Witness statement signed by paralegal

ScammingIndustry

Good evening to you all,

I have submitted a witness statement for an upcoming court date.

I have received a witness statement from the claimant however it is signed by a paralegal.

I was under the impression it must be made by the claimant who has the first hand knowledge and facts, not by a third party. Is that correct?

Can I request this to be struck out during the hearing. If so, how would I go about doing it?


Thanks

Coupon-mad

You can just ask, and also point out that the do called witness is not even here, so everything in the C's WS is just hearsay.

Perhaps unlikely to work - but it might do, especially if the Hearing Order specifically stated that the WS must be from 'the parties'.

Alderbank

ScammingIndustry said:

Good evening to you all,

I have submitted a witness statement for an upcoming court date.

I have received a witness statement from the claimant however it is signed by a paralegal.

I was under the impression it must be made by the claimant who has the first hand knowledge and facts, not by a third party. Is that correct?

Can I request this to be struck out during the hearing. If so, how would I go about doing it?


Thanks

No, that's not correct.

The Ministry of Justice in PRACTICE DIRECTION 22 – STATEMENTS OF TRUTH says:

Who may sign the statement of truth?

3.7 Where a legal representative has signed a statement of truth, their signature will be taken by the court as their statement that the client on whose behalf they have signed had authorised them to do so.

3.9 A legal representative who signs a statement of truth must sign in their own name and not that of their firm or employer.

The MoJ lists lots of people who can sign on behalf of others. Who told you they can't?

Coupon-mad

We did - because in practice, it is important when it comes to hearsay WS from a third party who can't be bothered to turn up. Many Judges don't like that and place little weight on such WS.

It's not that a paralegal can't.  It's that a Judge won't be impressed, particularly when nobody from the Claimant firm attends either.

ScammingIndustry

Thank you for your guidance.

It clearly states that the witness on the WS is the paralegal who happens to be from the solicitor rather than claimant. How can the paralegal have direct knowledge? Statement of truth is also signed by the paralegal.

So I am sure this would be frowned upon during the hearing.

DullGreyGuy

ScammingIndustry said:

It clearly states that the witness on the WS is the paralegal who happens to be from the solicitor rather than claimant. How can the paralegal have direct knowledge? Statement of truth is also signed by the paralegal.

A former boss wouldn't know how to use a keyboard let alone have the patience to type out a long document so just dictated things. Normally would go to his PA who'd more or less type it out verbatim. In the matter of the two court cases his dictated witness statement was sent off to the law firm who transcribed it and signed it instead rather than having to courier around bits of paper. 

Similarly but not identically, when dealing with another aspect of the same matter I'd look at the correspondence, create sum bullets on the salient points of the response, the law firm would would convert it into a full letter and it'd be sent with the signature of the COO who'd never seen it. The law firm hung on to copies for the court and the independent expert 

Given where we are, for completeness my boss did turn up in court. 

Car1980

Things are looser on the small claims track, but you have the advantage of making a retort to a lot of the evidence of "how would Ms Smith know? She is just the paralegal and has never set foot inside the car park."

ScammingIndustry

So I've had the chance to read the whole WS from the C. Parking sign says "Authorised parking only". Funny enough, I was authorised to park in the car park by the business I was visiting. I even used their own parking bay. Moreover, I contacted the business who couldn't do much to remove the pcn as certain time period was exceeded in order for them to do something. I had to resort to appealing however their appeals website does not work at all. I am sure I have a pretty strong case with all the evidence. what do you reckon?

Coupon-mad

Yep.     

Johnersh

The problem is that CPR 27 (small claims) disapplies CPR 32 (evidence) so there is much less clarity.

But, it is correct to say that the judge must have intended the statement to provide factual evidence regarding the day. Permitted or otherwise, what you have is a legal representative who has been instructed to make assertions in support of the case - more legal argument than it is fact and addressing issues that can only be contained within instructions rather than known to them.

Lawyers normally prepare statements in relation to the carriage of a claim (eg when the claim form was served or regarding an application). That is because of their direct involvement in those steps. The lawyer here will likely never have visited the site, seen any signs etc. 

If the judge can be persuaded, you might like to consider this line of authority:

https://www.civillitigationbrief.com/2015/09/08/the-witness-who-knows-nothing-and-wants-to-be-an-expert-a-review-of-the-cases/ 

Again, do note that CPR 32 did apply to the above cases, which were not small claims 

Johnersh

She is just the paralegal and has never set foot inside the car park."

That's unattractive, since it sounds pejorative. Better might be to unpack the statement where it says "facts within my own knowledge unless otherwise stated" and to ask whether the statement actually achieves that (since there would need to be a lot of caveats).

If there are not the caveats, the court may be invited to disregard it or to treat it with a degree of caution.