Last Monday I dragged myself out of bed at 6am, skipped jogging, put on a tie and formal shoes, and arrived at court at 8.15am, met my lawyer, and sat around waiting for the roll to be called.
Now apparently what happens is that 2 weeks before a trial is scheduled, the lawyers for both sides meet before a magistrate to indicate if they're ready to proceed. Naturally we were, because we'd been prepared since last year already. The other guys said they were, and so we were scheduled to proceed. Then, on the morning of the trial, when the roll is called, the lawyers again say whether they're prepared or not, and again, they said that they were prepared.
So we were allocated a magistrate, and sat around waiting for the trial to begin. Then, about 15 minutes later, the lawyer who had been representing the other side so far called my lawyer for a quick chat. It turns out that he's not actually the lawyer who'd be arguing their case, he was just standing in for his senior partner. And the senior partner got called away to the high court on some urgent matter (very conveniently), so they'd like to apply for a postponement.
I said no, because I'm tired of having my time and energy wasted by this thing, especially since I'd taken another day off work, and worn shoes for the occasion, and since he was a lawyer, and was representing his firm, he could argue their case for them. So we go to the magistrates office where he presented his application for a postponement. It turns out that the missing senior partner wasn't the real hold-up. They needed to call the insurance assessor who had approved the repairs as a witness, and the assessor has moved to PE or somewhere, and hadn't replied to an email requesting him to come to court. The lawyer was very apologetic and acknowledged more times than was necessary that it was their fault and they should have chased him up further, but they couldn't proceed without him, and they would like a postponement, and they would pay all costs incurred for wasting everybody's time (funny enough, they didn't pay me a days salary for having to take the day off work).
The magistrate granted them the postponement, even though they had indicated that they were ready to proceed when they clearly were not. So now I have to wait again.
Although, my lawyer figures that they'll most likely agree to settle for the amount that I originally said I was prepared to pay, because it's already cost them last weeks court fees, and if they really do intend proceeding with this thing, they're going to have to pay to fly the assessor guy up to Durban and back, and they'll just end up paying more than they actually hope to recover. Also, the fact that the owners of the car weren't around last time as well as this time seems to indicate that they're not really keen on pursuing this either... probably because they dont want to shown to have claimed all those repairs for nothing.
So hopefully sometime soon I get a call offering to settle. Sometimes I figure I should have just driven off and found another parking spot. Sigh
Comments
Post new comment