10p didnt register now rec'd court papers

The rule to look at is 38.


38.2(1) A claimant may discontinue all or part of a claim at any time.


38.3 deals with serving a notice of discontinuance (the Claimant has complied with its obligations here)

38.5
(1) Discontinuance against any defendant takes effect on the date when notice of discontinuance is served on him under rule 38.3(1)
(2) Subject to rule 38.4, the proceedings are brought to an end as against him on that date. [don't worry about 38.4 it only applies if you want to set the discontinuance aside]
(3) However, this does not affect proceedings to deal with any question of costs. I]my emphasis[/I


38.6
(1) Unless the court orders otherwise, a claimant who discontinues is liable for the costs which a defendant against whom the claimant discontinues incurred on or before the date on which notice of discontinuance was served on the defendant.
(3) This rule does not apply to claims allocated to the small claims track

Nothing further is said about this. It's a bit confusing. I'd argue that paragraph (3) simply reflects the small claims rule in Rule 27 that you aren't entitled to costs in the small claims court. However, of course if the other party has behaved unreasonably then under Rule 27.14(2)(g) you ARE entitled to costs. I don't think the intention of Rule 38 can be to disentitle you to costs under 27.14(2)(g) just because a Claimant has discontinued. They have still behaved unreasonably and cannot evade liability by discontinuing.


So I think you could write to the court and say that although it's been discontinued, you want to argue that there should be a costs order pursuant to 38.6(1), in spite of 38.6(3) because Rule 27.14(2)(g) applies. Then set out in detail:


1. all of their breaches of the CPR rules, including their pre-action obligations. (I've just done my costs argument for my Skeleton, have a look at it, you could pinch parts of it for your letter). You need to add details of all the breaches of the rules since issuing proceedings - list each one carefully to build a picture of unreasonableness. I've got a document somewhere that you can use as a starting point if you would like?


2. Include details of any letters in which you asked for information and which they unreasonably ignored.


3. Include details of any offers of settlement you made (I think you continually offered the 10p). Attach copies.


4. Also highlight that this entire case was over 10p, which was clearly a waste of court resources and your time.

5. Then you need to say that the "reasonableness" test in 27.14(2)(g) should take into account the Claimant is a professional parking company whose day to day business is ticketing cars and chasing drivers/keepers for payment, they are involved in litigation like this as a matter of course and must understand the duties upon them as a Claimant, including compliance with the court rules.


6. List in detail all the costs you've incurred, with receipts. Say that you are entitled to costs in respect of the time you have personally spent on this matter, as set out in Rule 46.5 and paragraph 3 of Practice Direction 46, and then break down your £19 per hour charge explaining how many minutes/hours you spent on each activity/document.


Say that the court can deal with this without a hearing and that you have sent a copy of this letter to the Claimant for it to respond (and do that). The court has a discretion to deal with this on paper - a hearing would be out of all proportion.


The risk is the court will say "well Rule 38.6.(3) doesn't say that the court has the power to order costs, it specifically says it doesn't" and you might not succeed in arguing that 27.14(2)(g) still applies. But its worth a go. Will post a link to my costs argument in a separate post.

The costs claim isn't a separate claim, it only exists within these proceedings, so a letter before claim wouldn't work.

The_Deep wrote: »

Is there any reason why, when this is done and dusted, OP cannot act as per my suggestion?

There is no reason why the OP cannot send an invoice.

But, as there is/was no contractual agreement in place for the PPC to reimburse the OP for time spent, they would be under no obligation to pay it, and would most likely just ignore it.

For the same reason, if the OP then tried to take them to court for non-payment, it would almost certainly get thrown out as disclosing no cause of action.

Great advice Henrik777, as ever.