Should I Sue?
What should I consider before suing someone?
Well, the first thing to do before suing someone is to ask yourself, really, is it worthwhile suing somebody. Because I think a lot of people forget that it can be really stressful, it can be really expensive, and, actually, if you go down that route of suing somebody, there are no guarantees. You might well get the court to say that, yes, "A" owes you twenty pounds, but, actually, if "A" has no money, how on earth are you going to get that twenty pounds from him? So the first thing to ask is, is it worthwhile. I think that what happened historically, was that people would generally have a legal issue and off they would pop to the courts, and start their legal proceedings. Life, now, has changed quite drastically. What the courts say is: "No, no, no. We don't want to see you, unless you've had a look at alternative ways of resolving your dispute, because it is in nobody's interest to cause one another the additional stress, and the expense of going to court." So we're into the realm of things like alternative dispute resolution schemes, and really, what that means is bringing a third party in to help you get to a sound resolution without going to the courts. And they are well worthwhile, actually, particularly if you've got a long term relationship with somebody. For example, if you're an employer, or an employee, or you've got a supplier that you often deal with, these alternative dispute resolution schemes are fantastic, because they don't have that element of hatred that is inherent with the court legal system, so they are well worth a go.
What alternative options are there to suing?
Well, actually the courts are so distressed at the thought of you coming to their door without having at least trying to resolve the disputes, that now there are rules in place which say that if you are thinking about suing, you must have a look at these alternative dispute resolution schemes. And if you don't, and you then subsequently go to court, then there might be costs implications. By that, I mean that even though you win your case, if you fail to look at any of these mediation, these other schemes available to you, then you might well have to pay not only your own cost but those costs of the defendant, the person that is your opponent.
Where do I go to sue someone?
We've been through alternative dispute resolution, we've been through the letter before action, and we've sent it. There has been no response within the time that we requested. We now need to think of the court as being our only option. When we're talking about taking legal action where you're in the driving seat, we're talking about county court action. In brief, there are lots of different courts around. The county courts will deal with those less valuable and less high-profile cases. The high courts and the Royal courts of justice will deal with the high-value, high-profile cases. What we're talking about is an action in the county court. The county court can deal with all types of cases, from debt resolution, debt recovery, employment cases, personal injury, traffic accidents; a whole manner of cases. The key is that the county court will generally deal with cases in the small claims court for cases that have a value of less than five thousand pounds. If you're looking at personal injury cases or housing disrepair, the level there is a thousand pounds. When you're looking to go for a claim yourself and you're not going to get anybody else involved to advise you, you're looking at the small claims court, which is a process within the county court that is ideally set up for what we call 'litigants-in-person' - those people who are sorting the case out for themselves.
Can I conduct the claim myself?
The county court is the court that deals with very sort of minor cases, low-profile cases. There are three different sections to that court and the small claims court is the, is the proceeding, if you like, that's set-up ideally for individuals to be in the driving seat themselves. The system is really cost-effective, it's not very expensive, it's really informal, and there is a whole raft of people, documents, guidance notes, there to help you as a litigating person to take that case forward by yourself. The only thing that you must take note of is that if you're going to take the case forward by yourself, by all means do so, particularly if it has a less a value of less than five-thousand pounds, there's everything there settled to help you do that, but if you're looking at any claim, where the facts might be a little bit tricky, of if there's any element of compensation payable, and here we're probably talking about personal injury cases, professional negligence cases, then my advice really would be to get a solicitor involved or at least somebody who has some kind of legal training. And the reason for that is really, you know, the complexity of the facts, the value of the case, and also the fact, that you know, you're going to have to prove that you have a legal case and these areas really do lend themselves to getting themselves to getting a bit of legal advice. It could be money well spent. Particularly since there are certain rules within the court that you have to follow if you're going down the professional litigant's, personal injury route.
What is due diligence?
Ask yourself, "Is it worth all the stress, all the expense of going down this route? Have I looked at alternative dispute resolution schemes?" The key thing you need to ask yourself is, "If I win, will I get my money?" Particularly if you're in a debt recovery situation, it may well be that the person that you're trying to claim against has no assets, has no money, and has no means of paying you. What you need to do is what we call "due diligence." You need to do your homework on the person that you're suing against. To enable you to do that, there are lots of different avenues. People might not be able to pay because they're bankrupt. They might not be able to pay because they have no assets. They might owe other people money. There might be judgments against them. You can do some research before you set out on your debt recovery case. The way you do that is to look at the insolvency register. There are also public registers of judgments, and a little bit of research at the top goes a long way.
What expenses are involved in suing someone?
If you decide to sue you're first hurdle or expense, if you like, will be when you issue the claim form. Now when you want to take action out against somebody you have to fill in the details, you have to say what you want and you do that in a claim form. You have to lodge that, that means take it, to court and they serve it on the defendant. Now when you do that you need to pay a fee. Now the level of the fee will depend upon the value of your case. That's the value of your case plus the interest from the date it arose to the date that you're claiming. So there is a sliding basis, if you like, of fees. And you can find the current fees out on the internet or you can ask your court about them. And that's the first one. There are lots of other different expenses that you will encounter along the way. I ought to say at this juncture that even though you incur expenses if you've got a great legal action and you think you're about to win chances are that the defendant could be ordered to pay your expenses, which would only seem right and proper. In addition to that you might get compensation from the defendant for the time that you've spent preparing the case, you need time off work, that kind of thing. But on the expenses front, if your case is defended you'll have to pay for witnesses to attend court to speak on your behalf, you'll have to pay compensation for their time off work. If it's a medical negligence case, a professional negligence case, you may well have to get specific reports on board, you'll have to get those professionals in court in many cases and you'll have to pay their professional fee. So you can already see how these things can wrap it up and you really need to look at the likely outcome of your case to make sure that your expenses of your case don't gobble up the recovery, the backend. The only thing to say about small claims court is that because it's set up as a court for individuals you won't be able to, if your claims is lower than 5 thousand pounds, you won't be able to recover legal expenses, so expenses of a solicitor, at that point. The only other thing I can think about is, sort of, after the fact if you are successful and you've got a shoddy opponent who has no cash and you have to go to enforcement proceedings because they just won't pay. Then there will be significant expense at that end.
