eas-lab@absamail.co.za blurted out Stuart O. Bronstein wrote: If they withhold all payment, the answer is probably NO, because most contract clauses are independent covenants. That is to say that as long as one party performs, albeit defectively, you are generally required to do your part, and argue about it later. OK, the debtor has done years of written complaining, and has written acknowledgement of the errors. When/how does "later" arrive ?!

After (or while) you perform your part, and when you make it happen.
Like filing suit, for example, if complaints don't work.
Is there a common law expectation of reasonably correct billing ? Is there acknowledgement that billing chaos can exceed the cost/value of the traded goods/service ?

I'm not familiar with South African law, so I might be off base.
But normally the cause of action would accrue when you knew or
reasonably could have known that there was (or might have been) a
breach. That means that if there was a problem and you complain,
that is likely the latest date the statute of limitations would
start to run.
Thanks for confirming (again) that 'legal-types' can be expected to miss [what hits scientifically trained persons in the face] that: the admission at time 9 AFTER the default judgment [you snipped my text] can't remove a bona fide defense. I.e. cause is not AFTER effect !!

Of course effect follows cause. But if you knowingly allow a
default judgment to be entered against you without initial
objection, even though you have a good defense, you may be precluded
from objecting in the future.

But you're right, I really didn't understand at all exactly what
went on and what you are complaining about.

Of course, it's the scientific types that created all that software
that they think is so intuitive, but no other person on earth can
figure out how to use it.
So, you agree that the cause of action was before the 'summons commencing action' - even before the demand letter. And the the existence or not of a bona fide defense was frozen at the time of the cause of action ?

If you mean by "frozen" that he can't later think up hair-brained
justifications for doing what he did, then probably not. If you
mean that his justification either existed at that time or it
didn't, and that can't be altered in the future, that's mostly
right.
Well, thanks for the feed-back. How else can I know that 'normal' people can't immediately see that period 9 which is 2 periods AFTER the judgment can't be a cause for the judgment.

I didn't understand your chart, to tell you the truth. And while
what comes after can't normally be used as justification for a prior
judgment, it can be a separate cause of action itself.
Please comment on the [to me absurd claim] that the period 5 'summons commencing action' is the critical date, where the admitted owing exceeds the claim; rather than the cause of action date; where the claim is less than the admission.

If what you're getting at is that filing a complaint freezes the
cause of action, and that anything coming after that cannot be
included in that case, that is the common law rule. That has been
changed in most if not all of the US, at least, to allow a complaint
to concern ongoing breaches, and the trial will involve everything
that occurred up to that date.
PS. certain analyses/decisions require more than superficial shooting from the hip. That's why I gave a written arithmetic model.

I appreciate that. I just don't understand it.

Stu