Summary Judgement Application

[Danny Marr]

I've recently had Court papers sent to me because I made a mistake.

 

 

I lit a bonfire and didn't make sure it was out before I went to bed.

 

 

As a consequence, the fire caught again and damaged my neighbours garage.

 

 

I offered to pay for the damage but my neighbour refused my offer and is now taking me to court.

 

 

My reason for not paying the claim is that he has repaired the damage but has also used the opportunity to improve the structure

e.g a metal roof replacing a plastic roof.

 

 

His claim is through a solicitor and

 

 

I have defended it as agreeing to part of the claim but not the full amount.

 

 

I got some documents from the court asking me about mediation.

 

 

I sent them back 2 days ago saying I would agree to mediation.

 

 

Today I got a letter from his solicitor saying they will be applying for summary judgement.

 

 

I have no idea what they mean.

 

 

I was quite comfortable with mediation because I know that is just a discussion to reach agreement

but what is summary judgement?

[dx100uk]

i think it means they want to 'strike out/null' your defence as they see it as inappropriate for the claim they made.

 

 

ideally what you should have done was to defend all, regardless to you 'quite rightly' agreeing you owe 'something'.

 

 

the issue with partially defending the claim is you'll get a CCJ anyway in most cases

as you've admitted 'some' of their claim.

 

 

you settling for what you think you 'owe' is the point of mediation.

 

 

dx

[BankFodder]

Please can you let us know what is the value of the claim and also how much you have offered.

 

A summary judgement – I think is made under CPR 14 and basically it is an application to the charge which says that your defence discloses no triable issue and therefore even if it went to trial you would stand no chance of succeeding.

 

Maybe you should let us see the claim form and your defence as well.

 

Have you got evidence that you made an offer? Is their written evidence as to the value of the repairs and also is their written evidence as to the extent of the improvements and what their cost was.

 

Let me confirm to you that you are absolutely right that you would not be required to pay for the improvements – only to the value of repairs. However, there can be no objection to improvements being carried out at the same time as the repairs. However it would be necessary to apportion the value of a repair to you and the additional cost of improvement to your neighbour.

[Danny Marr]

I've looked again at the letter from the Solicitor and I'm even more confused now. It states that their client is an insurance company but hte claim has been issued by my neighbour. This suggests to me that the insurance company has paid for the repairs so it hasn't actually cost my neighbour anything. Surely he can't sue me for money he hasn't spent.

[Ganymede]

Look up the term "subrogation."

[BankFodder]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subrogation

[Danny Marr]

OK, got that now. Thanks