How can we amend a small claims judgement

gittel

Background in brief:
We've just been taken to court and although we had a very good case which we should have won, the court messed up big style so we've ended up having to pay out against a vexatious and frivolous claim without any legal entitlement.

Basic facts: the claimant and our then sub-contractor - dissolved their limited company without telling us. We had paid invoices one of which our bank paid two days after the sub-cotractor dissolved their company and the second about 6 weeks after it was dissolved. The contract was invalid because the sub-contractor signed it two months after dissolving their company.

Offer to terminate their contract £640 - only entitled to £425 - he settled at £320, i.e. a day's work that's the cost of his attending the hearing. They rejected our offer and demanded more which we refused because we'd paid them more than their contractual entitlement.

Cutting a long story short the sub-contractor issued a summons on an unauthorised offer of £740 made by our organisation's Treasurer because she'd had enough of his whinging.

We all turned up on the due date. The court was unable to hear our case because the previous case had over run. The court usher offered a hearing at 3pm which the other side rejected and left us with the option of coming back at another time which he also rejected.

The usher found another judge who could only give us 30 minutes who said he needed at least 3 hours to hear the case including time to read our papers. He said the Court was not expecting any witnesses which is not true because:

• I confirm witnesses in my defence and counter-claim
• I made an adjournment application because the Court had set the original hearing date on a day when one of my witnesses was unavailable
• I made a second adjournment application because my other witness had just lost his mother and was also her Executor

We had also only just received the other side's evidence which was to his usual substandard work. The Judge asked whether the claimant was happy with but failed to ask whether we were happy with those documents.

The judge suggested we go off for a conciliation and let him know the outcome which we did but the order does not reflect that there was a conciliation and the judge had not heard our case.

QUESTION: Can we ask the court to vary or amend the order to reflect that there was a conciliation, that our case was not heard etc.

hollydays

What is your role in the organisation?

gittel

I'm the founder and Project Manager. My role in this dispute is that of defendant and counter-claimant. I want to write to the Court and ask them to amend the Order to reflect the sequence of events at the hearing.

Other options would be to appeal or apply for a judicial review. Would rather avoid those because of all the work involved.

arcon5

Doesn't seem straight cut to me..

an official within your company made an offer of settlement which was accepted and went unpaid. Not sure that makes it any less valid - disciplinary for employee?

dissolved company - it may be deemed him trading as a sole trader with a T/A name.

agrinnall

As this appears to be a business issue I'd suggest that the business pays a solicitor for advice, and possibly action if it's not feasible for you to do it yourself.

Bantex_2

Sounds like a lot of bother over a couple of hundred quid.

gittel

actually it's nearer £900 and possibly more that we've had to write off because of the court's mishandling of our case on the day of the hearing. we are unhappy about that and we just want it presented correctly in the order.

so all we want to know is can we do this and if so what is the correct procedure: a) complaint to the court, b) application to amend the order to reflect what happened at the hearing, c) judicial review for the court's mishandling.

gittel

arcon5 wrote: »

Doesn't seem straight cut to me..

an official within your company made an offer of settlement which was accepted and went unpaid. Not sure that makes it any less valid - disciplinary for employee?

dissolved company - it may be deemed him trading as a sole trader with a T/A name.

actually the contract's invalid because he signed it off two months after dissolving his company and apparently due to an "oversight" just forgot to tell us while we were drafting his contract that his company had ceased to exist.

gittel

anyhow all I want to know is whether we can make a complaint about the court's mishandling of our case and the simplest way of doing so. thanks

wealdroam

gittel wrote: »

anyhow all I want to know is whether we can make a complaint about the court's mishandling of our case and the simplest way of doing so. thanks

Surely the simplest thing is to ask the court how you go about that?

gittel

arcon5 wrote: »

Doesn't seem straight cut to me..

an official within your company made an offer of settlement which was accepted and went unpaid. Not sure that makes it any less valid - disciplinary for employee?
.

we're a voluntary organisation not a company and the colleague has been called to account for acting out of turn.