Small Claims Hearing How to Reply to Defense

[momma]

Have received allocation of hearing and instructions to supply witness statements and documents to court by certain date. I am the claimant.

 

I am trying to reply to the initial defence to the claim which is an absolute mess with disjointed emails. Ridiculous statements and allegations, referring to me that I have 'dementia' am also delusional, and paranoid" and asks the judge to take these abusive comments into consideration as I 'clearly don't know what time of day it is, never mind the truth'.

 

The defendant has supplied a document which she refers to as an email sent to her In fact it is a 'chopped down' private message sent to someone else. The only way she can get access to this message is by either hacking my account or getting it from the person to whom it was sent.

 

Reading more carefully her reason for supplying this is she now states that she sent it to the police in response to my allegation of theft of my property to which the case relates. I can actually see that she did as there is a police email address above.

 

Now I have the full message, and it clearly is from me to someone else via a messaging system, not an email to her, and it is now obvious why she 'chopped' the message as the full message 'shoots her in the foot' so to speak.

 

She has also denied, several times that events took place, highlighted for the judge in bold, and yet I have documented proof that these events took place as she admitted the same on paper.

 

I am not sure how to respond to these issues in my witness statement. Should I bring them directly to the attention of the judge or just refer to them in my statement?

 

How is the judge likely to view her deliberate deception, particularly sending a document that was never sent to her that she then sent to the police claiming it was from me to her, but she thenalso tampered with it?

 

How is the judge likely to respond to her abusive comments that I have Dementia, am delusional and paranoid and that people with dementia cannot remember anything.

 

Any comments would be helpful, thanks.

[steampowered]

Hi, does this relate to your thread concerning a claim against a facebook administrator? If so I can merge this thread into it so that people can see the background.

 

My general advice is that you need to focus on the claim you are actually making. For example if this is a claim about an unpaid puppy, you simply focus on whether there was an agreement to sell the puppy and what the agreed price was.

 

Don't be drawn into a lengthy tit-for-tat about who said what when, that is just a waste of time and will annoy the judge. If she is making a bunch of untrue allegations but those allegations aren't relevant to the case, just say they are denied or give a short and simple correction, no need to go into endless detail.

 

How is the judge likely to view her deliberate deception, particularly sending a document that was never sent to her that she then sent to the police claiming it was from me to her, but she thenalso tampered with it?

Is it relevant to your claim? If not, I doubt the judge will be too bothered. The judge's job is simply to decide on the claim you have made, and award the money you are claiming or not. The judge isn't there to act as the morality police.

 

How is the judge likely to respond to her abusive comments that I have Dementia, am delusional and paranoid and that people with dementia cannot remember anything.

I imagine the judge will just ignore them.

[momma]

Hi thanks, yes it is to do with a previous posting but for now could you not merge as this is now more about putting together the case for court.

 

I am trying to prepare the case and she has written 25 pages and bits of emails that don't follow on and make no sense at all unless you put them in order, singularly so the judge can read them and understand. I have done this. By doing this it shows that most of her defence points are incorrect and go in my favour. I am wrong for doing this?

 

I really don't want to annoy the judge, but worried if I don't mention events or respond to her defence then I won't be allowed in court to bring it up.

 

Secondly, on my claim form I attached full details of the events. Do I need to do a separate witness statement or will the judge read the claim form? My witness statement would just be a re-write of the claim.

 

Are you saying that I don't need to respond to her lengthy rant and just put my documents in order to prove my case? I have spent the last four days trying to go through the ridiculous points she has been making. Is she the one likely to annoy the judge by her less than profession response to my claim?

 

To be honest, her lengthy rant has got my head in a complete spin, and I was really only trying to address each point for clarification for the judge. If I am confused by what she is written and I know all about the case, what will a judge make of it?

 

The hearing is listed for 3 hours. Is this a usual amount of time. I didn't expect so much time to be given over to it.

[BankFodder]

You aren't obliged to reply to a defence. Sometimes it can help – but not necessarily.

 

If the defendant in your case has produced a 25 page defence which includes emails which are out of sequence and also appears to be personally insulting to you, it might be better simply to leave it alone and let the judge form his own conclusions. You can be certain that judges don't like to see this kind of thing and by filing a defence to your claim which is not direct and to the point and doesn't address clearly each one of the issues you raise in your claim, the defendant puts themself at a disadvantage.

 

I think the best thing you might do is to try and read through the defence, working your way through the mess and the irrelevant stuff and try to find what is relevant in it. It might help you to produce a photocopy and then highlight the parts which you think actually do address issues which you have raised in your claim. With a different colour highlight new – but relevant – issues that it raises that you think that you need to deal with.

 

When you have done that, come back here and tell us a bit more.

 

Has the case been allocated and transferred yet?

[BankFodder]

I've just read your post again and I see that it has actually been listed for three hours. Three hours is a long time.

 

What is the claim about? Would you like to post up your claim so that we can see. Original document in PDF format please

[momma]

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Thanks. I am trying to address the relevant issues and have used a highlighter on the individual points, but it is taking forever. I will now try to ignore her ranting and continue this way,

 

Not knowing if the defendant is also a member of this site I have to decline to put up personal information, although I am happy to share with you via personal message. Don't know if this is a feature on here?

 

Yes the case has been listed and transferred back to my local court for medical reasons. The defendant lives 3/4 hours away.

[BankFodder]

Please don't worry whether your opponent is a member of this site or not. There is nothing to hide. There is nothing to lose by being open and transparent. We are simply asking to put up the claim. Your opponent has seen the claim so it has already been disclosed.

 

I'm afraid that we don't do this kind of thing off-forum. Please just post up the information and don't worry.

[momma]

Please don't worry whether your opponent is a member of this site or not. There is nothing to hide. There is nothing to lose by being open and transparent. We are simply asking to put up the claim. Your opponent has seen the claim so it has already been disclosed.

 

I'm afraid that we don't do this kind of thing off-forum. Please just post up the information and don't worry.

 

I think you have misunderstood what I was trying to say. Firstly I don't particularly want the defendant to see that I am seeking help and more importantly, the claim contains lots of private and sensitive information that I don't want to share on a public forum.

 

I can now see that there is a PM service and happy to give you the bare bones of the case.