ParkingEye lose in court

Marktheshark

Thats why the point that a parking firms loss can be mitigated to nothing, by doing nothing needs to be pushed forward.
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trisontana

As I have said before on here, a mugger could equally say that robbing people is commercially justified as he has to have the money to pay for his drug habit.

bazster

Mr. Beavis and others on his side have heavyweight QC's on the case, if he loses it will not be from being outgunned.

The consequences of him losing are unthinkable, but courts are very partial to a bit of fudge.

bazster

trisontana wrote: »

As I have said before on here, a mugger could equally say that robbing people is commercially justified as he has to have the money to pay for his drug habit.

He doesn't even need to explain why he needs the money, as far as Moloney was concerned the very fact of it being his only source of income will suffice.

Obviously penalties for spilling wine wouldn't be a restaurant's only source of income, but all they need to do is to engage the services of DiningEye, for whom penalty charges are the only source of income, and Roberta is your Auntie.

trisontana

Don't let us forget that this particular car park is not like the vast majority of supermarket or retail car parks. On this particular site PE pay the landowners £1,000 per week, so the only way they can generate an "income" is from those motorists who break their rules. A very strange business model.

Half_way

Dining Eye, Maximum time at Table 45 minutes, diners must:
Sit correctly in their chair
Keep liquids contained in their appropriate vessels prior to consumption
Keep food items in or on their appropriate items of crockery prior to consumption
keep the floor table and other areas free from any spilled food or liquids.
Failiure to comply with the above will result in a Dining charge notice of £100, with a discount to £40 for early payment within 14 days. This charge has been deemed to be commercially justified.

some poxy small print that waffles on and on about some semi legal mumbo jumbo that no one in their right mind will be able to read, but we will claim it gives us the right to do all sorts of things such as insist that your firstborn child attends our sister companys training camp to become a private car park warden following a compulsory lobotomy

(C) Dining Eye Restaurant Management services

Cygnus_Alpha

Half_way wrote: »

The issue is that if commercially justified penalty's are allowed ( should beavis fail) then that could undo the Dunlop pneumatic tyre vs new garage and motor co, or weaken it at best.

another aspect that was touched upon on the Tv programm is the wider effect where restaurants could charge a commercially justified penalty for spilling wine.
Exceed your mobile phone usage limits that will be a comercialy justified penalty then
Exceed your internet providers fair usage policy, that will be a commercially justified penalty - and it goes on, a long way beyond the world of parking and the self interested PPCs.

It would be quite ironic of we saw the likes of Rachel Ledson posting on the internet forum asking for help as she had been handed a commercially justified penalty by her internet company for streaming too much netflix

Interestingly this is how the judge responded to my assault on the Moloney judgement. And I have to say he was loathe to contradict anything in it even though he acknowledged it was not case law.

Moloney’s argument on commercial justification – I argued that once the landowner signed the contract with PE, their economic interests diverged completely. PE could therefore not use the landowner’s commercial justification because their economic outcome was not the same as the landowner’s after the contract had been signed. (Ideally I would have wanted to cross examine their solicitor on what their commercial justification actually was but didn’t get the chance).

Moloney’s argument on extravagance – I argued that any reasonable person would regard a charge of 2000% of the market value of the parking to be disproportionate and extravagant. In addition Moloney had erred in using a statutory penalty that can only be levied by a statutory body as a yardstick in his determination of extravagance and should not be putting a PPC on an equal footing with a statutory body.

Further that using an overall profit/turnover calculation to determine extravagance was not valid because it did not relate directly to the particular charge being ruled on. And also profit/turnover could be used to justify a very extravagant charge if a PPC are wasteful, run badly or if they don’t catch out enough people.

The judge said profit/turnover was a legit way to determine extravagance but not the only one. He disagreed with my point about the invalidity of the comparison with the statutory penalty.

Interestingly he said nothing to refute my argument of lack of commercial justification and nothing to refute my point that a reasonable person would regard 2000% was extravagant.

Umkomaas

I'm impressed CA; you certainly did your homework before your appearance at the SCC.

Great stuff.

Cygnus_Alpha

Umkomaas wrote: »

I'm impressed CA; you certainly did your homework before your appearance at the SCC.

Great stuff.

Thank you. Let's hope the legal team for the Beavis appeal are even sharper. Moloney erred and performed gymnastics to let PE win.

SevenTowers

Cygnus_Alpha wrote: »

Thank you. Let's hope the legal team for the Beavis appeal are even sharper. Moloney erred and performed gymnastics to let PE win.

Barry Beavis has probably the best qualified barrister in the land as regards penalties, I have no doubt the legal arguments are razor sharp!