This is a true story. A litigant, let’s call him Mr X, appeared in the court for a civil trial. He was before the judge for a full day and so the judge had an ample opportunity to observe him.
Mr X lost his case and the creditors took enforcement proceedings against him. Mr X appeared in court for the enforcement proceedings. As it happened he appeared in front of the same judge who had conducted the full day’s trial. Mr X stood up and said “I am not Mr X. I am his cousin Mr Y and I am the owner of the property you are trying to enforce the judgment against”. The judge took a long hard look at the person in front of him. “No you are not”, said the judge, “you are Mr X. I recognise you. You spent the whole day in front of me.” “I assure you”, said Mr X, “I am Mr Y”. The judge was having nothing in this and found that the person in front of him was indeed Mr X.
Mr X was not happy with this decision and appealed it. On the day of the appeal it just so happened that instead of a circuit judge a High Court judge was available to deal with the matter. He offered to take the appeal. The judge considered the situation in detail and finally came to the conclusion that the person in front of him was indeed Mr X.
A year later, Mr Y ended up with a judgment against him in a different case. Enforcement proceedings were taken against a property owned by Mr Y. At the enforcement hearing Mr X turned up again and said that he was the owner of the property, not Mr Y. “Bit of a problem there”, said the judge, “because last year you claimed to be Mr Y!” “No I didn’t”, said Mr X, “that was my cousin Mr Y!” “Too bad”, said the judge, “because the property is registered in the name of Mr Y and if you are not Mr Y then you shouldn’t be here.”
The moral of the story is, if you are trying to fool the court as to who you are, first of all make your mind up as to who you want to be.
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Stephen Gerlis is a District Judge at Barnet County Court