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In a legal sense, what does this mean?
A few months ago we had an old mattress collected by the council. Â Although we don't have witness or video, its fairly obvious that they dragged that mattress over our 3ft boundary wall - and knocked it down. Â Bricks etc and dragged marks went into the street where the vehicle was, I have photos of all that.
They've agreed to pay up for quotes we have, Â yet I have to sign a document which agrees to pay "...without Prejudice / admission of liability...".
What am I signing away here? Â (TBH, I'm inclined just to take money and get the wall fixed with out a fuss TBH).
You are not signing anything away, they are just paying without admitting liability so if you come back at them at a later date with a bigger claim, this payment cannot be taken as a admittance of causing the damage.
What they're saying is " We didn't knock your wall down but we'll pay for it anyway"
This is so that that they can make you go away but, should you decide to return and pursue them for any additional losses incurred by the wall falling down then you can't rely on them paying you for it as an admission of guilt. You'd need to prove it all over again.
It also stops your neighbours claiming against the same incident without them having to establish liability.
It further prevents other unrelated claims adding up to a pattern of liability if it happens to someone else who claims against the council in the event that they are serial wall knocker downers.
Take the money and run.
I think it would be reasonable to assume that a wall could stand up to having a mattress dragged over it so I think you are lucky to get anything to be honest.
Sweepy +1
What they (the first two) said. Literally it means without prejudging the outcome (of a court, tribunal, whatever). So they're agreeing to pay for the wall, but in the event you go back to them for more money and it goes to court as it's been more expensive to fix, or the now wobbly wall falls over and crushes a baby robin they've not admitted liability.
Sounds like a very poorly maintained wall. Lucky the council knocked it over before it fell on a child's face.
*looks forward to six months of "Which bricks?" threads*
A "Without Prejudice" letter means that the contents cannot be used as evidence in a subsequent civil action.
Ok thanks, I'll crack on.
BigJohn's bang on.
IANAL, but I think you're not giving up any rights by doing anything in response to a ''without prejudice" letter - regardless of how you respond, you wouldn't be able to use the letter as evidence in a subsequent civil action, provided that it meets relevant criteria to successfully qualify as being entitled to being "without prejudice" (e.g. must be a genuine settlement offer). Suspect this and more is all in Footflap's link above.