A Summary of the Beavis Case

arthurx1234

The whole fine / penalty charge situation is totally bonkers
Below are the penalty charges for the Tyneside Metro if you are caught without a valid ticket on the train
Nowhere near the £100.00 charged by the PPC
No mention of it reducing if you pay earlier
Question
Do the PPC charge the highest PENALTY in proportion to the hourly parking charge?
Answer
Probably

"If issued with a £20 Penalty Fare (or lower amount), you must pay on the spot or within 21 days.

• After 21 days an administration fee of £30 will be added to the Penalty Fare total
• If after 35 days the total amount has not been paid a further administration fee of £30 will be added
• If you fail to pay the Penalty Fare you may be prosecuted. Conviction would result in a criminal record and a fine"

Arthur

bargepole

bazster wrote: »

Really? That sounds like a massive point to concede. As I understand it there is no case law to support this and the authorities are strong on the "deterrent = unenforceable" principle.

If the CoA judges were breaking completely new ground on this then surely it should be central to the next appeal?

This is mentioned in the Judgment, referring to the Makdessi v Cavendish Square case:


The clause would be a penalty only if the sum stipulated was extravagant and unconscionable. Christopher Clarke L.J., with whom Tomlinson and Patten L.JJ. agreed, explained the position as follows:


"120. The underlying rationale of the doctrine of penalties is that the Court will grant relief against the enforcement of provisions for payment (or the loss of rights or the compulsory transfer of property at nil or an undervalue) in the event of breach, where the amount to be paid or lost is out of all proportion to the loss attributable to the breach. If that is so, the provisions are likely to be regarded as penal because their function is to act as a deterrent."

bazster

Exactly. £85 certainly is "out of all proportion to the loss attributable to the breach".

The Beavis judges didn't even attempt to pretend that the £85 was a loss or an estimate thereof, they disconnected loss from the whole equation and arbitrarily substituted the "extravagant and unconscionable" principle.

What you have quoted above does not support them at all in doing so, on the contrary it maintains the requirement for the amount to be paid to be related to loss.

I really hope this "the judges got it right" line is not where BB's QC is planning to go.

Guys_Dad

How can £85 be excessive? Only the price of a decent bottle of claret and cigar at the club.

What do you mean I don't live in the real world?

bargepole

bazster wrote: »

Exactly. £85 certainly is "out of all proportion to the loss attributable to the breach".

The Beavis judges didn't even attempt to pretend that the £85 was a loss or an estimate thereof, they disconnected loss from the whole equation and arbitrarily substituted the "extravagant and unconscionable" principle.

What you have quoted above does not support them at all in doing so, on the contrary it maintains the requirement for the amount to be paid to be related to loss.

I really hope this "the judges got it right" line is not where BB's QC is planning to go.

No, that's not what I'm saying, and nor will the QC.


The Judges were right in saying that a deterrent clause has to be extravagant and unconscionable to pass the test of whether it's a penalty, but then they failed to make a comparison with the 'greatest loss that could have been suffered', (in this case £0) which is where we believe they went wrong.

hoohoo

To a judge on £200,000, £85 is proportionately equivalent* to £8.50 for an ordinary person on £20,000

Of course it looks like small change to the judges.


*ignoring pesky things like different tax rates, etc

Northlakes

Are we sure that PE losses were £0? They had paid (rightly or wrongly) a fixed sum each month and needed to recover that amount, that was my understanding of the commercial justification argument.

However regarding the parking charge any 'man in the street' would view the £85 as an extravagant sum and therefore a penalty; the Supreme Court must see it from that viewpoint. In other parts of law such as those regarding Councillors pecuniary interests the judgmental viewpoint is that of the 'normal person' not that of a highly paid Judge.

The_Deep

In other parts of law ... the judgmental viewpoint is that of the 'normal person' not that of a highly paid Judge.

Known as "reasonability"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonability

carandbike

nigelbb wrote: »

The Riverside is far enough from the railway station to deter all but the fittest & most determined of commuters from parking there. However there is no other free car park in Chelmsford own centre & there is a pay car park serving the Leisure Centre directly opposite the Riverside.

My reason for me being here is Riverside and PE. Just to add to your comment, the Tesco car park actually in the town centre is free for half an hour and only a £3 spend in store for up to three hours. A lot nearer and far more convenient than Riverside for town centre use.

rdr wrote: »

I disagree, Riverside is 5 mins walk fron the station and considerably nearer the City centre than the official long stay car parks. It would fill with all day parkers if there was no control. Ignoring this, unusual for a PPC, fact is not helpful. Parking is difficult in the city centre and there are over 1000 bikes parked at the station, I'm sure many of these people would drive if they could park. The private, all day, pay carpark next door is sold out.

It is, however, true that the 2 hour limit is too short and damages the businesses on the site, it also does not need to be that short to prevent commuter parking. It is also true that the penalty is more than is needed for deterance.

I also think that a well thought out, non-penal system of charges could make more money than the present tripwire system.

Rubbish! There are not over a thousand bikes, be they motorcycles or bicycles parked at the station. I have worked on the site for over seven years and have never seen any evidence of that being the case. There are NCP station spaces adjacent to the station, no more than a couple of minutes walk. There is a council car park next door to that too. There is no evidence to suggest commuters would park at Riverside and walk. If there was a case for this, surely they would currently be paying the not too extravagant £4.50 or £6.80 per day that the council charge next door to the retail park and walk from there. The car park website states a ten minute walk from the station and I'd say that's more accurate than five minutes.

At least your summary is fair and shows you are not completely mad. I visited over two thirds of the shops when I got my pcn at Riverside and each manager or deputy said that they wanted the previous three hour limit to return. Also all but one store said they had a direct number (to PE presumably) to get pcn's cancelled for their customers. I don't recall this information being available to me on the PE signage. Does this not put customers at a disadvantage if they do not know and can not avail themselves of this facility?

rdr

I counted the parked bikes when I couldn't find a place in the bike racks at 9:30am there were around 1000.
I obviously walk faster than average, not not bad for a fat 50 year old.

I too am here as a result of tickets from there - two ignored pre-pofa, and one LBA responded to.

The fact is that there needs to be some control of parking on this site and denying that just makes people look stupid.

Parking Eye's business model on this site is not fair or reasonable and their charges are unreasonably high. They could manage the car park on three hours free parking and a deterrent all day charge of £25 reduced to half that for prompt payment. The fact that they charge 4 times that is due to their greed and that of the landowner.