Extracts from a without predudice letter

[crobertson0722]

I am currently in the process of legal action with a company that were employed to built a website for me. They started the work in September 2009 and should have completed by December 2009 as their contract stated they would need 14weeks to do this. I am pressing for Breach of Contract, and have sent and responded to letters from them they have marked without predudiced. In my last response which is the letter before action, can I cut and paste from their letter in order to respond.

many thanks

[buildersmate]

What 'without prejudice' means is that what is said in that letter can't be used against the author if the dispute later goes to court. I have used it before to make an offer (of settlement, say).
If one reveals the contents of a 'without prejudice' discussion to others not involved in the discussion/negotiation, one loses the right that the 'without prejudice' contents cannot be used against you.
That's my explanation.
Posting the same thing in 2 places on this site doesn't help, BTW, and can just annoy regular responders who maybe find the unanswered question before the answered one - which has been already covered by someone else.

[cassa333]

Buildersmate is the one best answer and will correct me if (ha ha) I am wrong. I only say this as I understand that for the most part not everything is always black and white

I have been told before that sometimes a without predudice letter can be used it just depends on the what was said and why. Otherwise someone could I suppose in theory admit liability of some sort in a without predudice letter. Surely admitance is with preducice?

'I done a bad job but you can't quote me on that???

[Barmaid]

Without prejudice is probably one of the most misused terms ever.

WP correspondence can ONLY be withheld from the Court if it contains genuine attempts to settle the dispute.

Thus if you send a letter to X saying "you have breached your contract and I claim damages" and X responds saying "no I haven't, you are actually in breach and I claim damages" and they are marked "WP" they are still admissible in Court. However, if either letter contains attempts at settlement, ie an offer they are properly not admissible until the question of costs comes to be decided.