iii)
The Claimant was in repudiatory breach of contract by refusing to fund Mr.
Chudson’s trip to Berlin in July 2015 and this breach was accepted, relieving
the Defendants from performance of the contract.
iv)
The award was not made as a result of any research carried out by Mr.
Chudson and therefore no sums are due to the Claimant.
v)
The amount claimed has not been proved or adequately accounted for.
The witnesses
37.
I heard oral evidence from the Claimant and the First Defendant. Rather surprisingly,
the Second Defendant, who attended the trial, did not give evidence, but I cannot
draw any conclusions from this, nor do I. The First Defendant said that he knew more
than anyone else in court about claims to the BADV and he also took the lead role as
between him and his brother in the negotiations. The other live witness was the
Claimant. Mr. Chudson did not attend to be cross examined by the Defendants’
counsel. It was said that he had asked for a fee of £10,000 in order to attend. Mr.
Darton could not oppose my reading of his evidence, but said that I should place little
weight on it. Where there are legitimate issues about his evidence, then I must treat it
with great care. His emails show clearly that he is someONE who reacts very quickly
to incidents and situations that don’t fit in with his ideas and plans and expresses
himself in colourful language – jumping to conclusions which are not always
justified. In the event, it is his evidence of the work that he carried out on the
Claimant’s instructions and his computation of expenses and fees which is the most
relevant evidence and I will treat this with care, when I come to that issue.
38.
The Claimant was cross-examined for nearly 2 days. He is a Massachusetts attorney
who specialises in inheritance matters. I took from this that in England he would be
described as a “private client” lawyer. He gave his evidence very carefully and was
quick to correct minor errors by counsel, for example use of pounds sterling or euros
instead of dollars and other matters. He was very precise in his evidence. He was
challenged in a number of areas with a view to suggesting that he had acted in conflict
of interest with the Defendants, withheld from them that he was in discussion with
Margot’s lawyers in Rio de Janeiro, knew full well about the potential for a claim to
the BADV and somehow deliberately withheld that information from the Defendants
at the time he presented the contract to them. Much of this was very unfair, and not
open to the Defendants on the pleadings. There is no claim to rectification on either
side, the Defendants are not claiming to set aside the contract for fraud,
misrepresentation or mistake and the Code 1.18 claim that they now seek to put does
not in my judgment run.
39.
It was also put to the Claimant that he deliberately made claims, subsequently
withdrawn, to sums which he wasn’t entitled to. I found the Claimant’s evidence
straightforward and honest and found it much more reliable than the First Defendant.
The Claimant can be criticised on 2 counts: firstly, as he accepts, he has made a
mistake in drafting the contract in not amending the recitals; secondly, he failed to
enter a clear agreement with Mr. Chudson about his charges, (for example hourly
rate) before work started and did not make arrangements for proper accounting by Mr.
Chudson. If anything, this points towards his not acting as a lawyer in this matter, but
in his personal capacity with the common objective with the Defendants of obtaining