David Green of Terrain Aeration has a bit of a rant about the UK’s Civil Law!
Time for a grump about the way our legal system works. I want to take a look at the way that Civil law works in practice and how it affects small businesses and their owners.
GRUMP 1
I paid £6,000 for a new compressor. The compressor never met its published specification and I had to sue to recover the costs of the compressor, a process that took over 18 months and ran up £17,000 in legal fees. I was then advised to accept a mediated settlement that barely covered my legal costs because it would have cost a further £60,000 in fees to get the case to judgement. I was also warned that while I was definitely in the right, the case could fail on a technicality leaving me liable for both my own costs and those of the other side. The potential bill for £150,000 in costs would have wrecked my business so I had to give up a claim for substantial damages and agree to an unsatisfactory mediation.
GRUMP 2 I accepted notice from an employee and yet I found myself having to defend a bogus “wrongful dismissal” claim. At the cost of some £400, the legal advice in this case was “Regardless of the rights or wrongs of the claim, settle because that is the cheapest way to deal with the claim for £1000”. I successfully defended this case and so paid nothing to the claimant but had no right to claim even reasonable costs. I won yet I was still
substantially out of pocket. GRUMP 3
I hear all the usual excuses when chasing payment but eventually the only solution with some debtors is to go through the county court system. Here I have to pay to prove the money is owed to my company and the system has an inbuilt extra month of free credit for the defaulter who can settle right up to the date of the court hearing without penalty. Even when I have secured a judgement I have to pay again for enforcement.
If the debt is disputed then the legal costs of pursuing the debtor become enormous and totally dominate the case. Recovery of a disputed debt of just £5,000 means I risk being liable for costs of over £25,000. Is it worth this risk or should I just write off the bad debt?
I am the innocent party
and yet I am the one who loses out financially.
These three separate cases (grumps) show that litigation is affordable only for the very wealthy or those able to claim legal aid.
I run a small company, I
live in an average sized house and I am by no means rich.
I have no real access to justice in the civil law system without risking bankruptcy. The majority of the honest hard working population have this same financial bar to getting justice in the civil courts because the costs and risks of litigation are so high Is this how we really want our Civil law legal system to function?
57
Grumpy
OLD GIT!
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