Small Claims Court

ducatidaz

I am considering taking a company to the small claims court.
If I represent myself do I have the right to request information from them prior to lodging the claim and if so are they obligated to provide this.
The reason I ask is that the company's insurers say they will submit information to my insurance company or my legal representative, but not to me even though I would represent myself.

Thanks
Darren

InsideInsurance

What is the information?

Why do the insurers say they wont give it to you?

The Small Track of the county court is much less formal and procedural in comparison to the higher tracks and so certain things dont work in the same way. Really best case would only be if you lose to get the other side to still carry the cost of the court action because of their failure to disclose/ take reasonable steps to resolve before going to court but that would be at the judges discretion and he'd obviously have to agree that it was both unreasonable to not disclose and that it was key to the case.

ducatidaz

This appears to be their reasoning:-

"I note that you are representing yourself. Unfortunately I am unable to disclose the confidential documents to which you refer due to The Data Protection Act 1998. All the relevant documentation in support of our defence has been forwarded to your insurers. Should you seek legal representation then we will of course be happy to disclose the documents to them as well."

I had spoken to my insurers to discuss a way forward, but had not instructed any contact between the two. It appears they will provide information to my legal representative, but not if I am my own legal representative!

InsideInsurance

And what is the information?

ducatidaz

I have asked them for several lots of information, one of them being their own incident investigation.
Basically their lorry's tyre completely delaminated and exploded as I was passing it on the motorway, damaging my front bumper and bursting my air con condensor.
There investigation reveals no liability:-
"An independent engineer has inspected the damage tyre and he has indicated that the probable cause is that the tyre suffered a penetration/puncture leading to a loss of air pressure within the tyre. This will have caused it to run hot and subsequently disintegrate.

Our client has met with their legal liability in that the trailer and the tyres were inspected at regular intervals. The last check being undertaken 3 days prior to the accident."

However, the driver of the vehicle wrote down his details on one of their own route manifests which states that it had a vehicle inspection the morning of the incident.

Myself and my son were the only witnesses and clearly saw the tyre delaminate and explode, to me unlikely to be a puncture!

InsideInsurance

Data Protection Act only covers personal information of living natural people (companies are considered legal entities and "natural" is meant to distinguish them out of the protection). Obviously what is "personal information" is arguable and potentially who your employer is may be such.

If you are asking for a copy of the engineers report then tell them to simply obscure the name of their employees/ their addresses if they are named in the report thus removing the personal data and avoiding the DPA issue.

You can also remind them that you have no legal obligation to use representatives however they do have a legal obligation to take reasonable steps to attempt to settle a claim outside of the courts.

ducatidaz

Many thanks for that, I have sent them a reply containing your very helpful information.

runningben16

Don't confuse the two types of inspection you are referring to.

A Tyre Inspection will be carried out by a qualified tyre fitter, every few days or weeks, checking the condition and wear of the tyre in detail. At the haulage company I work for, a tyre fitter comes round every Saturday and inspects every truck that's in the yard, then comes back midweek to inspect any that he missed.

The driver has to carry out daily checks on the vehicle, but it is recognised in law that the driver isn't a tyre engineer, and so he will just be expected to check tread depth and inflation (visually, ie is the tyre flat or ok). Bear in mind he could be carrying out the check in the dark, by torchlight. These checks also include things like fluid levels, lights, load security etc. It's certainly not a technical tyre check.

There's certainly no discrepancy between the company saying a tyre check was carried out three days ago, and the driver's paperwork showing a check carried out that morning. Different checks.