Jimmy and Mary get sued

Last month Jimmy and Mary decided not to pay Electronic Recycling to have their small business computers disposed of in a compliant manner. Instead they tried to bring them to a civic amenity site, which are only for use by private individuals, but the CA site was closed. While they had something to eat, their car was broken into and the computers were stolen. Subsequently €12,000 was taken from their bank accounts.
Jimmy’s problems did not end there and some weeks later, his phone rings........

“Hi Mary, what’s up?”
“Jimmy, we just got a registered letter from Crachet and Quiver Solicitors”
“Yeah, what’s it about?”
“Jimmy, we’re being sued for a hundred thousand euro!!”
“What”
“It’s something to do with information taken from a computer they say is ours”
“What do you mean, who is it that’s suing us?”
“It says they’re called Bragg Civil Engineering”
“Why are they suing us Mary? They’re a customer of Mick Fuller, the builder I do work for with the van”
“Jimmy, they’re suing Mick as well, you better come home and read this”


“There you are Jimmy, what took you so long?”
“I got here as fast as I could, where’s that letter?”
“Here it is Jimmy, I’m sick since I read it”
“Calm down Mary, it can’t be that bad”
“Jimmy, we don’t have a hundred thousand euro, we’d have to sell the house”
“Don’t be silly Mary, nobody is selling the house”
“Don’t call me silly Jimmy, you’re the one that lost the computers”
“I didn’t lose them, they were stolen”
“Well they wouldn’t have been stolen if you weren’t trying to be a smart Alec and save a few euro”
“Listen, we’ll talk about it later, I’m going to see the lawyer”

“Good afternoon Mr. McGuire, you’re here to see John DeFixor, he will be with you in a few minutes”
“Good afternoon Jimmy, come in, come in, have a seat”
“Thanks Mr. DeFixor”
“What can I do for you?”
“I got this registered letter this morning, I’m being sued for a hundred thousand euro because of some information that was on a computer that was stolen from my car”
“Let me have a look”
“Well Jimmy, this does look serious, I’ll need to study it and make some calls to the other side, can you leave it with me and I’ll give you a call later?”
“OK, thanks Mr. DeFixor”

“Yeah, Hello Jimmy McGuire here”
“Hi Jimmy, John DeFixor here, can you talk?”
“Yeah, go ahead”
“Well Jimmy, it looks like you have a problem here, apparently Bragg Civil Engineering lost out on a major tender because of an information leak and when they traced the leak, it came from a hard drive which was bought on eBay, which was then traced to a computer last owned by you, which I assume is one of the computers stolen from your car”
“What does this mean Mr DeFixor?”
“Well Jimmy you will have to defend this or else they will get a judgement against you for a hundred thousand euro”
“How much will that cost?”
“I don’t know Jimmy but it is in the High Court so you could be looking at about thirty thousand euro “
“Thirty thousand!! I don’t have thirty thousand euro”
“Listen Jimmy, if you drop into me with five thousand euro, I will start the defence ball rolling, that will delay things for a while and we can figure out the costs later”
“OK Mr DeFixor, thanks, I will have to see where I can get five thousand euro, I’ve already lost twelve grand because of those stupid computers”

“Well Jimmy, how did it go?”
“Not good Mary, I need to get five grand to the lawyer to defend the case”
“Where are you going to get five grand? Our bank account were already cleared out”
“We’ll have to sell your car Mary”
“My car! You’re not selling my car”
“We’ll have to Mary, I need the van for work and we don’t have anything else worth five grand”
“I never forgive you for this Jimmy McGuire - will the five grand fix the problem?”
“I don’t know Mary, it only starts the defence, I won’t know until next month”
“You and you’re trying to save money Jimmy McGuire, why didn’t you bring those computers to Electronic Recycling?”
“I know Mary, I know”

Next Month. Jimmy goes to Court...................