Errors when HM Court & Tribunals Service handled a claim

What happened

Mr P made a county claim against two private organisations. The first defendant filed a defence within the deadline but the second defendant did not. Mr P requested a default judgment against the second defendant, but HMCTS did not deal with this immediately and the second defendant filed a defence in the meantime. Mr P's request for a default judgment was not granted.

Mr P contacted HMCTS to point out that it had failed to handle his correspondence when it was first received by the court before the defence. HMCTS initially did not realise that it had made a mistake but after further correspondence, it apologised and told Mr P he could make an application to strike out the defence free of charge. It said that this would be handed to a senior officer to deal with as a priority.

In the meantime, Mr P was asked to pay a hearing fee for his claim. He did not pay because he did not know what was happening to his application to strike out the defence. His claim was struck out.

It later came to light that the application to strike out the claim was lost in a file of paperwork on a senior officer's desk. HMCTS apologised for this and told Mr P he could apply to reinstate his claim free of charge. It offered him £75 compensation for distress and inconvenience.

What we found

We found that HMCTS had made a number of mistakes in handling Mr P's claim. Although we could see that it had tried to put the matter right, the attempts had been unsuccessful.

Putting it right

We recommended HMCTS raise its offer of compensation to £200 and it did so. This was to reflect the fact that Mr P had been inconvenienced and would have to go to some trouble to reinstate his claim. We also took into account the fact that Mr P had been recovering from a stress-related illness while this was happening.