened. We feel that our case with no interuption will take 15/20 mintues to put to the court.

We now believe that the only way they will get the case allocated to a higher track is on the fraud. However, please not that we never mentioned this in our negotiations with the university and it was never part of the claim. The issue came up about a year ago when the university did an initial investigation into the errors and noted that friends son turned up f?or an exam based on a timetable which was wrong. As friends son took this exam a week or so later and passed we dont see what the problem is? As I said it was never part of the original discussions on errors/mistakes and never part of the the claim. We see this as a "red herring" to try and influence the court. Was not mentioned in defence this point. Can you relayy see the court making this a multi track case based on just this?

2. We made the application for the stay to be removed. We felt we had no choice. The first judge stayed the case for 3 months pending mediation with costs in the case. BY the way barrister asked for costs on the day despite the case being on 2 points. 1) struck out and 2) reuesting multi track. They lost on both issues! Anyhow the deadline for referral to OIA is this week so we decided to write to court requesting the stay be removed and stating that we were prepared to go to OIA but only if we had confirmation from solicitors that both parties bearing their own costs. We also said that the solictors want £9k in costs if we refer to OIA and we said its not fare for us to go to OIA with this cost factor hanging over us. So we repeated the offer to the court about OIA and copied this to solictor and university. We also repeated our offer to go to court mediation (costs reserved) in accordance with court order and to date both offers have been refused.

3. Thanks for your comment on £80 to date. Would have thought that the court will not like it when they hear that they want £9k from us to date.

Thanks for assistance.

Equaliser123

alistair.long wrote: »

I did think this before because the small claims is thought as the no cost court, however if a solicitor can claim £80 while at small claims, a individual can then claim 2/3 of £80 which is about £52.80 .
I only found about about it in February so have added it to my latest claim.

Not correct. Solicitors can claim fixed fees pursuant to Part 45 Civil Procedure Rules. Part 45 does not apply to litigants in person.

Please make sure you have the facts before posting stuff.

Equaliser123

alistair.long wrote: »

Part 36- part 36 offers donot apply to small claims, try a "calderbank offer". make a offer to the other side in normal letter format.

Part 36 does not apply to Small claims - but as there is a threat to transfer, it is appropriate.

Oh, and Calderbank offers have really been superseded by P.36.