Glaisyers RTA and Credit Hire Team has successfully concluded a claim for uninsured losses where proceedings had already been issued (and concluded) in a separate court claim for other losses arising from the same accident. This was achieved despite the Defendants solicitors applying to strike out the case as an “abuse of process”.
The team successfully opposed the application and went on to recover significant credit hire losses for their client.
In the case, the Defendant’s solicitors were aware of the involvement of two different sets of solicitors acting on behalf of the claimant – one to recover insured losses; and Glaisyers, to recover uninsured losses, throughout the life of the claim. The majority of the uninsured losses were made up of credit hire charges and were considerably more than the entire insured loss claim presented by the other solicitor’s action on behalf of the injured party. Despite clearly being aware of the involvement of two different solicitors, when proceedings were issued for insured losses, the Defendant’s solicitor sought to communicate an offer to settle “all heads of claim in full and final settlement” with only one of the Claimant’s solicitors notwithstanding it had already received a demand for payment of the hire well in excess of what it was offering to conclude all matters.
When further proceedings were issued for recovery of hire, the Defendant applied to strike out the claim alleging (for the first time) that this matter had already been compromised.
Statements setting out the lengthy chronology of negotiation correspondence were produced in support of the Team’s opposition of the Defendant’s strike out application. In addition the Team raised a number of technical challenges on the validity of the Defendant’s application. The Claimant’s other solicitors had, on reaching settlement, discontinued its action rather than going to the expense of filing a Tomlin Order at court to obtain judgement. Furthermore, the first set of proceedings had been incorrectly issued in the name of the Claimant’s business, which was not a limited company and therefore not a legal entity that could validly pursue a claim.
The interlocutory victory meant that the accident victim in this case continued to have the right to pursue his credit hire losses. Following the decision, which meant the Defendant was not going to gain a windfall on what would have been an unfair technicality, the matter quickly settled thereafter.
