HMCTS's errors did not cause loss of over £400,000

What happened

Following a hearing at a county court in summer 2012, Judge A wrote a draft judgment but HMCTS did not issue it to the parties as it should have done until early 2013. In that time Mr G and his solicitors contacted HMCTS to find out why the draft judgment had not been issued. They found out in early 2013 that court staff had not sent out the draft judgment and had further compounded the error by incorrectly archiving the court file while the case was still live. Court staff had also poorly dealt with Mr G and his solicitors' correspondence.

The case was referred to a different judge, B, who issued the draft judgment from summer 2012, awarding Mr G over £400,000, to both parties in early 2013. The disclosure of Judge A's draft judgment by Judge B, made the defendant aware that he was liable for the debt and enabled him to dispose of his assets in spring 2013, before the final judgment was prepared in autumn 2013. This meant that Mr G was unable to obtain a charging order against the defendant's properties.

Mr G's solicitors complained to HMCTS on his behalf. They felt that failings by HMCTS in not issuing the draft judgment in summer 2012, together with the further delay in the judgment being handed down, had directly resulted in Mr G being unable to secure the debt. They argued that HMCTS was therefore liable for the money (over £400,000) owed to Mr G. HMCTS accepted that it had handled Mr G's case badly and offered him £550. However, it did not consider that its failings had directly resulted in the losses claimed by Mr G.

What we found

We did not uphold this case. There had been failings on the part of HMCTS that led to a delay in the draft judgment being issued. However, we did not find that these failings resulted in the defendant being able to dispose of his assets. We also found that the decision to issue the draft judgment to both parties in early 2013 had been a judicial one, and that, although there had been a delay between the issuing of the judgment and the judgment being handed down, this was not a result of an administrative error by court staff.

We did not attribute Mr G's losses to errors on the part of HMCTS. HMCTS had made mistakes, but we considered that the £550 already offered before the complaint came to us, was a suitable remedy.