CEL Claim Struck out. New claim submitted.

mrlowkey

Hi Guys, firstly just wanted to say thankyou to the contributors to this forum. It's been invaluable so far in my escapade.

I have a procedural question as I haven't been able to find a previous example of this scenario on the forum.
I received the following instructions information from the court:

Paragraph 1)

1) Claim form struck out as failing to disclose reasonable grounds for bringing the claim. Permission to file and serve a revised claim disclosing the merits by 4.00pm on ddMM 2018
2) Unless the Claimant complies with paragraph 1) by 4.00pm on ddMM 2018 the claim shall be automatically struck out.
3) If the claimant complies with paragraph 1) Defendent must file and serve an Amended Defence by 4.00pm ddMM

Paragraph 2) Responsibilities to CEL for not getting this struck out and paying court fees

Paragraph 3)
The hearing of the claim will take place at 10am on ddMM 2018 at the XXXXXX county court and should take no longer than 1 hour.

Each party shall deliver to every other party and to the court office copies of all documents on which he intends to rely at the hearing. These may include:

The contract, witness statements, experts, photographs.

CEL and the illustrious Ashely Cohen have resubmitted a witness statement, essentially a more elaborate version of the original sparse claim still with no photos, contracts, exhibits etc etc. Just a larger elaboration on Beavis, Waltham/Vine, and some thorughly baffling references to Cavendish v El Makdessi

I'm currently amending my defence. My question is are they expecting the full witness statements etc to be delivered with the amended defence as the final bundle on the date defined in:

3) If the claimant complies with paragraph 1) Defendent must file and serve an Amended Defence by 4.00pm ddMM

Or can I deliver the court bundle / witness statment after the resubmitted defence?

Thanks for any help in advance.,

Me

KeithP

So the claimant has been instructed to re-submit Particulars of Claim.

They appear to have done that.

You should not expect witness statements and other evidence at that stage.

Paragraph 3 seems to say that as no court date has yet been set, we cannot tell you when exactly all parties should submit their documents they intend to rely on.

Now you have the new PoCs, you need to provide your Defence as instructed in para 1) point 3).

mrlowkey

Many thanks, I've just ammended the first post to be a bit clearer. The bundle received after the original was struck out was their witness statement. Not a resubmitted particulars of the claim. Or are they one in the same thing? And the court date has been set in paragraph 3. Ammending that now.

Coupon-mad

3) If the claimant complies with paragraph 1) Defendent must file and serve an Amended Defence by 4.00pm ddMM

An amended defence should only be the defence, not the WS and evidence. However:

And the court date has been set in paragraph 3

Does it say anywhere on the back, or on page 2, the date by which both parties must file their final WS and evidence? Might say 'not later than 14 days before the hearing'?

We hope the driver was never admitted and your defence mentions lack of keeper liability?

mrlowkey

Only reference on page 2 is: Please Note: "Documents filed less than 2 clear days prior to the hearing are not guaranteed to be filed on the court file"

Ok so just the defence for now. Perfect thanks for the help.

Unfortunately this all kicked off before the CEL defence was clear cut. And when I tried to post my defence for review on here I got IP banned. Apparently something to do with the site not liking DOCX format copy and pastes.

Taken months and a few apologies from the forum tech staff to get the issue resolved. So need to work with what I have.

The lack of keeper liabilities was mentioned, unfortunately the section which highlights that every payment machine in the car park was out of order with evidence. indicates that the defendant was present. So the case is based on inability to complete contract due to negligence of the land owner / claimant in maintaining payment machines. Which is the reason I never paid the fine in the first place because I spent 20 minutes with 50p trying to find a slot to put it into to no avail.

KeithP

mrlowkey wrote: »

...when I tried to post my defence for review on here I got IP banned. Apparently something to do with the site not liking DOCX format copy and pastes.

This thread explains:

Please don't copy and paste from Word/Outlook

Basically, if you want to copy from Word, do it via Notepad.
Apparently, some of the Word formatting stuff looks like a spam attack, or something.

mrlowkey wrote: »

The lack of keeper liabilities was mentioned, unfortunately the section which highlights that every payment machine in the car park was out of order with evidence. indicates that the defendant was present.

Surely the fact that defendant knows the state of all the payment machines only indicates that the defendant was present. It certainly does not prove that the defendant was driving.
How many seats in your car? More than one?

mrlowkey

So the date is well passed for the Claimant to resubmit the claim and all I've only received a Witness statement bundle. I'm assuming the court will accept this as a claim resubmission? Or have they missed a formality where they should have resubmitted the particulars?

KeithP

It is possible that they have submitted something entirely different to the court.

Ring the court and ask if they have received the new PoC.

mrlowkey

I'm not sure if I can get away with lack of keeper liabilities with the below section appended to the original defence:

- This case can be further distinguished from the Beavis case in that every possible reasonable endeavour to make payment was made by the defendant on the day of the PCN at the car park site based on the information read prior to his journey to the car park and preparations made. But was inhibited by faulty payment machine, misinformation on the landowners website, and lack of information on the car park site on the day of the PCN.

- The defence would like to bring attention to the court the information provided on the landowner!!!8217;s website at the time of the apparent infringement in Appendix A below. Prior to visiting the car park, the defendant had read the minimal information provided namely !!!8220;Pay at meter car park facilities !!!8211; members are free!!!8221;. The defendant on route to the car park made provisions for payment and ensured he had varied coins to facilitate payment on arrival. The defence would also like to highlight that on landowner!!!8217;s car parking information page there is no mention of any alternate payment methods available, so no preparation was made for the possibility of an alternate payment method being available. The defence believes that the information provided constitutes a basic offer of terms and the defendant made every feasible endeavour to fulfil payment on arrival at the car park. It is also worthy of note that since this date the landowner has removed this page from its website further collaborating the fact that the information was inadequate and misleading.

- The defendant made an extensive search of the car park area but payment was made impossible by the only payment machine in the car park area being out of order which can be corroborated by the photo in Appendix B which was taken on the day the PCN notice arrived after the supposed infringement and PCN was issued. Media reports of the vandalism of the machine prior to the supposed PCN infringement date further corroborate that the machine was out of order on the day of the PCN was issued.

- The temporary !!!8216;Sandwich Board!!!8217; next to the out of order payment machine that can be seen in the photo in Appendix B was not there on the day of the supposed infringement and the PCN was issued. There is no other information in the car park advising that there was a secondary payment machine inside a nearby building out of site of the car park area. Had this been in the car park on the day of PCN issue then the defendant would have promptly followed the instructions found the secondary payment machines inside the building and payed as he did the day the photo was taken. This is a temporary fixture and it is assumed that this was being put out each morning by staff of the landowner and taken into the building in the evening. This duty had been neglected on the day of the issued PCN.

Coupon-mad

The lack of keeper liabilities was mentioned, unfortunately the section which highlights that every payment machine in the car park was out of order with evidence. indicates that the defendant was present.

The defendant can certainly be identified as an occupant of the car, but still argue 'no keeper liability' because being a person in the car is not admitting to driving.

Luckily, CEL cases do get discontinued when they see a decent defence and they tend not to pay the hearing fee, just send a stupid 'half price offer/press release' letter when crawl back under their stone.

The_Deep

This is an entirely unregulated industry which is scamming the public with inflated claims for minor breaches of contracts for alleged parking offences, aided and abetted by a handful of low-rent solicitors.

Parking Eye, CPM, Smart, and another company have already been named and shamed, as has Gladstones Solicitors, and BW Legal, (these two law firms take hundreds of these cases to court each year). They lose most of them, and have been reported to the regulatory authority by an M.P. for unprofessional conduct

Hospital car parks and residential complex tickets have been especially mentioned.

The problem has become so rampant that MPs have agreed to enact a Bill to regulate these scammers. Watch the video of the Second Reading in the HofC recently.

http://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/2f0384f2-eba5-4fff-ab07-cf24b6a22918?in=12:49:41

and complain in the most robust terms to your MP. With a fair wind most of these companies may well be put out of business by Christmas.