Using Case law

[Beagle]

Hi,

If you intend to refer to a particular caseor cases at a hearing, do these cases become discloseable, or become part of a statement (whether its the claimant or defence), or do you just refer to your case law during the hearing that supports your position.

[atticus]

You refer to the case in your submissions. You provide copies of the case reports for the Judge and your opponent.

[faithless]

Statements of case (Particulars of claim, Defence, etc.) are not the place for legal argument; you set out your legal logic ('he agreed to sell me a new car but it was defective and under the Supply of Goods & Services Act its a condition of the contract that it should be free from defects...'); in your Witness Statement you tell the story ('I needed a new car because my car was old...I visited the dealership on Saturday...I saw other cars but decided I wanted this one...I returned on Sunday and ordered the car...I returned four weeks later to collect the new car...I soon realised there was a problem because...I asked the dealership to sort the problem out but they said it wasn't covered by the guarantee...').
Only in your submissions - written if you are asked for written submissions, but otherwise given at the hearing when you 'Open' your case and when you make 'Closing submissions', at which point you say 'In the case of Adolf v Benito, 1996, Lord Justice Winston said, at page 12, "It is axiomatic that the Supply of Goods & Services Act applies to sales of new cars..."

1. Adolf v Benito is pronounced 'Adolf and Benito'.

2. Be careful about analysing case decisions. Lay persons - sadly, I would have to say most of the time - get the wrong end of the stick and cite part of the summation as part of the decision and similar errors. If you don't find the case referred to in a standard text book, be very wary. Only High Court and above decisions are the only ones to which judges need to pay any real attention.

[Beagle]

Hi,
How come the judge ordered us to do a second statement citing case law to support our case, when in reality we didn't need to at that point. The defence hasn't even filed and served a serious defence ( he's an LiP, sent a statement to the court not properly done and none to us, more of a letter, which we had to ask for twice from the court) although they appeared in court with a Barrister (second time), who offered no supporting docs, (and still no written defence). It appears we have followed all the protocol only to have at every turn the rules abused in favour of the very shaky defence, and had to give up all our arguements.

The judge didn't know anything about the subject matter and its as if judge wanted us to to give a lesson in the whole subject. Which is what we did (chapeter and verse) or have it chucked out. If that makes sense.

so now all our arguements are on the table and we haven't yet had a defence filed properly, expert evidencce, disclosure, inspection..........etc.

This seems wrong to me.

[atticus]

You should ask the judge that question.

No 1 rule of litigation: the judge is boss. You do whatever he/she says or asks.

[Beagle]

We did, but still feel its wrong.

The judge was almost puring with our efforts to explian the case and case law. Almost stroking our file, but if case law shouldn't be part of the run up to the submissions it shouldn't have been asked for. All our cats are out the bag and now the defence has approx 9 months to work out a counter attack.

[atticus]

The propositions of law on which the parties rely should be clear from an early stage. Maybe in your case the Judge needed to be satisfied that your claim was made under a cause of action known to the law.

[faithless]

My helpful explanation omitted the information that if a Court orders a party to submit case authority, then that Order must be obeyed.

This is because your OP utterly fails to mention the fact that you were required to submit case authority by order of the Court. It would have rendered the whole of my earlier post unnecessary.