APPLICATION TO EXTEND TIME FOR SERVICE OF THE CLAIM FORM REFUSED: CLAIMANT’S CASE AGAINST THIS DEFENDANT GOES UP IN SMOKE…

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1. 

   Steven Brooks · August 1, 2018 at 16:01:19 · →

   Steven Brooks, Manager at Your Lawyers

   The judgment is in my view, and in the view of junior counsel, deeply unfair. It contains several inaccuracies and erroneous conclusions. As an example:

   • The judgment incorrectly asserts that the claimants had confirmed that they had no cause of action against VW UK. The claimants had in fact never asserted that there was “no cause of action” against VW UK.
   • The judgment incorrectly states that an allegation of fraud and dishonesty was maintained against the defendant.
   • The judgement erroneously criticises the claimants for failing to engage with the defendants and (as has been presumed in the judgment) with the other claimant solicitors in the group litigation. Such criticism bypasses the lengthy correspondence between Your Lawyers and Freshfields. The judgment also omits reference to the claimants’ evidence that dialogue had actually commenced with the other members of the steering committee.
   • In criticising the rejection of the defendant’s offer of a 7 day extension of time for service, the judgment disregards and fails to acknowledge that the extension on offer only related to service of the Claim Form and excluded any extension for service of the Particulars of Claim. The offered extension was therefore meaningless, as it would in any event require the claimants to make an application for relief.
   • In criticising the claimants’ desire to collaborate with the defendant on the issue prior to service, the judgment completely disregards the fact that it was the defendant who first suggested that dialogue was necessary.
   • The judgment is critical as to the time on which the second witness statement in support of the claimants’ application was served. That criticism does not acknowledge that the statement was prepared in response to the defendant’s witness statement which was received by email at 01:19am on the Saturday morning (hence deemed served on the following Monday). The defendants served their witness statement very late, having been in receipt of the claimant’s application for 3 weeks, and afforded the claimants one working day in which to respond. Against that background, the second statement in support of the claimants’ application was prepared and emailed in response on the Monday, at around 6pm (i.e. the day that the defendant’s statement was deemed served). Despite this chronology of events, the judgment criticises the claimants for taking a full day to draft a witness statement in response.

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