Civil suits in the Cayman Islands
Anonymous writes: The bar is set astonishingly low to bring a case or claim in the Cayman Islands, and the statute of limitations means a vexatious claim can hang out there in the fog for over six years before getting to any type of evidentiary review, like a preliminary case management hearing.
If you have the misfortune of being a defendant in a Grand Court matter, the claim will be hyperlinked to your name for life by the Offshore Alert ICIJ crowd. There are cases out there assigned to judges that have never had a basic evidence test of any kind.
No lawyer penalties for the fraternity filing vexatious claims either. A total waste of everyone’s time, with real lives smeared in the process, and social consequences from everyone that reads the Alerts, hoping their name and colleagues aren’t mentioned.
This comment was posted in response to: Audit struggles to measure court efficiency
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Re. “If you have the misfortune of being a defendant in a Grand Court matter, …”. Given the high percentage of cases that are sealed at the Grand Court of Secrecy, the odds of “misfortune” befalling you might not be as bad as you think!
David Marchant
Owner & Editor
OffshoreAlert
In the UK now there is mandatory mediation on civil cases. That’s after issuing a letter before action and after the defendant has responded.
Only after mediation can the plaintiff file a public lawsuit.
Less work for the courts but more money for the solicitors.
Possibly it stays like this because the lawyers can make so much money out of it? You want to take a look at the small claims system they use in the UK. That’s what we need here.
I’m aware of one claim (some of you probably know the one I’m referring to) where an alleged debt of about $27K was dragged out for over seven years. With costs and interest the total involved eventually reached over £180K. The defendant had the last laugh – he died before the case went to a full hearing.
Thanks. Good to know. Now let’s see who I’m gonna sue …
Hmm bad luck, eh.
I don’t think so. Bad luck would be getting caught-out without an umbrella, or getting a nail in your tire. Vexatious lawsuits are calculated and deliberate tools of the wealthy used for strategic advantage. They are not a random product of fortune. It’s a deviant reflexive habit for some – esp those that never had any intention of pursuing a case.
Sadly have seen this on too many occasions, often to cover the plaintiffs own errors by intimidation and smokescreen. I have chalked it up to the American influence rather than how our justice system works which may have to make adjustments to uphold the idea of fairness in the courts.
LMAO!!! Perfect! Let’s blAmE ThiS oN ThE AmeRiCans iNflUeNCe!!
No, Wait why not blame it on Trump!!!
What needs to be looked into are the lawyers that refuse to refund retainers, when nothing has been done for years and the case is not progressing and not statemnet despite hundreds of ad hoc visits to office and emails and phone calls that are never returned. Then they want to argue that two ten minute visits and one draft court document amounted to more than $3,000?!?!?! This is all a scam and this lawyer is known for getting away with it……
Single page saber-rattling letters, on legal letterhead from any of the big firms, costs $5000.
I got charged 15k for a letter that never got sent.
This is because we do not have active case management in the Cayman Islands yet. Our court rules are based on those pre-1998 in the UK, where the plaintiff was responsible for pressing his case after first issuing it, and nothing happened if he didn’t. Unfortunately this would require not only a rewriting of many of the court rules but also an increase in staffing and the number of judges, which would not be supported by the public even if the advantages were explained. People – like you – think little of the justice system and will happily criticise it without considering that what is needed to improve it is money, and lots of it.
Active case management does not require more money or judges. The judges and lawyers obviously like it the way it is. All they want is a luxurious new courthouse.
Would you presume to tell doctors what kind of hospital they need or how many nurses it should have? Of course not. So don’t be daft. Just because all members of the public must interact with the justice system doesn’t mean the vast majority of them know anything about how it works or should work.
How could judges taking ultimate responsibility for moving cases assigned to them through the court system, setting and enforcing deadlines and consequences for breaking them etc. not create more work for them requiring more judges and more help for those judges to manage it all?
Actually, substantially less work and backlog because there would be fewer cases to actually try. If a Plaintiff can’t get their evidence together, in say, a year, and book a case management hearing, then the case should be thrown out with a costs and penalties orders against the Plaintiffs. It’s just way too easy to file something completely whacky and have it sit out there forever untested. Or you could require mandatory arbitration on civil corp matters as a first step, eliminate the court altogether, and create a new business line for our law firms.
The courts can’t stop a plaintiff from filing something and they can’t put every claim through a preliminary hearing before it enters the public file open to inspection. The author of the comment complained that OffshoreAlert automatically publicises any claim issued against you. That is not the fault of the judiciary or the plaintiff. The real solution is keep your nose clean and you’ll never have this problem.
Basically: regardless of case merit, the right to fair due process and justice, requires significant billable hours in the Cayman Islands. All fully-insulated from sanction or consequence to both lawyers or firms bringing vexatious billable-hour-churning cases. No wonder the courts are overloaded.