Someone trying to sue me for extortionate amounts

Dekota

Right so I was responsible for cancelling someone's holiday tickets without their consent and they took me to court and I've always favoured an out of court settlement but claimant has never approached me prior to court.

The cost of the tickets would be around £800, he is claiming £4,600. Half of what he's claiming for is for stress caused. Will his case succeed? Will the judge order me to pay him that amount?! It's highly unreasonable of him to claim that amount, I've been advised by the travel agency that he's lost £596 in tickets...

thanks

paulmapp8306

Why did you cancel them?

And yes- he's quite within his rights to sue for stress over the situation. He could also sue for his time taken to put the case against you, any costs including phone calls taking advice etc. Will it succeed? quite possibly, and if it does you will probably be liable for the whole costs claimed.

Personally Im surprised your getting away with so little - on the face of it, though i dont know the whole story obviously.

Tixy

Its difficult for anyone to advise as to whether his case is likely to be successful without knowing the full details of everything thats happened - which is obviously more complicated that what you have put in your post.

Presumably this not actually been heard in court yet? When you received the court papers what did you put? did you deny the whole debt? or admit part of the debt but dispute the amount or what?
Did you formally request that the hearing is at your local court so you can attend and defend against the claim or against the amount claimed?

Its possible that he can claim for more than his actual financial loss - but it will depend on the situation, the reason you cancelled them, whether it was accidental or vexatious etc.

Dekota

paulmapp8306 wrote: »

Why did you cancel them?

And yes- he's quite within his rights to sue for stress over the situation. He could also sue for his time taken to put the case against you, any costs including phone calls taking advice etc. Will it succeed? quite possibly, and if it does you will probably be liable for the whole costs claimed.

Personally Im surprised your getting away with so little - on the face of it, though i dont know the whole story obviously.

The reason is because he owes me £4,500 which I lent to him as a friend and at the time, all the paperwork was done through solicitors etc. When I approached him for my money, he gave me a cheque that bounced.. so I sent him a letter before court action and thats when he booked his holiday tickets...

vax2002

If he gave you a cheque that bounced, counter claim £4500 for a dishonoured cheque and defend the other as a vexatious claim.
That will soon see the claim dropped.

Dekota

Tixy wrote: »

Its difficult for anyone to advise as to whether his case is likely to be successful without knowing the full details of everything thats happened - which is obviously more complicated that what you have put in your post.

Presumably this not actually been heard in court yet? When you received the court papers what did you put? did you deny the whole debt? or admit part of the debt but dispute the amount or what?
Did you formally request that the hearing is at your local court so you can attend and defend against the claim or against the amount claimed?

Its possible that he can claim for more than his actual financial loss - but it will depend on the situation, the reason you cancelled them, whether it was accidental or vexatious etc.

Thanks for your response,

I had my case running against him for the money he owed me and in the response pack, I made it clear that he owed me money but now my case has been dismissed because he claimed that he'd paid me which isn't true.

Sadly, the case was heard and I did admit to cancelling the tickets but in his intial claim, he claimed £2,400 (which is still way too much) and now the hearing was adjourned because he didn't provide satisfactory evidence for the amount he was claiming. Now he has uped his claim to an extortionate £4,600 and is claiming alot more for stress caused and I'm at a loss for how to argue about it in the next hearing.

Dekota

vax2002 wrote: »

If he gave you a cheque that bounced, counter claim £4500 for a dishonoured cheque and defend the other as a vexatious claim.
That will soon see the claim dropped.

Thanks for that!

Problem is that the hearing is next week and isn't it late for a counterclaim? He submitted his claim last year in June so say if I do counterclaim, what forms do I have to fill and how do I go about it in a short space of time?

vax2002

If he has given you a bounced cheque you have a cast iron case to claim the £4500 cheque, put in a claim for the value of the cheque

mynameistallulah

vax2002 wrote: »

If he gave you a cheque that bounced, counter claim £4500 for a dishonoured cheque and defend the other as a vexatious claim.
That will soon see the claim dropped.

Ignore this, vax2002 has no idea what he is talking about.

The claimant cannot be classed as a vexatious litigant if he has a legitimate claim, even if the amount he is claiming is excessive (and it is impossible to judge that on the information given). Indeed, it is very rare that anyone is deemed a vexatious litigant, even those that repeatedly submit spurious claims.

OP, have you submitted a defence?

Tixy

Presumanly you can demonstrate that the cheque bounced - just with a copy of your bank statement? If he cannot prove he paid you again since that date (ie a receipt from you or a copy of a payment into your bank account) then the court should not assume it is paid. You say the case was dismissed - what evidence did he produce to prove that he had paid you?

Back to his claim - you cancelling his holiday would seem to be vexatious. He may well have incurred further cost than just the cost of the lost holiday payment (eg possibly he booked time off work or arranged temp cover for his business etc that he would still need to honour and so his costs could be substantial) .

MentalMinnie

I'm confused...what right did you have to cancel his travel tickets?! Are you his travel agent or something??