TROUBLES WITH THE COURT: REFUSING TO ISSUE AND STRIKING OUT BECAUSE OF ALLEGED LIMITATION ISSUES: MORE EXAMPLES AND CASE LAW THAT MAY HELP

4 Responses

1. 

   legalorange · February 24, 2014 at 21:37:36 · →

   Your comments on writing to the Court is familiar to a previous claim had where a defendant wrote to the Court stating that it should be treated under the Domestic Subsidence Agreement as a neighbour vs neighbour case, stating the Court should stay the claim to be referred to the ABI disputes committee. Staggeringly, the Court made an Order on the back of this letter without a formal application. It was another example of the bad decisions that come out of London County Courts.

   As for the court staff, it comes as no surprise and my recent post on their comments about the time when claim forms were received (“received” vs. “issued”) shows this is not an isolated incident.

2. 

   robertpettitt · February 25, 2014 at 12:30:44 · →

   We have recently started to get letters from the court refusing to issue Part 8 proceedings for court approval of infant settlements. The courts have said that the CPR has not changed but they have received an internal letter (which no one is allowed to see), which directly them to refuse Part 8 proceedings in such circumstances and request that a Part 7 claim is made and the fee for such proceedings is in line with the quantum of the settlement.

3. 

   Dominic Cooper · February 26, 2014 at 16:58:19 · →

   It surprises me that any of this is a surprise! I have seen numerous examples of this sort of thing over the years. A common one I get relates to issuing out of the District Registry of the High Court at a County Court. It is quite usual for the court staff to refuse to issue and say you need to use Salford instead. When you persuade them that they can issue and that you need to, they invariably still issue it using a County Court seal and claim number (I tend to have to do this in cases involving the equity jurisdiction of the county court which does not exceed £30,000; or in cases relating to solicitor and own client costs where the limit is only £5,000 and then only contentious business).

   I have had urgent applications without notice sent back because the court staff consider it should be on notice and a higher fee is payable.

   I have had them refuse to expedite urgent applications because I have not included a “certificate of urgency” signed by a “partner” even though I have signed the covering letter explaining the urgency in font size 16 bold underlined letters.

   The best one ever was Worcester County Court purporting to make a costs order against the firm personally in favour of a litigant in person applicant on an application to set aside a statutory demand which our client didn’t attend (and of which no notice was given). Admittedly this was a DJ, rather than court staff, so it doesn’t fall in to quite the same category.

   In the latter case I toyed with an application for re-hearing, or an appeal. IN the end I sent a pre-action protocol letter for judicial review of the County Court. No doubt there is some case law that this is not the correct thing to do, but I did it and it worked, and got an apology from the court manager saying there was a “mix up”.

   I now make formal complaints to the Ministry of Justice about County Courts so often I have a template letter for it!

   In all the examples in your blog, they are not judicial decisions, but administrative failings so I would probably do what I did against Worcester and write a Pre-Action Protocol letter for Judicial Review of HMCTS / MOJ for failing to do what they are obliged to do. Copy it to the MOJ 102 Petty France, London and the Treasury Solicitors Office. Unlike most dealings with the court, this does tend to get a prompt response.

   1. 

      gexall · February 27, 2014 at 00:31:01 · →

      Thanks Dominic. Are you willing to share your standard letter to the Court. I would like to do a post on this specific point. All your work will be fully credited etc

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