The two linked videos take over an hour to watch, however, it provides an insight to human behaviour.
Long story short – Ashley Neal, a driving instructor in Liverpool, shared a video of an example of bad driving and made some relevant comments. The company who owned the van sent him a solicitor’s letter demanding that the video be taken down or else…
The videos show Ashley’s response along with two barristers discussing it as if it landed on their desk. Again, long story short, this case doesn’t have legs if you don’t want to watch the whole thing.
What neither mentioned in any great detail is an important point. As I’ve had some personal experience of this behaviour, I share my thoughts on the matter.
Many years ago, I received a similar letter. I was a relatively new driving instructor setting out on my own after leaving a franchised school. The franchise owner tried to sue me for students who left him for me. That was never going to fly, so why did he try it on? Well, getting a solicitor’s letter is intimidating and that’s the point. The solicitor will – if he is doing his job properly – advise his client that it’s a long shot and don’t even think about going to court, because the expense along with the risks of losing aren’t worth it. However, a couple of hundred on a letter might be worth a punt.
What they didn’t realise was that I’d been here before.
Many more years ago, my sister employed a contractor to install a damp course in her kitchen. The contractor drilled through a pipe, flooding the kitchen. Whereupon he legged it, leaving her to call out an emergency plumber. She withheld the plumber’s costs from the final invoice, which, frankly, was generous as they didn’t deserve anything.
They tried to get heavy over it, threatening the use of debt collection agencies. As an aside, when the debt agency got in contact and were told about the circumstances, they immediately dropped it. At the time, I was working for a small business and spoke to one of the owners. His advice, having had to defend court actions, was that this was an empty bluff as it would never stand up in court, so tell them to issue proceedings. This is legalese for put up or shut up. I wrote to them accordingly, telling them in no uncertain terms that she wouldn’t be paying and that they could issue proceedings if they felt that they had a case, in which case, she would vigorously defend herself in court.
They shut up. She did receive a weaselly letter saying that they would keep it on file, but meh, they weren’t getting any money, so too bad. Besides given their bad workmanship and appalling customer service, she wasn’t likely to try using them again anyway.
I did the same to the franchise owner of the driving school – knowing full well that he could not afford to take the matter to court – indeed neither of us could. He, too, shut up.
I see here a similar situation. The plumber in this dispute is a small business trying it on for defamation. Defamation cases are hideously expensive, running into tens of thousands of pounds. He is clearly seen driving badly, the commentary is not defamation and his case simply does not have legs – but his ego is driving him to try a little intimidation in the hope that it will work. A side effect here is that while the original video showed him in a bad light, he has just magnified the effect through his stupid actions.
So, if it was me, I would respond his solicitors, advising them that I would not be giving them any undertakings whatsoever and to refer them to the reply given in Arkell v Pressdram (1971).
*As an amusing side note to all of this, my case found its way into my first novel, Ransom.
He should have Googled ‘The Streisand effect’.
Yet again Blair is to blame for a massive increase in legal action taken by morons with no hope, by changing the law on seeking compensation, no win, no fee nonsense. Also no fault divorces.
No win, no fee is funded by insurance, the premium for which is charged to the defendant. However, the insurance company will want to see evidence that the case is strong enough before taking the risk. A riding school that I worked for had a similar experience. The initial punt is around £800 premium. If it looks like going to court, add a zero to that. The insurers would have stopped it even if we hadn’t threatened the claimant with a perjury prosecution.
Sorry but you’re mistaken here – no win no fee along with the right to solicit for trade was introduced under Thatcher, Blair did turbocharge it though with his communications act and other HR laws. Thatcher, imo, wasn’t wrong about that much but l found her naive in believing the legal and financial professions as a whole could be trusted.
I am afraid that is not my experience. Regardless, opening the door to frivolous compo claims has effectively blocked up the the courts and prevents more serious matters from being heard promptly.
BTW, the law firm charges the end user no fee. They do charge the insurance company for the initial letters and issuing court documents, etc, so do have a tendency to initiate proceedings regardless of their merit.
They will take the initial punt because chasing a few grand is worth the initial outlay. However, given the costs involved, the insurers will want to see that the case has some merit before taking it to court. The insurer’s costs are then added to the claim against the defendant.
In our case, our underwriter explained that as the claimant was clearly lying they would report him for perjury. That stopped it dead in its tracks.
Your general point stands though.
Without no win no fee, I could never have sued TFL for road defects which led me to take a spill, break a few bones and go through 4 operations. I declined the 5th one to take out the metal holding my collarbone as I could not face anymore surgery.
It took TFL 2 years to admit liability, and then another 2 for compensation to be offered at the right level (by the way, most of it went to the nhs and my private insurance to cover their costs). If I had to fund it myself, it would have been a non starter so beware what you read about no win no fee in the newspapers (or any other topic for that matter).
My solicitor did ask for all the details before taking on the case, to make sure it had merit and could be insured. It is not just a free for all.
As a small business owner, I have used moneyclaim to sue non paying customers and this works fairly well. What I find frustrating is the lack of punitive damages when it is quite clear that the bad payer just tried his luck.
My comments about no win, no fee, don’t come from what I’ve read, they come from personal experience and I’m not alone in having seen the principle abused.