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Credit Hire Success for Toby Coupe and Horwich Farrelly

Date:

07th November 2011

Team:

Civil.

Toby Coupe, instructed by Horwich Farrelly, successfully represented the Defendant in relation to a claim brought by an individual who had sustained damage and loss as a result of a road traffic accident in September 2010 for which the Defendant had admitted liability.
The Claimant sought to recover £12,991.39 by way of credit hire charges together with other special damages such that the claim in full amounted to some £23,700.14.
The claim was heard by HHJ Gosnell who ordered that judgment be entered for the Claimant in the sum of just £455.31 with the Claimant’s costs summarily assessed in the sum of £500 on the basis that the claim should have been allocated to the small claims track.
In addition, having failed to beat a Part 36 offer made by the Defendant in late September 2011, approximately a month and a half prior to the trial, the Claimant was ordered to pay the Defendant’s costs as summarily assessed in the sum of £2,460.
Within his skeleton argument Mr. Coupe had relied upon the observations of Jacob LJ in the recent Court of Appeal case of Darren Bent v Highways & Utilities Construction [2011] in relation to taking an average of the spot hire rates put forward by both parties which HHJ Gosnell stated was an eminently sensible approach.