Defendant filed a counter-claim, But no order was made by the court that I had to file a defence.

steampowered

I only skim read the last few pages, but isn't this simply a breach of contract case?

You had a contract which provided for the Defendant to do x, y and z in exchange for £x. The Defendant didn't do x, y and z so is in breach of contract.

I don't really see what the Consumer Rights Act would add to the claim case, so feels like a complete red herring.

October868

Hello 2 quick questions for you guys please (as you are far more knowledgeable about legal stuff compared to me)-

1. Is there a deadline by when I have to pay the N244 fee?
As I'm sending the postal version of the form to the court today, but am going to put an offer to the defendant of settling the claim/counterclaim for £0 (they will hopefully give their answer next week), and so didn't want to pay the N244 £255 fee today, only to then have the whole claim closed next week.
But wasn't sure if there's a deadline by when I need to pay the fee?
(The hearing itself is scheduled for November).


2. If a default-judgment is made, does the sum of money then awarded automatically have to match the sum requested in the claim?
I have requested the default-judgment to be set-aside & my defence to be heard, on the basis that I feel I have a strong prospect of successfully defending the claim since the core basis of the claim has no grounds in law (since she is claiming that ''If I had placed dozens of future orders like I said I was interested in doing she would've then made £xxx amount of money, thus that is what her claim sum is'', and because the evidence which she has provided is simply irrelevant and nothing to do with the particulars of the claim itself (she's literally just scrolled through my twitter for the past 1year, so the time-period AFTER myself & her finished working together, and has taken screenshots of any/every negative comment made about me by any random person on twitter | thus created a collage of screenshots making me look like a bad person, even though none of those comments were of any relevance to this actual claim itself).

However if my request to have the judgement set-aside is rejected, and so the default-judgment still stands, would whatever huge sum of money she has claimed for automatically be awarded as default?
Or could the judge in that situation still simply award her £0 on the judgment due to her claim being baseless?

waamo

You need to file the set aside application in a timely fashion. You aren't supposed to ditther about. Given she has a judgement against you there is no point in delaying. Only the court can overturn the judgement so whatever offer you make the judgement needs dealing with.

A judge is highly unlikely to vary an undefended counterclaim.

October868

waamo wrote: »

You need to file the set aside application in a timely fashion. You aren't supposed to ditther about. Given she has a judgement against you there is no point in delaying. Only the court can overturn the judgement so whatever offer you make the judgement needs dealing with.

A judge is highly unlikely to vary an undefended counterclaim.

Hello and thankyou.

So even if we mutually agree to withdraw the claims, thus no need for the scheduled hearing to go ahead, I would still need to file and pay for a n244?

As currently the letter says that judgement will be made at the hearing, and the costs will be assessed on that day too.
But so if we both agree to withdraw claims, wouldn't there simply be no hearing, thus no judgment?

steampowered

You should either go ahead and file the N244 now, or take a punt on it being set aside at the hearing if you don't want to pay the hefty fee.

What is the huge amount of money claimed in the counterclaim?

October868

Hello I'm not sure on the exact sum of money she's claiming (I believe it's between £5,000 - £7,000 though).
Although the way she has calculated that sum is quite literally just selected a random number of videos which she claims I hypothetically may of chosen to order from her in the future months/years (I believe she's stated 50 videos), stated the sum of money which she would've charged me per each of those hypothetical videos, multipled the 2 figures together, and then added onto that sum various other costs which she would've charged (such as what her petrol cost to the studio would've been for each shoot-day... ect).
Plus she's also stated what she believes she would've earned from a certain company during a 2-month period (whom she often worked for as a self-employed contractor) if they had chosen to offer her work during that 2-month period (a company which has nothing to do with me/and a 2-month period which was many months after she ceased doing business with me), and then added that sum of money onto the total too.

#

In regards to my N244 form I have already sent the court (via email) a completed copy of my N244, along with a letter, and with previously submitted my witness-statement (which included my defence to her counterclaim), so they will of recieved all of that the day after I recieved the letter from them making me aware of all this.
I have also now posted those 3 documents to the court, and so in terms of 'promptness' the file should show that I provided my N244 & documents within 2 days of being made aware.

But as the defendant won't be back from holiday until the weekend, to consider my pre-hearing settlement offer of a mutula withdrawal of claims, I am planning on waiting until early next week for her answer.
If she declines my offer, well I will then simply post the court a cheque the following day to pay the fee for my N244.
(Although the hearing itself is still 2-months away).


If she does agree to my offer of mutually withdrawing claims though, what documents do I need to send to the court to get the entire case closed please?

waamo

The court will usually accept emails from both parties saying you wish to drop it. Strictly speaking you should both file a Notice of Discontinuance but courts don't seem to mind.

If you've filed an N244 have you paid the fee? If not do so, they wont consider it without the fee.

October868

waamo wrote: »

The court will usually accept emails from both parties saying you wish to drop it. Strictly speaking you should both file a Notice of Discontinuance but courts don't seem to mind.

If you've filed an N244 have you paid the fee? If not do so, they wont consider it without the fee.

Thankyou.

But no I haven't paid the fee yet.
Have filed the N244 (so it's on their record atleast that I have responded promptly), but would pay the fee next week (if the defendant rejects my pre-trial settlement).

*As the hearing itself isn't until November though, well my request won't actually be considered until then anyways I'm guessing.

da_rule

October868 wrote: »

Thankyou.

But no I haven't paid the fee yet.
Have filed the N244 (so it's on their record atleast that I have responded promptly), but would pay the fee next week (if the defendant rejects my pre-trial settlement).

*As the hearing itself isn't until November though, well my request won't actually be considered until then anyways I'm guessing.

You haven’t filed the application until the fee has been paid, so therefore you haven’t acted promptly.

Also, whilst you can discontinue your claim, she can no longer discontinue hers as judgment has been entered. Therefore, she would need to agree to set aside the default judgment and then discontinue her claim. There would be a fee (£100) payable to the court to lodge the consent order required to do this.

It doesn’t matter when the hearing is, it is the time of the application being made that the rules cover.