Moneyclaim against Easyjet... for a group?

[carled]

Hi all. I emailed the MCOL helpline and they were useless "we cannot offer legal advice". I recently successfully got Easyjet to pay up our out of pocket expenses for the trouble caused by them cancelling our flight. However (and unsurprisingly) they are refusing to pay compensation so I'm taking them to court.

When I originally deal with easyjet, I did the negotiation for the entire group, even though there were 12 separate booking references. I want to do the same now for the moneyclaim, to prevent loads of separate claims being generated!

Can I do this, do you know? I was thinking of simply putting down a fictional organisation and calling it "my group" or somesuch, then putting my address as the contact address? Is this a good idea or does the "organisation" have to be a company?

[rosiecotton]

If you had a single contract for 12 people, then whoever booked and paid for the flights could pursue this in court, you're not claiming as an "organisation". If you've all done this separately with separate contracts, this could make things a bit more complicated and I have to admit I wouldn't have come across a situation like that before which has actually come to court.

I'd advise you to ask your local County Court about how best to complete the forms. Stress you are not seeking legal advice, just the best way to fill in the forms. Alternatively pop along to your local CAB who may be able to assist with this. How much are you claiming?

Incidentally, MCOL naturally will not provide legal advice if this is what you were asking, if you were not then perhaps they just misunderstood. They are not an advisory service. Maybe it's just me but I tend to have a bit of a knee-jerk reaction when I read posts where people are metaphorically rolling their eyes and calling other organisations useless. It is not and never will be within MCOL's remit to advise people on the cases they are bringing, so it's a bit unfair to call them "useless" if they are not doing so.

[carled]

A very fair point...

To elaborate, I asked them via email:

I need to make a claim on behalf of a group of people against an airline please. Is this possible with Moneyclaim online? The claim is for compensation due to a cancelled flight, which all 24 of us were booked on. We are claiming 250 euros per person, making the total 6,000 euros, approx £4,200.

I don't want us all to have to do separate claims if it can be avoided as the whole group of us were travelling together. Almost all of the group are members of a club... can I make the claim as an organisation and put the club down as the organisation with my personal address for correspondence?

So all I did was show to them that the overall amount came to below £5000 in total (to keep under the sensible limit) and that I wanted to claim as a group, not do a series of claims as individuals.

In response I got:

I regret I am unable to offer legal assistance regarding who should be the claimant in this instance.

I would recommend you seek legal advice from a Solicitor, Citizens Advice Bureau or The Community Legal Service on 0845 345 4345 or visit Community Legal Service Direct for further information

You may also find it helpful to view The User Guide for Claimants available from Her Majesty's Courts Service as I am not permitted to offer advice of this nature.

It's this response that I classify as "useless" as I fail to believe this has never been addressed before and all I wanted to hear was, "yes, you can claim as a group leader if you have the writte authority of everyone in the group" or "no, you can't do that, you all need to make individual claims."

The 12 bookings were made and had a family of 4 on one, 5 on another, a few couples, a few singles... that sort of thing. When I did the Easyjet expenses claim, I acted on behalf of the group and I just want to do the same thing again...

[heidi1]

Hi there,

I am no expert at this legal stuff, but I would have thought you could send it in as one claim, so long as you include all of your booking references, after all, you are all claimnig against one company. If it were two or three different companies then thats obviously a different story.

I would take MCOL and Rosiecottons advice and speak to CAB or a solicitor to point you in the right direction. Sorry I'm not much help.

Heidi

[carled]

I think I've won this! I put in a claim for the group as planned...
Here's what I wrote (sanitised slightly)

Claim on behalf of an entire informal group
of 24 friends and family that was
travelling together. On xxx
February, Easyjet cancelled flight xxxx to
xxxx from xxxx as
we waited in the departure lounge. Easyjet
failed to comply with EU regulations
regarding providing written information
regarding our rights and phone facilities.
We are claiming the 250 Euros compensation
due under regulation 261/2004. Easyjet
claim extraordinary circumstances as the
airport temporarily closed due to snow
showers, but as the incoming flight (which
was to become our outgoing one) was late
departing due to standard operational
delays (according to Easyjet's own customer
services) and had it been on time it would
have been able to land some half hour
before the airport was temporarily closed,
the circumstances of the flight's
cancellation are hardly extraordinary in
nature. Therefore the compensation as laid
out in 261/2004 is due.

This was issued 19th April, which makes it deemed served on 24th April. They acknowledged it and said they were going to defend "part of the claim" but now they haven't done anything since and their 28 days is up... today!

Wahoo! One default judgement coming right up tomorrow.

Wonder how long they'll prevaricate about paying up for. Surprised they didn't defend. Maybe they're worried about the implications of the delayed flight coming in that was just knock-on delays... could have been an interesting precedent if they'd fought on that and lost.

Anyhow, £175 back per person coming right up, bargain... £4,200 off Easyjet's profits...

[Bookworm]

Only saw this now.

Don't open the champagne just yet.

It may well be that Easyjet will ask the judgment to get set-aside, and under the over-riding objective, may well get it.

If you're lucky, however, they may just pay up.

Lots of "may", I know, but I have seen too many people winning by default, only to see it set-aside when they were already counting the money in their head.

Let us know, one way or another, will you?