Part 7 Claims

Part 7 Claim Forms

In England, when a person commences litigation under Part 7 of the Civil Procedure Rules, the claimant files and serves a claim form and particulars of claim which sets out the facts (and sometimes the law) which set out the cause of action relied upon by the claimant. The Claim Form is intended to contain a synopsis of the case, although litigants are free to include particulars in the claim form. The particulars of claim are best set out in a separate document, which is then filed and served with the claim form. The particulars of claim also sets out the remedies (damages, an injunction, amongst others) sought to be awarded by the Court to the claimant if it is successful. For instance, the claimant may simply claim damages, or there may be grounds to apply for interest, a final injunction, an account of profits, an order for delivery up, and/or a declaration.

Service of Claim Form

Once served with the claim form and particulars of claim, the defendant is required to file (1) an acknowledgement of service if it requires more than 14 days to file a defence, and then a Defence (in most courts) within 28 days of service of the claim form. A Defence sets out the defendant's answer to the facts pleaded in the particulars of claim. The facts pleaded in the defence must be those recognised  at law, whether they are complete defences, partial defences or mitigate the damage alleged to have been suffered by the claimant.  The claimant then has the opportunity (but not the obligation) to file a response to the Defence, which is known as a reply to defence.

Counterclaims

In the event that the defendant has a claim against the claimant, the defendant is entitled to file a counterclaim with its defence. The counterclaims should be incorporated into the same document as the defence and entitled "Defence and Counterclaim". Although the claimant is not required to file an acknowledgement of service to the Defence and Counterclaim, the other timings apply equally to the Claimant to file and service a Defence to Counterclaim. The defendant has the opportunity to file a Reply to Defence to Counterclaim if it wishes to do so.

Trial

After pre-trial procedures have taken place (such as disclosure and preparation of expert and lay evidence) the dispute is heard by a judge sitting alone, without a jury - this is the trial. The judge hears the arguments, considers the evidence of each of the parties (and other parties, where applicable), and each party has the opportunity to cross-examine the other parties' witnesses.

At the end of the trial, the Court will determine all issues of fact and law in dispute which are pleaded in the statements of case (such as the particulars of claim, the defence, counterclaim and the like), and enter judgment in favour of either the claimant or defendant. In many cases, a claimant may succeed against the defendant on a number of issues and the defendant may succeed against the claimant on a number of issues - so there may not be one 'winner'.

The Court may make its judgment at the end of the trial, or reserve its judgment and hand it down at a later date.

Closing

Litigation is a flexible process of dispute resolution where the forum is a court room. Solicitors and barristers are essentially expert litigators due to the knowledge required to handle variations from the basic processes and how those variations are likely to be best advanced with the Court. As an example of a variation to the basic process of litigation, defendants are entitled to make claims for contribution from third parties (known as Part 20 or Additional Claims) in respect to their own potential liability to the claimant, and other parties may be joined where a cause of action exists against them and to do so would result in a reduction of further litigation. To join another party to legal proceedings is known as "joinder" and the requirements for doing so are set out in the Civil Procedure Rules.