Namuli hired a lawyer to defend her when her sister sued her for the property she received from their late mother. She instructed the lawyer to ‘fight’ to the death so that she could show that her sister was just a greedy ‘middle child’. However for the last 6 months, she kept visiting the lawyer who informed her that things were going well and that she would receive the fruits of their efforts soon. It turned out that in June, Namuli lost the case because the lawyer had not been going to court or fling any court documents and her sister has come for the land she ‘won’ in court. Namuli wants to know if there is anything she can do to save her investments on that land.
WHAT DOES THE LAW SAY?
There are many things the courts will not forgive you for, such as forgetting to hire a lawyer, or deliberately hiding away so that you do not defend the case against you. However, if you have done your part, and hired a lawyer (we call it giving instructions to the lawyer), if you lose a case because this lawyer forgot to file your documents or he/she made blatant and negligent errors, then court may forgive you and allow your case to be reheard. This kind of error is called Mistake of Counsel. By law, mistake, or negligence of an Advocate (a lawyer) should not be pushed to the person who is suing/sued. However, as the person who hired this ‘bad’ lawyer the court will still want you to be diligent in fixing this issue. Therefore, if you are sued or sue and your lawyer makes such mistakes, the court may excuse you if you try and fix this within six months. This is because there must be a time limit within a court case must end. You cannot have a court case forever.
So, if after a year you are still waiting to fix this issue then the court will definitely put this mistake on you as well. Since Namuli found this out early, she can apply to court to set aside the previous judgement against her because it was the mistake of her lawyer not herself and ask that they hear the case afresh with a new lawyer.
📷: Deadline UK
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