PE lose court case at St Albans (again)

salmosalaris

@TDA
Good to have you back
Your contributions are always respected , serious dialogue is rare here

I am late paying my paper bill and am subject to a £100 surcharge on the premise that although this obviously engages the penalty rule it is disengaged because of a legitimate interest , ie the efficient management of the newsagents . Comments ?

Ivor_Pecheque

Last weeks gem.....

I recently received a parking fine at Macc hospital. I had a consultant appointment at the antenatal clinic and paid for two hours but the consultant was running an hour late then I had to be strapped to a fetal heart rate monitor to monitor my baby's heart rate immediately as it was thought my baby could have been at risk (was then 28 weeks pregnant). Due to the old machine I was hooked up to, the reading was inaccurate and I ended up strapped to it for over two hours. Obviously during this time I was physically unable to walk back to the car park to move my car! Five hours after arriving I was 'free to go' from an appointment that usually takes about 1 hour. I have appealed the fine and provided evidence in form of my fetal heart trace but so far haven't heard back from them

Marktheshark

I look forward to the revolution.
First up for public birching will be those trusted to run hospitals that instead chose to subject relatives of the sick and dying to getting dragged in to court by this parking firm.
All to make a few quid.

They have no shame, but they should have and they should crawl back under whatever rock they crawled from.

bargepole

beamerguy wrote: »

For the purpose of those on here and in particular the newbies, i am sure you will give a listing of "array of legitimate interest"

We all await to hear

I think this is the part in the judgment at [32] which TDA was referring to:

"... But compensation is not necessarily the only legitimate interest that the innocent party may have in the performance of the defaulter’s primary obligations. This was recognised in the early days of the penalty rule, when it was still the creature of equity, and is reflected in Lord Macclesfield’s observation in Peachy (quoted in para 5 above) about the application of the penalty rule to provisions which were “never intended by way of compensation”, for which equity would not relieve. It was reflected in the result in Dunlop. And it is recognised in the more recent decisions about commercial justification..."

So in other words, the legitimate interest doesn't necessarily have to be about the sums of money involved. It can be about deterring breaches of contract which may, directly or indirectly, harm the commercial interest of a party, or impact adversely on the principal for whom they are providing a service.

This clearly signposts the conclusion reached later in the judgment, that if PE's charges were deemed unenforceable, the landowner and the tenants (retailers) would suffer because customers may not be able to park and spend money in the shops (ignoring for the moment the lack of evidence to substantiate that assertion).

So I think it's correct to say that it wouldn't make any difference whether it's a car park where parking is free for X hours, or one where the hourly charge is Y, the principle still applies, and defendants would have a hard job convincing a District Judge otherwise.

Ivor_Pecheque

we had to rush our little boy to A&E last year. We paid for a ticket but when we left the next morning, we were so drained & exhausted, we didn't update the payment. Upshot was, we received a fine which we appealed & was refused so we had to pay

another gem

Ivor_Pecheque

Here's one from the start of the month...

This happened to me taking my daughter in to hospital and had no idea I would have got a ticket in the rush I was in just drove straight in! Disgusting I think.

trisontana

Two more Parking Eye hospital double-dipping mistakes:-

http://parking-prankster.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/parkingeye-system-at-yeovil-unfit-for.html

Followed by this stupid statement from Parking Eye:-

A ParkingEye spokesperson said: "People parking at Yeovil District Hospital have a responsibility to make sure they do not exceed the free parking limit otherwise a parking charge will become payable.
"In both of these cases, the parking system identified that Mr Swinnerton and Ms Jeffery overstayed by at least 80 minutes and so were issued with a charge.
"We encourage people to submit an appeal if they feel there are mitigating circumstances, and instructions about how to do this are detailed on all communications and on our website."


Of course that limit was not exceeded . It's just PE's crappy ANPR system which is to blame.

Ivor_Pecheque

And for the sake of 10 characters ....

Hi I received a parking fine after having to go to A&E at 1.30am in the morning due to an emergency with my 1 year old daughter - it was 1.30am and didn't even think in my urgency to get to A&E to pay for a ticket - I was pretty disgusted to receive a ticket to be honest as no one visits a hospital at 1.30am unless it's an emergency - I appealed and the fine was withdrawn - however I think that Macc hospital should revisit how Parking Eye issue fines - early hours in the morning at a hospital is a disgrace

Ivor_Pecheque

And here's the next one.....

I'm not aware of previous info in relation to this but I am currently appealing a ticket I Rec'd on 23rd dec, at around 8.30pm, when I took my three year old to A&E on the advice of the paramedics that had earlier checked him out at home. I think I'd parked for no more than 50 mins but still I got a fine!

Ivor_Pecheque

this one's from last November.....

We got a ticket last year when we took our son to a &e at 4am. The ticket did get cancelled but that was after I wrote to George Osborne and sent that to the hospital as well. X