Company damaged my doors, assaulted my boyfriend, are taking me to County Court, fabricated costs.

NakedGene

Hi! I'm a newbie so please be gentle. During the Summer, I contracted a door stripping company, found online, to strip my internal Victorian doors. I'll leave the ins and outs of general poor service and delays for later, but the long and short of the story is that the doors were returned (late), with damage to the sides and edges from callous handling (observed - doors were thrown into van with many others, none secured, dragged and dumped on the pavement etc.)
I explained to the delivery driver that I would like to discuss payment with the boss because of the damage, at which point he became aggressive and started reloading (throwing) my doors to his van. We could not break the impasse, it was frightening, I had to call the police (he was trying to headbutt my boyfriend.) Finally the driver put his boss on the phone who flat refused to believe what I was saying, told me "fluffiness of the wood was to be expected" (there are chunks and splits) and defended the driver's behaviour. She has since said that we attacked the driver and were xenophobic. I can assure you all that this wasn't the case, the reason (that we gave to the police at the time) that we didn't want to press charges was that we felt sorry for the guy who was clearly in a very bad employment position if he was fighting like his life depended on it to take my doors back away (saying that he wouldn't get paid if he didn't successfully extract payment from us there and then).
Anyway, the police advised us to take the doors inside and that the payment issue was a civil matter. I heard nothing from the company at all until a couple weeks later when I received an invoice closely followed by a final notice letter before court action and an insulting email from the company director. 

I sent an in depth email response containing my point of view and case - including that I'd spoken to a carpenter about repair and the quotation was for more (£320) than the £200 owed and I'd like to come to a reasonable settlement. No response to this but notice from hmcts that a small claim had been logged against me. Mediation today was disheartening and unsuccessful - I now fear I have scuppered myself on a technicality- I did not pay and counterclaim (I didn't realise I should have done it this way round.) 
To add insult to literal injury, the compnay director is claiming for costs of a broken fireplace she says was in the van and that I smashed it. I stood, gingerly, at the end of the van (I couldn't have done any different, it was full of unsecured doors and chairs) to prevent the driver leaving with my doors and there was no fireplace in it. We have photographs of the interior of the van to show this, she said to the mediator the fireplace was under chairs so out of shot. 

I just can't believe this company can behave this way. They have terrible numerous reviews that I've found since (and screenshotted) complaining of aggressive and rude driver, arrogant service and damaged property.
What I'm asking is if I'm likely to lose this case because I didn't log a counterclaim, or if there's anything else I can do to help myself?

I've never not paid for anything in my life, I had the demanded £200 in cash in my hand, I just didn't think it was fair to pay to have my property so mistreated at the time. I even offered to pay £100 (half the original service fee today) to make this go away because it's all been so stressful but she said the least she'd take is £250 - the extra £50 to cover the claim cost. Perhaps I should have done that because I'm terrified the full costs after costs are going to be much greater afterwards and I genuinely can't afford it but I can't bear being bullied like that. Any advice very greatly appreciated. 

JJ_Egan

Can you post with just the basics please .

Far to much stuff that's not really relevant .

tacpot12

You are not likely to lose just because you did not counterclaim. What did the mediator say? 

Do you have home insurance, and if so, do you have legal expenses cover. If so, discuss this issue with the legal helpline provided by your insurer. They may even represent you in court. 

Alderbank

JJ_Egan said:

Can you post with just the basics please .

Far to much stuff that's not really relevant .

OP says more to come. Get the popcorn out!

Jenni_D

Mediation is (almost) always designed to try and get the defendant to agree to the claimant's claim (or most of it), and it is quite usual for the mediator to suggest that the defendant's defence is likely to fail. In reality a real judge reviews things (usually) with a proper understanding of law, and defendants have a much better opportunity at that stage.

We see this a lot in the Parking board, where mediation/directions hearings tend to be very negative experiences for defendants, but the real hearings tend to result in a win for the defendants.

Sandtree

Jenni_D said:

Mediation is (almost) always designed to try and get the defendant to agree to the claimant's claim (or most of it), and it is quite usual for the mediator to suggest that the defendant's defence is likely to fail. In reality a real judge reviews things (usually) with a proper understanding of law, and defendants have a much better opportunity at that stage.

We see this a lot in the Parking board, where mediation/directions hearings tend to be very negative experiences for defendants, but the real hearings tend to result in a win for the defendants.

Court ordered mediation is not the same as some of the action "mediators" that have a vested interest in the claimant. Many are heard by judges just in the less formal environment than the court. As this case has been litigated lets focus on the mediation the County Court system promotes. They do not necessarily come out with the same outcome as would be achieved in court but I would certainly disagree that they are aimed at getting the defendant to cave in and pay most the claim.

I would certainly say there is more commonly a compromise agreement where neither side get exactly what they wanted but thats part of the idea of mediation plus both sides are free to reject the mediators resolution and have the day in court. If the process has been appropriately engaged with then there is no consequences of this (other than the risk of ending up with a worse judgement)

Jenni_D

I can only speak anecdotally from what we regularly see in the Parking board ... mediation/directions hearings tend to be heard by relatively-new judges, and the vast majority of these judges assess the defendant cases as being weak - yet forum-assisted defences win in the vast majority* of final hearings (based on the exact same defences supplied for the mediation/directions hearing).

* Forum belief is 99% win rate although I'm not sure there are any figures to validate that belief.

Sandtree

Jenni_D said:

mediation/directions hearings tend to be heard by relatively-new judges

Just for the sake of context, a "relatively new judge" will have had to have had a minimum 7 years experience after passing their bar examinations (most have more) and are on a salary of £161,332 (exc any London weighting etc). Whilst they may be new to being a judge we aren't talking a 21 year old who's just out of law school. For circuit judges the requirements and pay are slightly less but they dont sit in the county court where both motoring cases and this case would be heard.

NakedGene

So when I explained the situation, the mediator asked why I hadn't entered a counter claim if I had wished to express that that's why I didn't pay the company. I thought my owing had been "cancelled out" by the damage and so I'd chosen the "dispute all claim" option. The mediator said that wasn't the right thing to have done. 

NakedGene

tacpot12 said:

You are not likely to lose just because you did not counterclaim. What did the mediator say? 

Do you have home insurance, and if so, do you have legal expenses cover. If so, discuss this issue with the legal helpline provided by your insurer. They may even represent you in court. 

Thank you for this, I think I am insured under my policy, and they have a legal helpline too. 

tacpot12

Your defence for not paying the company seemed to be that they damaged your doors. Really this should have been done as a counter-claim; you pay for the work they did do, then claim back from them the cost to repair the damage. You should have taken legal advice before sending back any court form. However, they did damage your doors, so you would expect not to have to pay them the full price, but whether you win or not will depend on how lenient the judge is. Relying on the judge's leniency is never a great strategy. 

If you don't have home insurance with Legal Expenses cover, ask the court if you can submit a counter-claim now. If you have home insurace with legal expenses cover, talk to the legal helpline about making a counterclaim now.