“Mira!” Amir Shaikh cast a gloomy eye over his desk, the piles of papers forming a barricade round a working area littered with files and bills. “Mira, bring a box in here. We have a new client and we need to tidy up. He’s from the University and work from them could pay the bills for years.”
Mira, a large woman of about thirty, her white blouse straining at the buttons and her navy blue slacks struggling valiantly to maintain her modesty came into the room.
“He’s already filling in his form in reception. You shouldn’t let this place get such a mess. Here, let me tidy up a bit.” She straightened the piles of papers and stacked them in three, more or less neat mounds on the left side of the desk. Then, opening the middle drawer, she slid the remaining clutter of papers that he had been working on into it, on top of the detritus of unpaid bills, old pens and staplers.
“Mira!” Shaikh remonstrated. “How am I going to remember what is what now that you have mixed it all up?”
“Don’t worry, Mr Shaikh. It’s just the same if we had put them in the box. You can look at them later.”
“That is how things get lost. Now you had better dust the shelves. This client is from the University and we don’t want him to think that we’re not professional. And take these dirty cups and glasses to the kitchen.” He walked over to the wall and straightened the framed certificates which hung at a slightly rakish angle.
He hesitated then moved to his desk, opened another drawer took out a half empty bottle of Scotch and a glass and poured himself a drink. It would be no good to meet a new client in a state of nerves, no good at all. He drank the Scotch quickly and felt in his pocket for a roll of Extra Strong Mints. Fresh breath, too. Most important. He replaced the bottle and glass and carefully closed the drawer.
There was a rustling in the outer office and Mira returned, followed by a tall, blonde man with unfashionably long hair. Shaikh held out his hand.
“Doctor Corby? I’m Amir Shaikh. Would you like a cup of tea? Or coffee?”
“Tea please. Milk, no sugar.”
“Mira, one tea in here.” Shaikh glanced round the office. It looked reasonably tidy. Behind the desk the shelves sagged slightly under his collection of leather bound law books. Mira had missed some dust on the front of some of them. He would have to have a word with her, later.
“Sit down Doctor Corby.” He gestured towards a vinyl covered armchair and took his seat behind the desk, picking up the pink form Corby had completed a few minutes earlier. A quick skim of the contents showed that he would not be acting for the university so his hopes of a lucrative commission from them were not about to be fulfilled.
“Now, then,” he said, “I see from this that you have a dispute with the University.”
“Yes, it’s quite complicated. They’re accusing me of misbehaviour, but in fact the university – or agents on their behalf – stole some computers from my office, my private property, and disposed of them.”
“Theft is a matter for the police. Have you reported the loss to them?”
“Yes, of course. But they won’t investigate. They said this is a civil dispute and suggested I talk someone like you.”
“But you say your private property was stolen? Why would the police not be interested?”
“The police said it was a dispute about whether I was allowed to store the computers in my office. I think they just didn’t want to offend the authorities.”
Shaikh picked up a pen and made a note. Corby was obviously intelligent – PhD, no less – but he wasn’t expressing himself very clearly. Did he understand the difference between a civil and a criminal case? Might he be one of those genius types with no sense of human relations or the real world?
“And you can positively identify the people responsible?”
“I have their names with me.” Corby handed over a neatly printed list.
“They all work for the University?”
“Security and Building Services. They are contracted out to a private company.”
“And these computers were definitely yours? They wouldn’t be able to argue that they had some sort of right to them?”
“They were machines I’d bought myself. I have receipts and so forth.”
Shaikh leaned back. “But the police wouldn’t investigate? You say the university dumped your computers without your permission. Why was that?”
“They told me I had to get rid of them. They said they were dangerous. And then they threw them out.”
“So they warned you to shift them?” Shaikh raised an eyebrow. “You can’t really complain then, if you left them where they were.”
“It was the next day. I couldn’t move the computers overnight. Not by myself, anyway.”
“And you’d had no warning earlier?”
“They’d complained about them before. Of course. But I explained I was waiting for authorisation to move to the main university network. Then, suddenly this.”
“What reasons did they give?”
“They said the machines were a fire hazard.”
“And were they?”
“No more than any piece of equipment might be. They had been there for months without any real problems.”
“No problems at all?” Sheikh wondered what sort of problems might not be ‘real’.
“One machine did start to smoke. Just once. And the departmental secretary overreacted. But that was long ago – I got rid of that machine immediately.”
“But the University were able to use that as justification and the police weren’t prepared to prosecute?”
“The University simply told them they had moved the computers off the premises. The police refused to get involved in what happened after that. They said it was too complicated.” Corby’s voice shook.
“And what did happen after that?”
“They dumped them at the municipal waste disposal centre.”
“I see.” Shaikh rubbed his hands thoughtfully. This sounded like one to steer well clear of. “Yes. It sounds complicated. There might well be a criminal case to answer there if the police would take it up but I’m not sure there’s much in it from a civil point of view.”
“But surely... Surely I’m entitled to compensation?”
“Very possibly. But in a civil case the considerations have to be purely pragmatic. One has to balance the effort and risk involved against the probable reward.” He paused and walked over to the door. “Mira,” he yelled, “Any progress on that tea?” He really should find a way out of this one. Despite Corby’s – Doctor Corby’s – obvious distress, or perhaps because of it, this smelt bad. “You see, one has to consider the value of what we would be entitled to. You said that the machines were used. What would one of them be worth?”
“Not very much. I’ve looked on e-bay and replacing them would cost anything between fifty and a hundred pounds each.”
“Well there you have it. A few machines like that, some compensation for the data lost and what are we talking about? I don’t know, say a thousand pounds. Even if we were to sue successfully, by the time you’ve allowed for the time involved and the costs of bringing the case, it wouldn’t be worth the effort.”
“Ah, no!” Corby was suddenly animated. “You haven’t understood. We’re not just talking about a few machines here. And there’s the value of the research stored on them as well. And they’ve suspended me from teaching too.”
“Exactly how many machines are involved?”
“Four hundred and ninety three. They loaded them onto two skips.”
“Nearly five hundred computers? That’s more than I had thought.”
“I worked out that if you value them, on average, at sixty pounds, it would cost Twenty nine thousand five hundred and eighty pounds to replace them. And I’ve lost three years, nearly four, of research work on those machines. I spoke to Professor Cunliffe, my old PhD supervisor in Cambridge, and he would be prepared to testify that the research was leading edge. This could ruin my academic career.”
“Really? I wonder if that might put a slightly different complexion on the case. And they’ve stopped your teaching? Do you mean that you have been unfairly dismissed from your job?”
“Not dismissed, as such, suspended. At the moment they’re still paying my salary, but I’m up in front of the Executive Dean and I’ve been told they’re going to throw the book at me.”
“In that case, you need to wait and see what develops there.” Shaikh stood up. This was far too complicated. Yes, Corby seemed to have been badly treated and he couldn’t help feeling sorry for him but common sense said this could take hundreds of hours and it was impossible to predict who would win. He shook his head thoughtfully. “I can’t promise to take this on. Hypothetically, though, let’s talk about some of the practicalities. First of all, do you have funds available to initiate the proceedings?”
Corby looked up in surprise. “I thought that you operated on a ‘No win, No fee’ basis.”
“Ah yes, of course. No, we wouldn’t charge any fees until we’d delivered a result, but there are some up front expenses that you would have to be prepared for. Our firm would invest our staff time, but you would need to fund the court costs, and the costs insurance too.”
“I hadn’t expected that. What is ‘costs insurance’?”
“It’s normal in a case of this type. Once we issue a summons, the University start to take legal advice. If – heaven forbid – we come to the end of the case and judgement is in their favour, then the court could rule that we – you – are responsible for costs, which could be very high by then. This is an insurance to pay the legal costs if we lose the action.”
“But isn’t that like admitting we don’t have confidence in what we’re doing? I don’t like going in on such a negative note. I want to really confront these people and make them pay.”
“Not negative. Cautious. There’s an investment to be made here. If we think your case has merit, we take the risk of putting our time into it. We may even be entitled to legal aid but we expect you to make an investment too. It won’t be a lot of money – of the order of four hundred and fifty pounds. What do you think?”
“And you’ll take the case?”
“I can’t say that now. This is a complex case – too complex, really. We don’t take on cases where we aren’t convinced by our client and without looking at the detail of your agreements with the University, it’s impossible to say that we would win.”
“So you’re not prepared to act for me? Wouldn’t you at least be prepared to look at the documents?” Corby sounded desperate.
“We would need to see what happens at your disciplinary hearing first,” Shaikh answered. Against his instincts, Corby had somehow managed to get him involved. He couldn’t commit to anything. But reading a contract would do no harm, surely? He really needed something to calm him down, save him from these altruistic impulses. “Ok, I’ll take a look at the agreements you’ve signed with the university – see what it says in the fine print. Then we’ll have to decide what action, if any, can be taken. If you speak to my secretary, she’ll make an appointment for when you’ve met the Dean.”
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