A claim for breach of contract was recently struck out by the Court after it was asked to consider no less than three preliminary points raised on behalf of our member.
Our members witness attended court with local representation as arranged by Lawgistics, which proved decisive.
The representative first sought a strike out on the grounds that the Defendant had been wrongly named/sued. The contemporaneous documentary evidence before the Court proved such argument.
Secondly, it was argued that the Claimant had failed to comply with the directions of the Court and file/serve any witness evidence.
Thirdly, it was argued that the Claimant relied on expert opinion despite the fact that no permission for such evidence had been given by the Court, as required.
Without considering any substantive arguments by the Claimant the Judge immediately reached a decision on such preliminary arguments.
Points two and three above were said to be in the discretion of the Trial Judge but point one was not.
As a matter of fact, the Judge found that the Claimant had sued the wrong Defendant and even if his claim were to succeed, which was highly debatable, any judgment awarded would be against the wrong Defendant, in any event. As such, the claim was fundamentally flawed and the Judge had no alternative but to strike it out.
The Claimants conduct fell short of the threshold for awarding costs for unreasonable behaviour but he was ordered to pay the Defendants witness expenses for attending Court.
Another victory for one of our motor trade members over a half-baked and fundamentally flawed claim.
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