Problem with a customer, need advice please

Nicole85

Hi all

Thanks in advance for taking time to read this thread.

I have been running a beauty salon salon for a few years and around 6 months ago I had a customer who's taking me to small claims court. She claims that the eyebrow tinting treatment that she had in my salon caused her to partially lose her eyebrow hair. She's suing me for £1200, in the initial letter that I received she had claimed the amount is for eyebrow hair loss and psychological and emotional damage to her. She says that she has had to use make up to cover the hair loss and was unable to wash her face as many times as she'd usually do, as such she felt unclean and less womanly, and it lowered her self esteem, and affected her in social gatherings

Our court date is in 2 months time, in her final letter she has changed her word, and now she's not claiming anything for emotions anymore, she says that she's claiming £750 for loss of income for attending the court on the day(she claims to be a surgeon), the rest for beauty treatments that she has had in other salons to make for the hair loss and travel fares, and make up costs.The eyebrow ting treatment she had could not have caused any hair loss, I'm totally confused by her claims.

Does this sound normal to you guys? Can she change her claim like that? I've never been in this situation, how do I go about to defending myself in court, she sounds like she has done this a few times before.

bris

Just defend it stating nothing you did could possibly have caused her problems. She will need evidence to say it did. Without evidence she has nothing.


Put your defence to the court and don't communicate with her in any way until the case.


It's possible she has done this before and people will pay up rather than go to court, it's easy to threaten for a quick payout.

Ganga

Also keep both communications to show the court (if it does go there ) to show how she has changed her accusations,good luck.

m0bov

Don't you have insurance in place to deal with this?

Nicole85

m0bov wrote: »

Don't you have insurance in place to deal with this?

It doesn't include legal protection I'm afraid...

m0bov

But can't they claim against your insurance?

TonyMMM

Running a salon, but you have no Professional Indemnity insurance ???


Sounds like she has been advised that she won't get anything for her emotional distress and so has amended the claim to reflect more quantifiable losses.

BorisThomson

bris wrote: »

Just defend it stating nothing you did could possibly have caused her problems. She will need evidence to say it did. Without evidence she has nothing.


Put your defence to the court and don't communicate with her in any way until the case.


It's possible she has done this before and people will pay up rather than go to court, it's easy to threaten for a quick payout.

Evidence here would be relatively simple. She went in with eye brows, she left without them/ lost them within a short time of the treatment (and presumably has photos to prove it). In a small claims court, there's no expectation of expert medical opinion, they'll simply look at the facts of the case and whether the treatment did - on the balance of probabilities - cause the loss.

What insurance do you have in place OP?

Nicole85

TonyMMM wrote: »

Sounds like she has been advised that she won't get anything for her emotional distress and so has amended the claim to reflect more quantifiable losses.

The initial court papers only mention hair and emotion damages, can she change her initial claim and attribute more than half her claim to income loss?

Fosterdog

BorisThomson wrote: »

Evidence here would be relatively simple. She went in with eye brows, she left without them/ lost them within a short time of the treatment (and presumably has photos to prove it). In a small claims court, there's no expectation of expert medical opinion, they'll simply look at the facts of the case and whether the treatment did - on the balance of probabilities - cause the loss.

What insurance do you have in place OP?

But if OP can prove that the treatment given could not possibly cause hair loss then the balance of probability would favour her over her customer.

Is it possible she had an allergic reaction of some sort to the treatment? With tinting do you carry out an allergy test prior to the tint, like hair salons do before dyeing? Did she contact you at the time and give you the opportunity to rectify the problem? (Although in the case of hair loss it would be difficult but possibly you doing or covering the cost of semi permanent brows until hers grew back) have her eyebrows since grown back?

BorisThomson

Fosterdog wrote: »

But if OP can prove that the treatment given could not possibly cause hair loss then the balance of probability would favour her over her customer.

Is it possible she had an allergic reaction of some sort to the treatment? With tinting do you carry out an allergy test prior to the tint, like hair salons do before dyeing? Did she contact you at the time and give you the opportunity to rectify the problem? (Although in the case of hair loss it would be difficult but possibly you doing or covering the cost of semi permanent brows until hers grew back) have her eyebrows since grown back?

Indeed. I was responding to the earlier suggestion that OP could simply state "nothing you did could possibly have caused her problems". She needs to do far more than that.

I'd be interested in what the treatment is, OP?