ES Parking Enforcement

billinghamn

The_Deep wrote: »

You can alreading claim for these if it does get to court

There is a section on the response form to outline your counter-claim. Is your advice that I don't fill this in, but leave it to our day in court? Would it not demonstrate intent, to submit a counter-claim at the same time as submitting my wife's defence statement?

Apologies if I have misunderstood your comment.

The_Deep

What are you going to counter claim for? Have they breached you DPA rights? Have they harassed you? Have they misrepresented the law, made threats, caused you stress. banged on your door, phoned you at 3am? If any of these then yes, counterclaim.

I am all for counter-claiming where it will fly, but without knowing the circumstances could not advise you. A frivolous counter claim might annoy a judge.

billinghamn

The_Deep wrote: »

What are you going to counter claim for? Have they breached you DPA rights? Have they harassed you? Have they misrepresented the law, made threats, caused you stress. banged on your door, phoned you at 3am? If any of these then yes, counterclaim.

I am all for counter-claiming where it will fly, but without knowing the circumstances could not advise you. A frivolous counter claim might annoy a judge.

They have bullied, harassed and caused my wife significant stress, when they:

• Failed to provide any of the requested information in the first 6 months of exchanging correspondence. They effectively ignored her responses/challenges.
• When Gladstones picked things up 12 months later, they then had ample opportunity to withdraw their claim, when clear evidence of a parking ticket having been purchased was provided to Gladstones.

So they did not act fair or reasonably.

My wife warned them very early on, that she would charge them for her time @ £100 + £50 for every letter she had to send to them, if they did not cease sending her demanding/threatening letters.

More recently, she warned Gladstones she would counter-claim for a min of £500 in compensation for distress caused by unwarranted demands arising from misuse of data obtained from DVLA for one purpose, yet processing it for another purpose not covered by KADOE regs.

How about that? I've convinced myself anyway!

billinghamn

I've prepared a separate statement to support my wife's counter-claim. Now I can't really find any useful examples, on which to base this, so it probably needs loads of work:

Introduction:

1. [Claimant Name] is the Claimant in this matter, acting on behalf of [Parking Company Name].

2. [Defendant Name] is the Defendant in this matter.

3. This is my statement of truth and my counter-claim.

4. As a litigant-in-person, I seek the Court's permission to amend and supplement this counter-claim, as may be required, upon disclosure of the claimant's defence to this counter-claim.

Background is next:

5. Initial exchange of correspondence with ES Parking Enforcement:

· ES Parking Enforcement (ES) issued a Parking Charge Notice (PCN) on [Date]. The PCN quoted a charge of £50 if paid within 14 days. The Defendant responded to this on [Date] requesting additional information, and emphasizing that ES should not send debt collection letters, and not to add on extra costs or surcharges. This response was ignored.

· ES Parking Enforcement issued a Balance Due notification on [Date]. The charge had increased to £100. The Defendant responded to this on [Date], with a copy of the first response. This response was also ignored.

· ES Parking Enforcement issued a Balance Due notification on [Date]. The charge had increased to £125. The Defendant responded to this on [Date], with proposed admin charge of £100 in response to a failure of ES Parking Enforcement to respond to the Defendant’s correspondence. This admin charge was firmly rejected by ES Parking Enforcement within a few days ([Date]).

· The above three exchanges showed that ES Parking Enforcement had no intention of engaging constructively with the Defendant on resolving the PCN dispute, but were quick to reject any suggestion of a counter-claim. ES attempted to bully the Defendant in to paying the increasing charge.

6. Subsequent exchange of correspondence with ZZPS (a debt collection agency):

· Two letters were then issued by ZZPS on [Date] and [Date]. The charge had now risen to £185, although there was no explanation as to how this increase in the charge was justified.

· These letters were of a threatening nature. These were ignored by the Defendant, who was still waiting for a response from ES Parking Enforcement.

7. Subsequent exchange of correspondence with Wright Hassall Solicitors (acting on behalf of ZZPS):

· Two letters were then issued by Wright Hassall Solicitors on [Date] and [Date]. The charge had now risen to £221, although there was no explanation as to how this increase in the charge was justified.

· These letters were also of a threatening nature. These were ignored by the Defendant, who was still waiting for a response from ES Parking Enforcement.

8. That was the last exchange of correspondence ([Date]) until the Claimant (Gladstones Solicitors Limited) was engaged, acting on behalf of ES.

· Three letters before claim were received on [Date], [Date] and [Date]. These letters included some additional information in support of the PCN (including pictures of the Defendant’s vehicle). The defendant responded to each of these with evidence of the parking ticket purchased on the day, an outline of defence and an assertion that if the Claimant proceeded with a claim, the Defendant would counter-claim.

· These letters were also of a threatening nature. Even though the Claimant had no cause for action, and evidence was provided to demonstrate this, the Claimant pursued the Defendant, causing unnecessary stress.

Then the counter-claim section:

4. The Defendant contends that:

· When ES issues a “parking charge” it does not use Schedule 4 of the POFA 2012, therefore ES has no basis whatsoever to write to a registered keeper, except for the single purpose allowed under the DVLA Keeper of a Vehicle at the Date of an Event (KADOE) rules, namely to “enquire who was driving”. ES must not use the data for any other purpose whatsoever, and certainly not to pursue a registered keeper as if the alleged “debt” was their liability in law.


· The Claimant (and its client), has caused distress through the issuing of threatening correspondence when it had no cause for action.

5. Accordingly, the Defendant counter-claims a total of £500:

a) £465 for improper use of DVLA data, (pursuing a registered keeper as if the alleged “debt” was their liability in law) and causing unnecessary distress through the issuing of threatening correspondence when it had no cause for action.

b) £35 court costs for filing a counter claim.

6. Relevant cases suggesting that the level of counter claim amount is not unreasonable:

· A counter-claim was heard in D6GM2199 Civil Enforcement Ltd v Mr B, at Bury County Court in May 2017, DJ Osborne found that the £500 sum claimed by the data subject defendant was not unreasonable. He accepted the argument regarding data misuse under the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA); he accepted the tort of damages and stated that he was disappointed in the claimant bringing an unfounded case. Punitive costs of £405 were granted for unreasonable behaviour, and were paid by the company in addition to the £500 claim.

· Attention should be drawn to a landmark 2017 judgment at the Leeds County Court, 3SP00071 - Blamires v LGO. This was a claim for damages including a matter of a breach of the DPA, for which an award of £2,500 was granted as compensation for distress. As is now relatively well known, the DPA’s original drafting appeared to preclude compensation for distress alone, but the Court of Appeal, in Vidal Hall & ors v Google [2015] EWCA Civ 311, it was held that this was contrary to the provisions of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and that, accordingly, there was a right under the DPA to claim compensation for “pure” distress.

· The award in Blamires was of “Vidal Hall” compensation, with the judge saying there was “no doubt in my mind that the data breaches have caused distress to the claimant in their own rights as well as a result of the consequences that flowed“. The judge awarded a further £2,500 aggravated damages because of the manner in which the Defendant conducted its case, including the fact that, notwithstanding being told by the Claimant that its conduct/data was wrong, it took nearly two years for the Defendant to admit the mistake.

Finishing off with:

I believe that the contents of these particulars of claim are true.




Signed:


Date:

Is this worth pursuing? Is it in the right format? Am I highlighting the right points to justify the counter-claim?

Coupon-mad

Independent Parking Committee

should be International Parking Community. They changed their name.

Your counter-claim doesn't look bad, although there has been limited success with these, it only costs your wife £25 to file it and she should add this fee to her claim. So why not!

I think she should outline much more clearly how VERY distressed this has made her, and the effect on her health, and mention that she will (at the appropriate time) be filing a second witness statement from her husband to corroborate the horrendous distress caused by the Claimant's conduct, and that of their debt collectors/solicitors in harassing and intimidating her so that each day this has gone on, her peace of mind has been shaken, her sleep interrupted with severe worry and distress...etc. Any medication she has taken, or if she had to see her GP about it, etc., should be mentioned.

Make sure she signs this under a statement of truth, as well as signing her defence (two signatures from her, both dated). Not by you, no mention of you needed except in terms of offering a WS later.

billinghamn

Thanks Coupon-mad - will update as per your thoughts. Do you think £500 is going OTT for a counter-claim for distress etc?

Coupon-mad

Not at all, pitched about right.

Make sure your wife contacts the CCBC after her defence & counter-claim are emailed to them (use the ccbcaq email addy in the public domain) to pay the £25 counter-claim fee in good time. The CCB won't ask for it, the system is stupidly automated to assume a defence is a defence only.

The_Deep

We ll done. Make sure she does not eat for three days, eats a bar of soap before she gives evidence, dusts her face with ash, dresses like Miss Haversham, and walks with a stick. Milk it for all it is worth.

billinghamn

Quick update: Defence and counter-claim submitted. Received standard DQ from Gladstones. Submitted our DQ now as well to CCBC and Gladstones.

My wife has submitted her DQ via email (signed and scanned in, converted in to PDF) to the two normal CCBC email addresses. I assume all documentation can be sent in by email to these two email addresses? ([FONT=&quot]Ccbcaq@hmcts.gsi.gov.uk and Ccbc@hmcts.gsi.gov.uk)[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]

billinghamn

Just realised my wife needed to submit her DQ through to our local court, since the case has been transferred there from the CCBC. Now sorted with a few days to spare.