CEL Court Claim Defence Help Please

Coupon-mad

Oh OK, that's a shame you didn't come here soon enough to protect that winning position & win it with one email appeal. You can't use the POFA then, in defence, but just use everything else!

Batman2797

Hey all, an amended draft defence below... will be looking to submit tomorrow via email as advised as the last day to do so is Monday 4th.

IN THE COUNTY COURT

CLAIM No: **********

BETWEEN:

Civil Enforcement LTD (Claimant)

-and-

********** (Defendant)

________________________________________
DEFENCE
________________________________________

1) The Claimant is a serial litigant whose business model is to file large numbers of spurious claims and pressure defendants into paying up by
sending letters with increasing costs. In a preliminary hearing for a number of cases in Bristol, HHJ Denyer expressed his concern at the way the Claimant were
conducting their cases and described the letters as a disgrace.

2) It is submitted that neither the Claim form or particulars of claim meet the requirements of practice directions and civil procedures.

3) The Claim form states that the location of the incident is 'Mattress Man', however no other previous correspondence from the Claimant has mentioned this as the location. Therefore it appears that the Claimant may be trying to Claim for something new or different.

4) The Claim Form was not correctly filed under The Practice Direction as it was not signed by a legal person. The claim does not have a valid signature and is not a statement of truth. It states that it has been issued: Civil Enforcement: Claimant's Legal Representative. Practice Direction 22 requires that a statement of case on behalf of a company must be signed by a person holding a senior position and state the position. If the party is legally represented, the legal representative may sign the statement of truth but in his own name and not that of his firm or employer.

5) The Claimant is put to strict proof that it has sufficient proprietary interest in the land, or that it has the necessary authorisation from the landowner to issue parking charge notices, and to pursue payment by means of litigation.

6) The Defendant has not breached any alleged terms and conditions as stated on any signage. The Defendant was within the 1 hour free parking as allowed. The defendant has photographic and voice recorded evidence that the Claimant knowingly and brazenly allows customers to breach the terms and conditions stated on the parking signs at the location. This proves that the Claimant is choosing when to apply their terms and conditions and when not to, thus making their claim in this case unfair and frankly disgraceful.

7) i)The Claimant has added unrecoverable sums to the original parking charge. It is believed that the employee who drew up the paperwork is remunerated, and the particulars of claim are templates, so it is simply not credible that £50 legal representatives costs were incurred. The Claim form is clearly signed by 'Civil Enforcement Limited' and so proves that they have not instructed any solicitors to act on their behalf and therefore have not incurred any legal representative costs of which they are claiming.

ii)The Defendant believes that Civil Enforcement Ltd has artificially inflated this claim. They are claiming legal costs when not only is this not permitted (CPR 27.14) but the Defendant believes that they have not incurred legal costs. According to Ladak v DRC Locums UKEAT/0488/13/LA the claimant can only recover the direct and provable costs of the time spent on preparing the claim in a legal capacity, not any administration cost. The Defendant denies that the Claimant is entitled to any interest whatsoever. The claimant has not explained how the claim has increased from the original parking notice to £337.02.

iii) A timeline of correspondence received from Civil Enforcement Ltd and the charges stated follows as below:
• 07/06/2017- Parking Charge Notice- £100
• 14/07/2017- Parking Charge Notice Reminder- £100
• 09/11/2017- Letter Before Action- £140 (£40 increase not explained).
• 18/04/2018- Passed to 'ZZPS' - £200 (£60 increase for administration costs of passing to ZZPS).
• 04/05/2018- ZZPS - £200
• 25/05/2018- Passed to 'QDR Solicitors' claiming to be acting on behalf of ZZPS- £236 (£36 increase for passing to QDR)
• 12/06/2018- QDR Solicitors- £236.
• 24/08/2018- Passed back to Civil Enforcement- £236
• 01/10/2018- N1 Claim Form- Total £337.02 (£262.02- because interest added to £236, plus £25 court fee, plus £50 legal representatives costs)

The above timeline illustrates how the Claimant has inflated the costs without just cause. The letter before action was served 11 months prior to them actually applying to the courts with the N1 Claim form. In between that time they passed it to two other companies to incur further charges despite there being no basis for them. It is fact that QDR Solicitors could never have taken court action against the defendant (despite threatening it) as they have no direct interest in the alleged charge, therefore their involvement was needless, as was ZZPS.

8) In summary, it is the Defendant's position that the claim discloses no cause of action, is without merit, and has no real prospect of success. Accordingly, the Court is invited to strike out the claim of its own initiative, using its case management powers pursuant to CPR 3.4.

I believe the facts contained in this Defence are true.

Name
Signature
Date

Coupon-mad

1) The Claimant is a serial litigant whose business model is to file large numbers of spurious claims and pressure defendants into paying up by
sending letters with increasing costs. In a preliminary hearing for a number of cases in Bristol, HHJ Denyer expressed his concern at the way the Claimant were
conducting their cases and described the letters as a disgrace.

The above needs dumping. Absolutely not the thing to say in the first paragraph of a defence!

Instead, admit being the rk, admit the car was there and admit being the driver (i.e. respond to every word in the POC) and deny any contract was formed (and say why).

System

Is #4 correct? What does it have in the signature box?

As regards the timeline, where are the dates of your responses to the letters. All that shows is that they have had to send lots of letters then a claim to get a response.

If you are going to use a timeline, show you have been reasonable in sorting the matter early. Not ignoring.

Batman2797

Is #4 correct? What does it have in the signature box?

It literally says verbatim:

The Claimant believes that the facts stated in this claim form are true and I am duly authorised by the Claimant to sign this statement.

Signed: Civil Enforcement Limited
(Claimant's Legal Representative)

Batman2797

Amended defence-


IN THE COUNTY COURT

CLAIM No: ********

BETWEEN:

Civil Enforcement LTD (Claimant)

-and-

********* (Defendant)

________________________________________
DEFENCE
________________________________________

1) It is submitted that neither the Claim form or particulars of claim meet the requirements of practice directions and civil procedures.

2) The Defendant has not breached any alleged terms and conditions. The Defendant was within the 1 hour free parking as allowed. The defendant has photographic and voice recorded evidence that the Claimant knowingly and brazenly allows customers to breach the terms and conditions stated on the parking signs at the location. This proves that the Claimant is choosing when to apply their terms and conditions and when not to, thus making their claim in this case unfair and frankly disgraceful. As a result, no contract was ever formed.

3) The Claim form states that the location of the incident is 'Mattress Man', however no other previous correspondence from the Claimant has mentioned this as the location. Therefore it appears that the Claimant may be trying to Claim for something new or different. In which case the Defendant has no knowledge as to why this Claim has arisen or what the alleged charge is for.

4) The Claimant is put to strict proof that it has sufficient proprietary interest in the land, or that it has the necessary authorisation from the landowner to issue parking charge notices, and to pursue payment by means of litigation.

5) The Claim Form was not correctly filed under The Practice Direction as it was not signed by a legal person. The claim does not have a valid signature and is not a statement of truth. It states that it has been issued: Civil Enforcement: Claimant's Legal Representative. Practice Direction 22 requires that a statement of case on behalf of a company must be signed by a person holding a senior position and state the position. If the party is legally represented, the legal representative may sign the statement of truth but in his own name and not that of his firm or employer.

6) i)The Claimant has added unrecoverable sums to the original parking charge. It is believed that the employee who drew up the paperwork is remunerated, and the particulars of claim are templates, so it is simply not credible that £50 legal representatives costs were incurred. The Claim form is clearly signed by 'Civil Enforcement Limited' and so proves that they have not instructed any solicitors to act on their behalf and therefore have not incurred any legal representative costs of which they are claiming.

ii)The Defendant believes that Civil Enforcement Ltd has artificially inflated this claim. They are claiming legal costs when not only is this not permitted (CPR 27.14) but the Defendant believes that they have not incurred legal costs. According to Ladak v DRC Locums UKEAT/0488/13/LA the claimant can only recover the direct and provable costs of the time spent on preparing the claim in a legal capacity, not any administration cost. The Defendant denies that the Claimant is entitled to any interest whatsoever. The claimant has not explained how the claim has increased from the original parking notice to £337.02.

iii) A timeline of correspondence received from Civil Enforcement Ltd and the charges stated follows as below:

• 07/06/2017- Parking Charge Notice- £100
• 12/06/2017- Defendant appealed to the Claimant in writing
• 20/06/2017- Claimant declined appeal (giving Defendant 28 days to appeal via POPLA now)
• Claimant appealed via POPLA
• 14/07/2017- Parking Charge Notice Reminder- £100 (sent out despite appeal being lodged via POPLA and within 28 days to do so)
• 14/08/2017- POPLA appeal declined
• 09/11/2017- Letter Before Action- £140 (£40 increase not explained).
• 18/04/2018- Passed to 'ZZPS' - £200 (£60 increase for administration costs of passing to ZZPS).
• 04/05/2018- ZZPS - £200
• 25/05/2018- Passed to 'QDR Solicitors' claiming to be acting on behalf of ZZPS- £236 (£36 increase for passing to QDR)
• 12/06/2018- QDR Solicitors- £236.
• 24/08/2018- Passed back to Civil Enforcement- £236
• 01/10/2018- N1 Claim Form- Total £337.02 (£262.02- because interest added to £236, plus £25 court fee, plus £50 legal representatives costs)

The above timeline illustrates how the Claimant has inflated the costs without just cause. The letter before action was served 11 months prior to them actually applying to the courts with the N1 Claim form. In between that time they passed it to two other companies to incur further charges despite there being no basis for them. It is fact that QDR Solicitors could never have taken court action against the defendant (despite threatening it) as they have no direct interest in the alleged charge, therefore their involvement was needless, as was ZZPS.

7) In summary, it is the Defendant's position that the claim discloses no cause of action, is without merit, and has no real prospect of success. Accordingly, the Court is invited to strike out the claim of its own initiative, using its case management powers pursuant to CPR 3.4.

I believe the facts contained in this Defence are true.

Name
Signature
Date

Coupon-mad

Shouldn't this say:

2) The Defendant has not breached any alleged terms and conditions. The signage is misleading as the terms actually do not apply 24 hours per day as stated. The Defendant was within the 1 hour free parking as allowed during the opening times of the site. The Defendant avers that the 1 hour offered does not apply when the shops are shut and can evidence this from the Store Managers.

And re this:

The above timeline illustrates how the Claimant has inflated the costs without just cause. The letter before action was served 11 months prior to them actually applying to the courts with the N1 Claim form. In between that time they passed it to two other companies to incur further charges despite there being no basis for them. It is fact that QDR Solicitors could never have taken court action against the defendant (despite threatening it) as they have no direct interest in the alleged charge, therefore their involvement was needless, as was ZZPS.

The above needs a para number which should be 7.

Also, you are suggesting wrongly that the use of debt collectors/QDR has caused added costs...when in fact it's the opposite that you should be saying!

We know that ZZPS and QDR only operate for parking firms on a no-win-no-fee basis, harassing people with demands that in fact cost the Claimant nothing at all. Hence, the addition of alleged 'debt collection costs/damages' is a lie and you should say so.

BTW, you can find defences including 'good faith' easily, by using the forum search for good faith understandable ingredient true

...and use advanced search TO SHOW RESULTS AS POSTS (not threads!) and on THIS forum only...

In a split second you will be looking at defences that talk about misleading signs and good faith. Your draft has not attacked the misleading signs nor has it said how the case can be distinguished from BEAVIS. The results of your forum search will show you those words to use.

Batman2797

Sadly it was too late. I submitted in the afternoon

I did add stuff about CRA 2015 and good faith though thankfully.

Annoyingly MCOL isnt letting me log back in though so I don't know how I will check to see if they have registered my defence?? Guessing I can ring them on Tuesday or Wednesday. I did get an automated email back saying they received it at least.

Many thanks for all of your help, massively appreciated.

All I can do now is wait and see I suppose. I'll keep you posted.

Coupon-mad

Yep ring them on Tuesday to check.

You can tear the alleged 'damages/costs' apart in the WS.

KeithP

I think I would be ringing the CCBC on Monday to check that they have dealt with your Defence.

Tuesday/Wednesday may be too late. These automated PPCs may try for a Default Judgment anytime after 4pm on Monday and the MCOL system will grant it automatically.