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11 July 2014 / Dominic Regan
Issue: 7614 / Categories: Features
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Strange but true

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Dominic Regan admires the fortitude of those who have taken on the big guys in court

“It is one of the glories of this country that every now and then one of its citizens is prepared to take a stand against the big battalions of government or industry” opened Jacob LJ in Ferguson v British Gas Trading Ltd [2009] EWCA Civ 46.

It was not difficult to see which way this dispute, between customer and supplier, was going to go. The gas company had threatened Lisa Ferguson for having failed to pay bills which simply were not due. She resorted to the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. The court was as unimpressed with the contention that it was the computer that sent the letters as it was by the argument that she could not have been troubled since she knew the claims were groundless.

The same legislation was relied upon last year, to the joy of Jackson LJ, in Roberts v Royal Bank of Scotland [2013] EWCA Civ 882 where an unrepresented claimant extracted

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