We previously published an article on how to protect your rights if your organization is sued. However, it may happen that the company itself needs to challenge someone’s actions. This article will discuss how to formalize everything correctly when filing a claim.
In practice, the most common situation is when a claim is filed against another company, less often - against the controlling organization. Cases when a company sues a citizen almost never occur in practice. This can happen if, during the consideration of a consumer’s claim against a trading company, an examination establishes that the goods sold by the company are of high quality. In such a situation, the company has the right to recover from the buyer the costs of conducting the examination.
When can a supplement be useful?
Of course, the right of the parties to a civil case to write objections is not limited in any way. That is, the judge will accept all statements and objections that the parties consider necessary to write.
Therefore, if you forgot to indicate any significant circumstance in the objections, or this circumstance was clarified after the filing of the initial objections and you cannot wait to bring this to the attention of the plaintiff and the court, then you may well write additions to the objections.
However, there is one point where the supplement can be of significant benefit. By substantial benefit we mean an event as a result of which the defendant will get rid of the claim brought against him.
This event could be:
- violation by the plaintiff of the procedural deadlines for filing a claim;
- filing by the plaintiff exactly the same claim that has already been considered in court previously;
- clarification of the fact that the plaintiff is inappropriate.
That is, if, after filing the main objections, you notice that the plaintiff has missed the statute of limitations, or that the plaintiff is not the owner of the house from which he is asking to evict you, then it will be useful to write an addition to the objections and ask the court to deny the plaintiff’s claim or drop the claim from consideration (depending on the stage of consideration).
Expert opinion
Egorov Andrey Andreevich
Legal consultant with 10 years of experience. Specializes in family law. More than 3 years of experience in developing legal documentation.
Of course, this does not mean that the plaintiff will not be able to appeal again, restoring, for example, the statute of limitations, but still, for some time, the defendant will be free from claims against him.
Drawing up an addendum to the objection to the claim
If you are wondering how to write addendums, then you have probably already written the main objections. Additions are designed in exactly the same way with minor changes in the formal part.
Thus, you will need to enter the phrase “In addition to the previously filed objections to the claim, I consider it necessary to draw the attention of the court to the fact that...”.
If necessary, various supporting documents can be attached to the supplement.
Addendum to the statement of claim to the court - a sample of this document can be studied by continuing to read the article - these are written explanations regarding the plaintiff’s position in the case. We will tell you how to draw up a document further in the text.
In addition, the reader will learn how an addition to a claim differs from an addition to the claims, and how additions to the defendant’s response to the claim are drawn up.
Defendant's position
If we consider the same situation, the defendant has the right to go to court with a similar demand to reduce the cost of the claim. Sample document:
In addition….name of the plaintiff…to….name of the defendant…about collection….brief essence…, I inform you that…date…reconciliation of mutual settlements was carried out, the results of which showed that the amount of the principal debt is….rubles.
Thus, the demand for the recovery of...rubles is considered unfounded. Therefore, I ask you to reduce the amount of claims taking into account the information contained in the reconciliation report between the plaintiff and the defendant.
What is an addition to a claim and what regulations regulate the possibility of filing it?
In Art. 35 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation and 41 of the Arbitration Procedure Code of the Russian Federation stipulate that participants in the trial (not only the plaintiff, but also the defendant and third parties) have various procedural powers.
In particular, they can familiarize themselves with the materials of the civil case, present evidence, and give explanations to the court both orally and in writing.
The right to file amendments to the claim does not appear in these rules.
Thus, the right to submit additions to the claim is not directly stated in the Code of Civil Procedure of the Russian Federation and the Arbitration Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, however, this document can be classified as an explanation that the plaintiff has the right to present to the court in writing. In explanations (or additions), the plaintiff has the right to:
- Provide additional arguments in favor of your position on the case.
- Provide a response to the response submitted by the respondent.
- Submit a request to clarify, increase, or decrease the requirements.
- Evaluate the evidence collected in the case.
- Express an opinion on any issue related to the consideration of the case.
Sample additions to the statement of claim
Here is a sample of additions:
To the Novokhlobystinsky District Court of Moscow
from the plaintiff Ivanov Ivan Ivanovich
Additions to the statement of claim for the claim
Ivanova I.I. to Petrov P.P. on recovery of unjust enrichment
In addition to what is stated in the statement of claim, I would like to add that Petrov P.P. repeatedly verbally told me that he would return the money in the near future, that is, he actually admitted the claims. Witnesses to this are V.V. Sidorov. and Ignatiev K.K.
When might it be necessary to file a lawsuit to recover funds?
Among the cases where it is necessary to recover funds in court, the following can be identified:
- wage claim;
- claim for a loan (receipt);
- demand for return of unjust enrichment;
- claim for alimony (including penalty for alimony);
- collection of penalties for the use of money or failure to fulfill an obligation;
- insurance claim;
- consumer protection statement
- and etc.
A specially calculated norm is needed in order to avoid any controversial issues in the future. In modern legislation, there is a special point that provides for such methods of protecting violated rights that make it possible to collect interest for the use of other people's finances.
Grounds and procedure for drawing up an application to supplement claims
The plaintiff in the case has various procedural rights related to the possibility of changing the claims. The list of such rights is reflected in Art.
39 Code of Civil Procedure of the Russian Federation or Art. 49 of the Arbitration Procedure Code of the Russian Federation (depending on the type of legal proceedings - civil or administrative).
Expert opinion
Egorov Andrey Andreevich
Legal consultant with 10 years of experience. Specializes in family law. More than 3 years of experience in developing legal documentation.
In particular, it is possible to change both the basis and the subject of the statement of claim (but only separately from each other), reduce or increase the requirements.
Adding to the requirements of the claim is nothing more than changing them.
In this case, it is necessary to proceed from the following rules:
- It is not allowed to change the subject and basis of the claim at the same time. This is due to the fact that with a simultaneous change, all legally significant circumstances of the case change, and accordingly, one claim turns into a completely different one.
- Changing the requirements, their clarification, addition, increase or decrease is allowed only after the court has accepted the claim for proceedings.
- The given procedural actions must be justified, i.e. The plaintiff must formulate the reason for changing the requirements and attach evidence to support the new requirements.
The application for addition of claims must contain the following data:
- Court name and case number.
- Information about the parties to the process.
- Title of the document.
- Information about the changed requirements and justification for the changes.
- Request for change and formulation of new requirements.
- Signature and date.
Below is a sample application to supplement the claims.
Civil process
Documents are drawn up in a similar way in civil proceedings.
I filed a lawsuit...date...claim regarding...data of the defendant...about...the demands made.
In connection...the reasons are indicated...I consider it necessary to change the grounds for my demands and present them in a new edition...
Clarification of claims in civil proceedings can be formulated as follows:
...based on...the reasons are indicated...I consider it necessary to increase the amount of the claim and recover from the defendant....rubles.
...Due to mistakes made when drawing up the statement of claim, my requirements are subject to clarification...
The requirement to terminate the contract….between… is to be replaced by the requirement to recognize the transaction as not concluded.
Expert opinion
Kurtov Mikhail Sergeevich
Practitioner lawyer with 15 years of experience. Specializes in civil and family law. Author of dozens of articles on legal topics.
Based on this, the amount of claims also changes, or, more precisely, it must be increased by... rubles, since an independent expert assessment was carried out... name of property...
Sample petition to supplement claims
To the Oktyabrsky District Court of Moscow
Moscow, st. Shchelkovskaya, 12
plaintiff: Ivanov Ivan Ivanovich, residing at:
Moscow, st. Nelirova, 12-54
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defendant: Petrov Petr Petrovich, living at the address:
Application for addition of claims
Based on the above, guided by art. 39 Code of Civil Procedure of the Russian Federation I ask:
Appendix: agreement dated February 13, 2017 No. 13-D.
Receipt for receipt by Petrov P.P. funds under agreement dated 02/13/2017 No. 13-D dated 02/13/2017.
Signature: Ivanov I.I. /Ivanov/
Addendum to the statement of claim: general provisions
They write an addition to the statement of claim if they want to convey to the judge information that was not included in the statement of claim. A prerequisite for the use of an addition to the statement of claim is the rights of the participants in the process, enshrined in Art.
35 Code of Civil Procedure of the Russian Federation and Art. 41 of the Arbitration Procedure Code of the Russian Federation (give explanations, give arguments, object to the arguments of the other side, etc.)
d.). As a rule, the protocol contains far from the full extent of what the parties wanted to express.
And the plaintiff, wanting to fix his position, presents an addition in which he can:
- provide additional arguments not specified in the statement of claim;
- respond to the defendant's response;
- clarify requirements, increase or decrease their size;
- speak out about the expert opinion;
- provide your analysis of the statements of an expert, a witness, the protocol of a court hearing;
- consolidate the arguments expressed on other issues, etc.
The same form is used when exercising the plaintiff’s specific administrative rights provided for in Art. 39 Code of Civil Procedure of the Russian Federation and Art. 49 of the Arbitration Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, which can be used before making a decision on the merits.
In terms of argumentation, you can supplement the claim in 2021 at any time during the preparation or consideration of the case.
Submission procedure
A clarification or addition to the statement of claim can be filed at any time until the judge makes a decision. It is best to submit such documents before the court hearing, because the judge needs to familiarize himself with the new requirements and clarifications and conduct a legal assessment of them.
You can submit your application as follows:
- in person, through the court office;
- by mail (not a recommended method, since it is not known when the letter will reach the court);
- via the Internet, on the website: “My Arbitrator”.
Naturally, an authorized person or lawyer has the right to submit an application to the court, the main thing is that their powers are documented. In the first case, a power of attorney will be required, in the second case it may be an agreement between the lawyer and the applicant-client.
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Timeliness of the addition
The following practical recommendations can be given - simple, but not always obvious:
- Additional arguments. Such an addition can be sent after the court accepts the statement of claim for proceedings (that is, there is confidence that the statement of claim has been accepted and the addition makes sense), if some arguments were not presented in the statement of claim. However, most often the need to speak out arises after the respondent has submitted a response. And in this case, additions No. 1, No. 2, etc. may appear in the case. The court is always limited in time, therefore, an addition containing arguments and arguments is best sent after the defendant has filed a response (objections) to the claim.
- Clarification of the claim. Changing the calculation, wording of the claim, or filing an additional claim based on the same rule of law is done as necessary. It is advisable to combine it in one document with additional argumentation (if available).
- Analysis of expert opinion and testimony. If the minutes of the court session contain unclear or incorrect statements of questions and answers, etc., this should be reflected in the comments to the minutes. Analysis and criticism, especially if there are new conclusions, should be presented as an addendum as early as possible to allow time to study them. In such cases, the period for consideration of the case is usually coming to an end. By the time of the debate, the judge has already formed an opinion, and a last-minute addition may not affect the outcome of the case.
Registration requirements
As a document presented in a lawsuit, the addendum must contain a number of details:
- name of the court (arbitration court) - the addressee;
- names of the parties to the case and (or) case number;
- title of the document: “Addendum to the Statement of Claim” or “Addendum to the Statement of Claim X to Y”;
- attachments: documents confirming the sending of copies to other participants in the process (or copies according to the number of participants in civil and administrative proceedings);
- signature of an authorized person.
It is advisable to structure the content of the supplement logically, emphasizing the most important points: references to regulations, nuances of evidence that were not previously highlighted, contradictions in the arguments of the other side, etc.
With the introduction of electronic document management in all courts, it will be possible to submit such documents in electronic form. The Judicial Department of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation adopted orders No. 251 of December 27, 2016 and No. 252 of December 28, 2016, which approved the Procedure for filing documents electronically for courts of general jurisdiction and for arbitration courts (in the second case, as before, through the “My Arbitrator” system ").
How to transfer
The traditional reliable method of submitting an application is personal transfer. The applicant prepares two copies of the application and personally submits one of them to the secretariat of the organization where he applied. On the second copy, which remains at the applicant’s disposal, the secretary puts the incoming number, date, and puts his signature with a note indicating acceptance of the document.
If it is impossible to deliver a document in person for some reason, it is sent by registered mail with a list of the contents and a notification of delivery to the addressee. Modern Internet technologies make it possible to track the passage of a letter and its delivery to an organization using a special postal number.
Electronic document management is becoming increasingly widespread. In some cases, a free-form application can be submitted in this way, for example, if we are talking about a resignation letter. The applicant must have an electronic digital signature with which he will sign the application before sending it. Otherwise, the document will not be accepted. This opportunity is provided by Federal Law-63 of 04/06/11, which equates an electronic document, properly executed, to a similar paper document signed by a citizen in person.
Permissible change of claim
The plaintiff has the right to change the basis or subject of the claim, increase or decrease the claims, or waive the claims in any part.
The content of the addition in this case should include references to relevant circumstances and material and legal justification.
When amending a claim, one should take into account the requirements for changing the basis or subject of the claim. In understanding these terms, one can rely on clause 3 of the resolution of the plenum of the Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation dated October 31, 1996 No. 13: the subject of the claim is a substantive claim, the basis is factual circumstances.
It is not allowed to simultaneously change the basis and subject of the claim. Despite the existing definitions of concepts, in practice the interpretation of a particular change is often difficult.
For example, the plaintiff in one of the cases changed his demand: instead of recovering the cost of improvements to the leased property, he asked to partially recover the improvements in kind. The Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation, in its ruling dated January 29, 2010 No. VAS-115/10, considered that in this case there was a change in both the subject and the basis of the claim (new ground: due to the fact that the improvement, previously considered inseparable, began to be considered separable).
Adding a statement of claim is a common way to quickly change or supplement a position in court. The possibility and appropriateness of its use at one time or another during the process is determined at the discretion of the plaintiff based on the circumstances that appear or change during the course of the case.
In our article, we highlighted the main nuances and difficulties that must be taken into account when preparing this document. You will probably also find the ready-made ConsultantPlus solution useful on the issue discussed. If you do not yet have access to the ConsultantPlus system, you can obtain it for free.
Litigation is essentially a confrontation between two disputing parties, an acute confrontation of interests.
This explains the need in civil proceedings to adjust an already filed statement of claim , saturate it with new data, documentation, and evidence of various kinds.
- Is it possible to present additional arguments for the claim?
- Procedure
- How to submit an application for clarification of requirements?
- Features for a Settlement Agreement
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In such cases, participants in the process have natural questions :
- Is it possible to adjust claims after filing a claim?
- If possible, how and when is the best time to do this?
Sample petition for acceptance of clarifications to the claims.
Features for a Settlement Agreement
When considering stated claims, the primary duty of the court is to attempt to reconcile the opposing participants in the process, therefore it is authorized to help the parties to disputes in finding a compromise with subsequent reconciliation.
If there is a mutual desire to sign a settlement agreement, the plaintiff and defendant make mutual concessions.
Here, a change in the plaintiff's claims is usually associated with a reduction and is included in a document called a settlement agreement . This happens on the basis of Article 173 of the Code of Civil Procedure of the Russian Federation.
The document is confirmed by a court ruling and indicates the existence of an agreement between the parties to the dispute and the achievement of a balance of interests.
Expert opinion
Kurtov Mikhail Sergeevich
Practitioner lawyer with 15 years of experience. Specializes in civil and family law. Author of dozens of articles on legal topics.
We can say that for the plaintiff this document is tantamount to a waiver of the claim, and for the defendant it is equivalent to an admission of the claim. After signing the settlement agreement, the plaintiff will not be able to re-apply to the court with the same claims.
A settlement agreement saves time and money for the participants in the process. After signing a settlement agreement, the plaintiff, for example, can claim a refund of half of the state duty he paid .
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Sample settlement agreement in a civil case.
Given that litigation can drag on for years, a settlement agreement may be the best option even if the plaintiff has to reduce the claim.
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In judicial practice, there are often cases when
some changes need to be made to .
Well, for example, if during the consideration additional information appeared, or the subject of the dispute itself changed. Therefore, it must be understood that filing a petition by the applicant does not deprive him of the opportunity to provide additional information to the court. This information is provided to the civil court/arbitration court in the form of additional explanations that will be taken into account when considering the case.
Is it possible to present additional arguments for the claim?
Article 35 of the Code of Civil Procedure of the Russian Federation lists the rights of the parties to the process, which include the possibility of bringing new arguments not included in the original claim documents, objections to the defendant’s withdrawal, changes and transformations of claims, challenging expert opinions, and witness testimony.
These rights serve as a prerequisite for the correction of claims .
The plaintiff’s special administrative rights related to the adjustment of previously voiced claims are set out in Article 39 of the Code of Civil Procedure of the Russian Federation.
They can be used at any time before a court decision is made on the merits, that is, at the stage of preparation and hearing of the case.
Procedure
How to supplement claims if a claim has already been filed?
The statement of claim can be supplemented by filing a petition to clarify the claims or change the very subject of the claim.
Clarification of claims in civil proceedings is an adjustment of the claim in compliance with the instructions of Article 39 of the Code of Civil Procedure of the Russian Federation.
The law allows the plaintiff to adjust the claims in the statement of claim in two ways:
- adjustment of the subject of the claim , allowing the replacement of substantive rights, and carried out either by transforming the method of protecting subjective rights or by replacing the topic of the dispute and the method of compensation. In the first case, for example, the statement of claim for damages is supplemented by a demand for payment of interest. In the second case, let’s say, instead of paying compensation for a broken car, the plaintiff demands its replacement with a new model;
- replacement of the cause of action , in which the claimant can change or significantly supplement the factors and conditions that motivated the previously filed statement of claim.
Amendments to an already filed claim can only be made in compliance with the procedure prescribed by law.
The algorithm for changing claims in civil proceedings consists of the following actions:
- Drawing up a separate document that has the same details as the statement of claim itself, and is called “clarification of claims. It is necessary to describe the changes being made, as well as justify the reasons for the clarifications. It is advisable to entrust the preparation of the document to specialists.
- Application at a court hearing to amend the statement of claim.
It is important to legally competently draw up and justify the claim itself and the clarifications and additions made to it.
After the plaintiff submits an application to clarify the claims, the hearing of the case will begin again .
The parties to the process, witnesses, experts, specialists will be questioned again at the court hearing, and the court will again begin to study the evidence.
As a rule, the defendant objects to the addition of the claim, however, his opinion is not significant for the court if the plaintiff correctly draws up a statement to clarify the claims.
Russian legislation does not establish quantitative restrictions for the plaintiff to introduce clarifications and changes to the claim , so theoretically he can do this indefinitely.
However, repeated applications by the plaintiff to clarify the claims are usually perceived by the court as an abuse of rights by the plaintiff, especially if the documents amending the claim are not sufficiently motivated and do not indicate the essential facts and compelling reasons that led to these changes.
Expert opinion
Egorov Andrey Andreevich
Legal consultant with 10 years of experience. Specializes in family law. More than 3 years of experience in developing legal documentation.
If the court indicates this in the decision made in the case, the defendant has the right to recover compensation from the plaintiff specifically for numerous changes in the claims.