Civil claims cover a wide range of issues and disputes that don’t involve criminal offenses but rather private rights and obligations.
Our litigation lawyers are experienced in resolving civil disputes both through mediation and action in Court. Tort law is the area of the law that covers most civil cases. The concept of tort law is to redress a wrong done to a person and provide relief from the wrongful acts of others, usually by awarding monetary damages as compensation.
Civil Claims span a number of legal disputes depending on the circumstances. The most common claims our solicitors get asked to advise on are:
The limitation period for a case will start to run at the time that the cause of action arises, i.e.. from the earliest time that the legal proceedings could first have been brought when an action happened or there was evidence of wrongdoing.
There are different time periods for certain types of claims as set out in the Limitation Act 1980, for example here are the time periods for claims relating to the following:
These limitation periods are subject to some exceptions. For instance, in personal injury cases involving a child, the limitation period does not start to run until the child reaches the age of 18. Crucially for this case, limitation periods can be extended if concealment of wrong doing is proved.
We encourage you to seek legal advice early on if you feel you have a civil claim, so we can assess your case and confirm any time limits you need to be aware of.
Adverse possession, sometimes refer to as ‘squatters rights’, is a legal principle where someone may be able to gain legal ownership of land by occupying it for a specific, extended period without the owner’s permission.
In order to claim ownership, a person must demonstrate they have possessed the land with the intention to exclude the true owner, and that their possession was without consent (adverse) for the required duration, which is at least 10 years for registered land and 12 years for unregistered land.
Defamation is an untrue spoken or written expression that when published is deemed likely to harm someone’s reputation and/or cause financial damage. If the defamatory statement is in permanent form e.g. online video, written email or review site etc it is known as libel. If it is in temporary form, such as spoken words, is known as slander.
Third-party review sites such as TripAdvisor, Trustpilot and Google are hugely important for many types of business. Independent feedback from customers on their experiences can have a great influence on prospective clients and whether not they make a purchase. But like anything in the public eye that is out of your control, it can be a gamble. Whilst lots of positive reviews can help a business grow, negative reviews may cause it to struggle.
So, if you get a negative review what can you do? The starting point is that if a review is someone’s honest opinion, it is usually perfectly permissible. If a person felt that someone was rude, the tea was cold or the service was slow, they are allowed the right to freedom of expression. The business owner can decide if they wish to either ignore the view or respond to it. If the latter, it is often best to keep responses short, measured and polite so as not to exacerbate the matter.
This is the point when you need to decide if your loss is worth the effort required to remove the defamatory post and/or pursue damages. While all businesses can expect some level of criticism from time-to-time, defamation that is likely to cause serious financial and reputational damage to a business may need more forceful action and you might want to consider taking legal action.
In many cases, a single bad review may not be terribly damaging to your business if it is negated by lots of positive reviews. However, in cases where the reviewer is defaming your reputation and financially damaging your business, then it may well be advisable to take forceful action.
The first step if you receive a defamatory review is to see if it can be removed. In some cases, the business owner may be able to do this themselves although usually they will have to put in a request to the review site explaining why they wish it to be removed. Unfortunately, many review sites are loath to remove negative reviews and will only do so in a limited number of cases, as they wish to preserve their reputation as a neutral space where both good and bad customer experiences are represented.
Disputes for a defamation claim are governed by the Pre-Action Protocol for Defamation. The Protocol requires a formal Letter of Claim to be sent to the reviewer inviting their cooperation in the removal of the libellous review. If this is unsuccessful Court proceedings (in the High Court) may become necessary, at which point the reviewer will not only find themselves with the burden of proving that the comments they made were true, they are also at risk of having to pay compensation as well as legal costs which could be substantial.
There is no cap on the damages that can be awarded in Court as the amount would depend on the level of financial loss suffered. The legal costs will depend on how long the case took to resolve.
The Defamation Act 2013 specifically addresses the issue of defamation and has a procedure for defamation victims to follow with website operators like review sites. Under the Act, the Pre- Action Protocol and accompanying Regulations a Notice and Takedown procedure has been implemented under which a victim may issue a Letter Before Action with a Notice of Complaint to the operator of the website. The operator has an obligation to process the Notice within forty-eight hours of receipt.
If the author is not known and can’t be contacted, the Operator has 48 hours to take down the statement. In most cases that may well be the end of the matter.
If the author is known and is contacted by the Operator, the author has until midnight on the fifth day after the Notice was sent to respond. The author may refuse to allow the statement to be taken down. In this case, unless they consent for the Operator to release their details to the company that has been reviewed, the company will need to get a court order to obtain the Author’s details.
You are expected to follow the Pre- Action Protocol and Notice procedures before issuing any court proceedings for defamation. An operator can be liable for the defamatory comments of a user only if it fails to follow the procedures under Section 5 of the Act.
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