I am not someone who stands on ceremony about, grammar, spelling and poor proof reading. Our frailties in this regard make that impossible. If you have one of our mouse mats you will, for instance, have the wrong fax number.
This attitude however dramatically hardens in the context of the current Civil Bills Rejection Wars. The one we suffered because of a typo, which increased the bill by £1, infuriatingly came back with the clients name misspelt by the LAA.
So how about this then from the “Official” download of the Civ Claim 1A
“If no, please note the case will closed and you will be unable to submit further claims”.
Now tell me if I am wrong but should that not read either, “the case will be closed” or “the case will close”? The version we use, from a costs drafting software package, says the former.
This raises a number of questions;
As we are required to work in a “zero tolerance” culture and against a “counsel of perfection”, surely we can but expect reciprocity, can’t we?
Doesn’t this proof reading failure also provide an absolute defence to every rejection ever recorded?
Furthermore we must surely now record another Contract Notice against the LAA – indeed as the error is repeated on other forms (Civ Claim 1, 2) have we not inevitably moved to the point of a sanction?
Does submitting every bill since April, on a version of the form which wrongly contains the correct grammar, potentially place our clients at risk?
Answers on a post card to…..
