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Anon 19.43 wrote:

66

How can an LIP being invited to serve by Berrymans in an email which had been exclusively the only form of communication between them, possibly think there would be a rule in this day and age stating he needed to seek permission. The email was sent to the Solicitor with conduct of the case who had invited him to serve in an email without any hint it could be a problem.

There was no warning on the courts service pack that stated email was a permitted method of service that permission was needed.

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I am an experienced litigant-in-person. I have to say that if my only correspondence with the solicitor acting for my defendant had been by email, and the pre-action correspondence, which had seemed promising enough to leave it until the eleventh hour to serve, had failed to procure alternative dispute resolution, right up to the eve of the expiry of my sealed, but unserved claimed form, and the solicitor I'd been corresponding with via email had asked me, in an email, I'd have construed that as an "indication" of consent for me to serve my claim by email, by return.

And yet, the first paragraph of the judgment begins,

"The appellant, a litigant in person, purported to serve the claim form in these proceedings on the defendant’s solicitors by email, without obtaining any prior indication that they were prepared to accept service by that means. It is common ground that this was not good service."

Unlike Anon 19.43, I haven't read the whole judgment. Perhaps there is some reason that it was "common ground" that what I'd have argued would have been wrong in fact, that the context was "prior indication" enough.

I don't actually see how this case turns, or even ought to have been argued to turn, up whether the claimant had been represented or acting per se. If I'd hired a solicitor, who'd tried to settle a claim of mine before issue, via email, and hadn't construed that an email from the other side saying no deal, and asking for service, didn't invite to service via email, I don't know that I'd have blamed the solicitor either.