Help....

[ELVIS68]

I recently took a company to court over a faulty TV...the company went into administration before the hearing was due and the hearing went ahead with just me and the judge present...he mumbled away about the company going bust etc and said I now have to claim against the insurance company that I named as a second party

I received a letter from the court stating

IT IS ORDERED THAT

1, Claim against First Defendant stayed.

2, The claimant has permission to proceed against the Second Defendant in respect of which the stay is lifted.

3, Disposal hearing is adjourned until such and such date to enable the Claimant to serve evidence upon the Second Defendant.

4, Costs in the claim.


What does this mean in laymans terms?

[Buenchico]

1. The original proceedings, against the company which has entered administration, are suspended.

2. You're now allowed to make a claim against the insurance company.

3. You've got until 'such and such date' to issue a formal claim against the insurers (while giving them reasonable time to respond to your claim). The court can then reconvene on, or after, 'such and such date' to consider your claim (if the insurers have not, by then already met that claim).

Sorry, item 4 doesn't appear to be a complete sentence, so I'm a bit lost. (I suspect that the letter has been generated from a standard document which would, if the matter had been concluded at the court hearing, show who must pay the costs. Since there has not yet been any decision made by the court, that part has been left blank).

Chris

(NB: If Barmaid posts on this thread, anything she writes must take precedence over my interpretation of things. She's a barrister, practising solely in the civil courts. I'm just a guy who tries to make sense of our legal system, but I still try to be accurate!)

[ELVIS68]

Cheers Chris...That`s all item 4 says....I`m just wondering if I proceed with the claim and lose, will I have to pay any costs?

I`ve already paid for the first hearing

[Barmaid]

Costs in the claim/cause/case is "court jargon". Means nothing to anyone except a civil litigator.

It basically means that the costs of the first hearing will be awarded to whoever is successful. So if you win, you will get the costs of the first hearing. If you lose, you just won't get your money back but you won't have to pay anything in respect of the first hearing to the other side (they didn't attend so they can't have incurred costs). If you lose the entire claim, yes you may have to pay the insurance company's costs. But unless the claim is worth more than �5000, it should be allocated to the Small Claims Track and then the costs that are awarded are minimal.