Parking Eye v Somerfield Judgment

Orford

Enjoy!!

Parking eye v Somerfields.pdf‎

Here is the original trial judgment, in Manchester Mercantile Court 18th March 2011.

Beware it's 164 pages!!
ParkingEye Ltd v SSL Judgement as Handed Down_.pdf -.pdf‎

taffy056

Sorry can't access it as I am not a member of cag

peter_the_piper

I wish they spoke English lol. So it seems that they agree that Somerfields were due the money not PE. Am I right?

RENEGADE_2

Tell us what happened in short, we'll take your word.

BASFORDLAD

13. The Judge not only found that the third letter contained falsehoods but that those falsehoods were deliberately made by the relevant ParkingEye executive, albeit without dishonesty. Hence the Judge found ParkingEye was guilty of the tort of deceit on those occasions when the third letter was sent on its behalf. ParkingEye does not challenge this decision.

BASFORDLAD

10. The third letter, sent seven days after the second if payment had not been made, was issued by “Commercial Collection Services”. It was headed “Debt £75 Due to PARKING EYE (sic)”. The key passages read (the emphasis is in the original):
I promise this isn’t just another debt collector’s letter. If you read it I believe that you will understand.
My client is determined to protect the interests of their genuine customers, so they are therefore prepared to go “all the way.” The cost of the issue of proceedings for what you might regard as a rather small amount is irrelevant to them, as you will understand. Customers are of paramount importance.
”As PARKING EYE have explained to you already, their objective is to deter the dishonest, the people who are not their genuine customers.
You may choose to ignore this demand but that approach will not succeed. PARKING EYE will issue legal proceedings and will instruct us to prepare the documentation. The consequences of legal proceedings are, [the comma is in the original] that you would receive a Claim, and if you ignore that, a bailiff will attend your address, [comma in original] to remove goods.
If you prefer to avoid all the hassle and the costs (which will become substantial if our client’s [apostrophe in original] the means of payment are set out below and overleaf.
11. This semi-literate letter was false in a number of respects:
i) It said that the debt was due to ParkingEye. It was not. It was due to Somerfield.
ii) It talked of “their genuine customers” which suggested the letter was sent on behalf of Somerfield. It was not.
iii) It said “ParkingEye will issue proceedings” indicating that ParkingEye had authority to do so. It did not.
iv) In any event neither ParkingEye nor Somerfield actually had any settled intention of issuing legal proceedings if the money was not paid. The contract provided by Schedule 2 that if the registered keeper did not pay after a fourth letter, no further action would be taken but detailed records of non-payers and persistent offenders would be stored. If Somerfield decided to sue ParkingEye was to assist.
v) In the case of any vehicle driven by someone other than the registered keeper the recipient of the letter was not liable at all.

BASFORDLAD

Relevent complaint has been made to Mike Butler @ DVLA who has again been at the office gone 9pm

bargepole

peter_the_piper wrote: »

I wish they spoke English lol. So it seems that they agree that Somerfields were due the money not PE. Am I right?

In a nutshell, yes.

The Judges ruled that Somerfields couldn't escape its contractual obligations to PE on the grounds of PE's illegal letters, because Somerfields were equally complicit in the scam.

They also noted that only Somerfields, not PE, could issue court claims for recovery of parking charges.

And, even after all the chasing letters, only approx 3000 of the 6000 parking charges were actually paid - a lower %age than we've been led to believe, due in part to activity on this and other forums, I'm sure.

BASFORDLAD

So would this judgement apply to other firms. Say excel doing parking for Asda say? So only Asda could sue?

Herbie21

This Judgment was released early this afternoon following a hearing today at the Court of Appeal. I was provided with a copy within a short period of time and due to the seriousness of the judgment, decided to make it available to members of this forum and Consumer Action.

A copy was posted a few hours ago on the Bailii website. The link is here:

http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2012/1338.html&query=parkingeye&method=boolean

PS: Preparing a letter for DVLA and others.

BASFORDLAD

Herbie21 wrote: »

This Judgment was released early this afternoon following a hearing today at the Court of Appeal. I was provided with a copy within a short period of time and due to the seriousness of the judgment, decided to make it available to members of this forum and Consumer Action.

A copy was posted a few hours ago on the Bailii website. The link is here:

http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2012/1338.html&query=parkingeye&method=boolean

PS: Preparing a letter for DVLA and others.

Have you got the email address for Steve hopkins/mike butler at the dvla. ?