Great minds think alike, Tab!
Do not talk to her further, please …I am not a lawyer but am fairly law savvy due to being raised by two of them. You do not want to further engage this woman, especially over the phone, but at all. Let your lawyer handle it please.
Yes I’m am not British or American … However your opinions/ comments really have helped in this situation… 
the tribunal is before the courts etc everyone horsey person/contact iv talked to here have never heard of such a situation I’d just like to thank you all for your help !
I’m sorry you’re having to go through this. Totally crazy. The woman should be deeply ashamed.
I suggest one approach to the court/tribunal thing is to ask her to PROVE you had prior knowledge of the lameness. Ask the court to ask her to prove it. Stick on this point … because she can’t. There is no way it can be done.
If she wants to spend large piles of money she could do a very in-depth examination of the horse with x-rays and mri’s and anything else a vet can think of - lots and lots of them. If the vet can come up with a condition that shows up in these pictures and tests, that definitely, positively has to have existed before she first tried the horse, AND it is something NO ONE could ever miss, then and only then does she have support for her theory.
But there is no such obvious condition or it would have been obvious when they first looked at the horse and first rode the horse.
I don’t know about the UK, but in the U.S. if you handled it well this sojourn through court is likely to be far, far more expensive for her than you. It could end up costing her a LOT of money to come up with proofs that wouldn’t work, it would be unsuccessful, and you could ask her to cover your attorney’s costs and your share of court costs and possibly get it. She would end up paying for the whole charade.
I don’t know how it will work over there, but over here she would be demonstrating amazingly self-destructive behavior, for nothing.
Find out if she has a history of lawsuits, especially those that were dismissed as being without merit. That would help you in court in the U.S.
And there could be one good outcome for you from taking her to the mat … if, in the future, anyone else ever threatens to sue you for any reason, point to this one and they may think twice. 
[QUOTE=JumpQH;8242831]
Oh, Ambitious Kate! I needed a laugh this morning and you came through for me! I thank you![/QUOTE]
Are you in UK? The term tribueral is used there a lot.
Sounds to me like the OP is Canadian. Not sure about the legal system there, but as the child of attorneys in the US, I think the advice to let your attorney handle all communications is a good one. I’ve been involved with a potential lawsuit and the stress and anxiety it caused me was significant.
I found that if I tried to contact the party with whom I was in dispute, I was so anxious and upset that I tried to say to much, to justify that I was right (which I was). My attorney was able to keep everything on an even keel.
Most of the time a plaintiff does not want to spend the $$ to pursue a claim so many times they are using the threat of a lawsuit to bully the other party into settling. My father (not my attorney for my situation but an attorney and a judge) kept telling me that if I could just refrain from commenting and let them keep spinning their wheels, it would go away eventually.
That was something I factored in when buying a horse–I gave myself extra money for travel and vet checks. Luckily I only had one that I looked at fail a PPE, as the others (besides the one I bought (; ), I didn’t fall in love with. But I did travel to KY(twice), MO, and FL to try horses. It’s just part of it…
The part I find even harder to understand is what legal mind the “Buyer” is consulting who would even let it get this far knowing they have…No Case…
Pre edit the OP said her location but has since removed it. Non US.
[QUOTE=Bronson77;8241909]
… however she’s now saying she is going to the tribunal and we will be served court papers in which we have to respond ![/QUOTE]
I’ve skipped some pages because there is only so much room for crazy in my life, but my advice would be to keep all your records but ignore her. I’ve had dozens of people warn me that I would see them in court. From those dozens one filed with small claims but faded out before a date got set, two paid a lawyer to send me a scary letter, and none actually went to court.
If you did something wrong it might be worth getting legal advice in advance. If you are 99% sure you are in the right just ignore what are almost certainly idle threats. If you really do get a court summons, then you’ll have to waste time, money and energy on it, but in the mean time you are just participating in somebody else’s delusions and there’s almost no benefit to having had extra time for preparation.
If you ignore them then by next month they’ll probably be threatening to sue Starbucks because not selling pumpkin spice lattes in summer is discrimination.
I hope where you live is like Canada…where you can be awarded all your court costs if her case is proved to be meritless.
[QUOTE=4THEHORSES;8244682]
Are you in UK? The term tribueral is used there a lot.[/QUOTE]
No, not in the UK.
[QUOTE=Ambitious Kate;8243101]
Tribunal. Makes me think of Turkey, but that’s probably a little Midnight Express for most of you. No, Tribunal is a head shaker fer sher.[/QUOTE]
Turkey! She lives in Turkey, where Midnight Express happened!!
I loves quoting me.
If she wants to sue you, she’s got to take you to small claims court, where no lawyers are allowed. I wouldn’t worry too much. 1,000 is such a small amount of $ and once she realizes that she has to pay a fee to take you to small claims court, I bet she won’t go through with it. Sounds to me like she is just making threats and really has no clue what she’s talking about. I’d ignore it and not worry much about this at all. Seriously!
[QUOTE=EventingLady;8247667]
If she wants to sue you, she’s got to take you to small claims court, where no lawyers are allowed. I wouldn’t worry too much. 1,000 is such a small amount of $ and once she realizes that she has to pay a fee to take you to small claims court, I bet she won’t go through with it. Sounds to me like she is just making threats and really has no clue what she’s talking about. I’d ignore it and not worry much about this at all. Seriously![/QUOTE]
In the UK - or just the U.S.?
In the U.S. this would be incredibly annoying but, as said, doubtful that it is a threat. Regardless of the fact that she can’t prove anything, the fact that reimbursing prospective-buyer costs to look is almost never done is enough to have even a non-horsey judge go against her.
- She can’t prove it
- It isn’t customary
- At the time she tried the horse she has no expectations of reimbursement
This case is likely to be over before it even gets started.
I’m kiwi , and yes she has threatened lawyers court etc . At the moment no paper work for this has shown up yet but apparently she’s not going to let us get away with this … We have not responded but have had legal advice and all our evidence/answers to her ridiculous accusations are ready to go !
