Just like busses, they all come at once. I already have a court claim regarding a private parking ticket on the go at the moment and I'm dealing with this one as well.
Basically I was doing some work on the outside of a building as part of my job, I was under the instruction of the building tenant and I was fitting something to the outside of it. The building is a commercial unit and as I was driving a screw home it went through a gas pipe on the inside of the wall, basically it was in the cavity of the wall, as the pipe was before the meter we had to call Cadent out to repair it. They have since issued an invoice for the damage cause for about £800 which I didn't pay and they have now taken it to court.
I did put a defence in and its now time for the DQ part, the bit I'm stuck on is a reason for having the hearing in person.
The scenario is the pipe was completely hidden inside the wall, its a double skinned metal wall full of insulation. There was no way of knowing there was a gas pipe inside the wall and on every other unit on the estate any gas pipe supplies are on the outside. Even the grid in the tarmac marked "G" didn't have anything inside it apart from soil. I also knew for a fact that the building wasn't supplied by gas as I fitted all the electric heaters and electric water heater to it a few months ago.
When the first guy from Cadent showed up he reckoned we wouldn't be liable and it was just one of those things but later on when one of their managers showed up he said the exact opposite (I had left site by then, the owner of the building reckoned he was a bit of an idiot really) My defence was based on the fact that I wasn't negligent in any way so wasn't liable for the bill at all.
The also have my name wrong on the court papers despite filling it in correctly on like, my name is "Joe Bloggs trading as JB Electrical but they have it as Joe Floggs trading as JF Electrical (not real). Does that make any difference?
This is what I wrote for my defence. I thought they might drop things at this stage,
"In reference to the claim against me although damage occurred to
Cadents pipework, no negligence was involved. The pipework was
completely hidden from view inside a metal wall which I was
instructed to fasten a vehicle charger to.
There was no way to know any sort of pipework was inside the wall,
especially as the building didn't even have a gas connection
present. Also on every other building on the same estate the
pipework was external to the building where you could quite
clearly see it, another reason to assume there was nothing there.
As for the claim for the damage, Cadent didn't even repair the
damaged pipework, they just cut the supply off in the ground
outside the building as the supply was not needed, I don't believe
they normally charge for this service if a supply isn't needed
anymore.
I also checked the various grids for the gas stop-tap outside the
building and couldn't find one, yet another reason to assume there
wasn't any gas supply present to the building.
I was also working under instruction from the building owner or
tenant who specifically stated the position he wanted the charger,
maybe the claim should be against that person and not me.
Lastly I wish to reiterate that for this claim to be successful
there needs to be negligence on the part of myself and for the
various reasons stated above I don't believe there is and on that
basis I ask that the claim is struck out."
