I cannot remember her name. I do not even think that I could recognise her if our paths crossed any time soon. All I can recall is that her smart black suit was grained with cat hairs.
She had arrived in York on the early train from London. As I later gathered from the invoice from her Barristers Chambers she had travelled First Class but by the end of the day I would gratefully have paid for a chauffeur driven limo to take her back to her feline housemates.
I was in that unenviable position of having to attend Court to defend my opinion as a Surveyor on the occasion of being sued for alleged negligence.
In any line of work, and in whatever colour of collar Sociologists may dress you in, either symbolically or literally, you take on responsibilities, obligations and legal duties of care on a daily, hourly or minute to minute basis. Hence the Insurance industry is very wealthy because we are required to take out a suitable policy for living in our homes, driving our cars or riding a bike and if in a working capacity, to give a formal opinion on matters of value or consequence, there is PII or Professional Indemnity Insurance.
In a small meeting room at York Crown Court my Brief, as they say on police dramas, was cool and calm. Her grasp of the fundamental issues of the action against me was admirable, even though she had only received the case file by overnight courier. The front cover, in powder blue and with a large red ribbon tie-up like a Valentines Card was slightly stained and I suspected she had indulged in a jam filled pastry on the journey up on the train and perhaps, one of her cats had sat on the stiff card to benefit from its insulating properties and dribbled a bit with purring delight.
She asked me for the back-story to the allegations.
As I had lived and dreamed the whole thing for the preceeding 14 months this came very easily.
I had been commissioned to Survey and provide a detailed report on a very large and imposing late Victorian house for prospective buyers. Obviously a quality property from the materials and methods adopted by a time served builder and a dedicated skilled team of craftsmen, my task was more interesting than arduous. There were, understandably from the ravages of time and poor subsequent alterations by enthusiastic owners, a number of issues to flag up. As my fee was paid promptly and there were no reams of questions or queries directed to me by my Clients I took this to indicate their satisfaction in what I had concluded about the place.
3 years later I took a phone call from the head of that house. Could I return and give an opinion on some serious structural cracking on the back wall. Their architect, in advising in a major project to open up the rear of the house and erect a large day-room extension, had sewn considerable doubt and anguish in their previously unshakeable faith in the ability of their home to support them and its own weight.
I popped around the very next day.
Mrs was in but Mr was at his factory. The area of concern had been indicated to me in a very vague manner. I stood in the back garden which afforded a good broad view of the back of the house. With both eyes scrutinising the wall of the house, then right eye, left eye, squinting and from a few steps either side of my first position to try to catch a different angle of light the incidence of anything remotely cracked or serious was undetected. I asked the lady of the house if she knew what I was meant to be looking at. She waved her hand in a dismissive gesture and said that her husband and the architect were dealing with it.
I provided a written response to the initial complaint in reassurance that there were no apparent problems. This attracted a long rambling formal complaint through a Solicitor acting for the householders quantifying a sum of £5000 to rectify what was still described as 'serious structural cracking'.
I pushed the fictitious Red Button to notify my Insurers. The clock and meter started to run.
I was allocated a local senior Surveyor by the insurers to inspect and report on the main issues of the complaint. I was familiar with his reputation for fierce no-nonsense impartiality and stout defence of the professionalism of Surveyors. He rang me after his visit to the house. He too had been unable to identify the now mythical status structural deficiencies and would report such in his formal role. In his own words, which comforted me, he said, "I do not know what I was supposed to be looking at".
The homeowner was not satisfied. The architect, like a mischeivous and malicious entity at his shoulder, encouraged that the full available sanction in law be pursued. I suspected that his motivation in playing Devils Advocate was based on the fact that his ambitious design scheme could not proceed without a £5000 (funny that) injection of monies to insert a large steel girder in the back wall of the house to replace any existing railway sleeper sized baulk beams which were perfectly sound in their existing roles. It further came to light that the two of them had been at school together. The illusion of common experiences when younger had imposed unquestionable trust but in a commercially driven world this was being cynically exploited and not in the favour of the homeowners.
My insurers were on full defence mode. It took a great length of time to reach the stage of getting a date to reach that great British tradition of a Day in Court. In front of the Honourable Judge were myself, the impressive Cat-Woman and the Claimant and his Solicitor. I half expected to see the architect peeking out from the shadow of buildings across the street in a bid to protect his own financial interests and the absolute crux of the whole affair- his word and reputation against mine.
I sat impassively although far from it on the basis of the performance of most of my internal organs. I do not think that I said anything more than my name and acknowledgement of what I was there for. Thereafter the Judge and my Barrister performed some sort of elaborate ritual of legal courtship and word-play in their own phraseology and language. I picked out a few latin terms and references to previous Case Law and the file of papers was flicked open deftly and individual sheets extracted and waved about.
It must have taken about thirty minutes but it seemed like an equivalent period of years.
His Honour, after receiving all representations, dismissed the Case. In the measured opinion of a third party in a wig and gown I had performed my Duty of Care to an adequate standard and as to be expected of a reasonably competent Surveyor.
Mentally exhausted I was quite close to tears on leaving the Court and upon feeling the warm air of freedom out on the street.
The Barrister Lady dashed off to catch a train to her next case. She took a clumsy hug and my cat allergy kicked off a few moments later with an undignified sniffle and reddening of the eyes. The homeowner expressed regret that the whole thing had run such a course and we shook hands.
I took some comfort in my imaginings of subsequent conversations between him and the architect. I giggled inside at the ironic thought that, if the architect could be encased in reinforced concrete, he would be an ideal support member in the back wall of the house and a natural asset to his hare-brained scheme of erecting a scaled down version of the Sydney Opera House in that leafy suburban garden.
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