Replacing an improper defendant in a case

Ms. Svitlana received a court summons in a case to recover her gas supply debt. The woman was very surprised by this situation, as she is an internally displaced person from Bakhmut, and her home was completely destroyed. Now she and her husband live in Poltava region.

Given the large amount of the debt and the lack of knowledge of the algorithm of actions in such a situation, the woman turned to Daria Malinnikova, a lawyer at the Institute for Analysis and Advocacy, a DRC partner, to help her understand the situation.

First, the lawyer received a copy of the lawsuit with attachments and found that the woman was an improper defendant*, because she did not live at the address indicated in the lawsuit and was not the owner of the premises, and therefore had no debt for gas supply services.

Lawyer Daria Malinnikova helped draft a response, in which she stated that the defendant was not the proper one, as the claim was made by mistake because Svitlana had the same surname as the other defendants in the case, who also lived in Bakhmut. The response was accompanied by documents confirming the registration of the place of residence and documents confirming the ownership of the woman's house at another address in Bakhmut.

The lawyer's assistance had a positive result and the court replaced the defendant in the case, and Svitlana's rights were protected.

The NGO “Institute of Analysis and Advocacy” provides free legal aid in Poltava region through cooperation with the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) and funding under the civil protection and humanitarian assistance of the European Union.

*An improper defendant is a person brought by the plaintiff as a defendant in respect of whom it is established that he or she should not be liable for the claim brought if there is evidence that the obligation to fulfill the plaintiff's claims lies with another person - the proper defendant.