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“Everyone thought it was all done, and all of a sudden at the very end it was like ‘whoa’,” proclaimed Judge Evelyn Baker in St Louis, Missouri. She wasn’t talking about the closing seconds of a basketball final or a movie with a twist just before the credits. She was talking about the case of Senu-Oke v Modern Moving Systems Inc.

The case was about a college teacher, Edward Senu-Oke, who had sued his moving company when his move from Wyoming to Wisconsin turned into a disaster. The case was filed, however, 15 years ago. The judge had found for the plaintiff in 2002 but hadn’t issued a formal ruling. So the case just sat in a file for six years until it was discovered collecting dust last month when the judge was clearing out her office before her retirement.

There were further twists. On her last day in office, Judge Baker awarded the college instructor $1.5 million damages. Claimant grins widely. But the defendant has no money so the award is unlikely ever to be paid. Claimant gnashes teeth.

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After the judge had found in favour of the claimant in 2002, the defendant’s lawyer was written to but didn’t reply. Then the judge’s office forgot to chase the matter. Long delays followed. Today, that lawyer says he has never represented the defendants. The chronic delay was aggravated because the claimant’s lawyer also forgot to follow up on the case. The judgment against the company was for — wait for it — “gross and reckless disregard for plaintiff’s rights”.

English judges haven’t always been brisk in giving judgments either. In 1823, Lord Eldon was pressed for his decision in Collis v Nott, which he had heard in 1817. He eventually confessed that he “had entirely forgotten it”.

In 1998, Mr Justice Harman resigned after the Court of Appeal had given stinging criticism of his delay in giving a judgment. He was known as a rather maverick judge (he once asked a female witness who’d said she’d like to be referred to as Ms: "I've always thought there were only three kinds of women: wives, whores and mistresses, which are you?"). He ignored counsels’ requests for judgments that were a long time coming. Then things came to a head when, following the case of a Lincolnshire farmer suing a firm of accountants, the judge didn’t give the judgment for over 80 weeks.

During the absurd delay, the farmer’s barrister got so frustrated that he considered taking out life insurance on the judge in case he died before giving judgment. The judge’s attitude was a shocking case of judicial negligence. He eventually ruled, wrongly as it turned out because he’d lost all his trial notes, that the farmer’s claim should fail. And what sort of claim was it that the farmer had brought and which the judge so confidently dismissed with almost no papers and even less memory? Of course, it was a claim in negligence.

Professor Slapper is Director of the Centre for Law at The Open University. His recent book How the Law Works is published by HarperCollins

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