Court Action for UK CPM Parking Ticket

Coupon-mad

Yes, as per the email addresses you find on here when you search for keywords.

KeithP

Penguin_123 wrote: »

I will be okay to send to Gladstones by email too?

The strict answer is 'only if they have explicitly agreed to be served documents by email'.

And as the Court has already upset them, I would play it by the rules.

The 'rules' being CPR6A para 4.

nosferatu1001

I fail to see anywhere how they have answered the query re consideration, that the court ordered them to provide.

Penguin_123

Thanks for your comments

nosferatu1001 wrote: »

I fail to see anywhere how they have answered the query re consideration, that the court ordered them to provide.

What does the consideration refer to? What would normally be included for that? Is this something I should be putting in my defence?

Thanks.

Penguin_123

So here's my amended defence, I would appreciate some feedback on point 14 (and maybe 15). I am not sure whether to delete 14 or amend it as the new particulars of claim that have been sent do include a solicitors signature.

Thanks for your help.

IN THE COUNTY COURT

CLAIM No: xxxxxxxxxx

BETWEEN:

UK CAR PARK MANAGEMENT LTD (Claimant)

-and-

xxxxxxxxxxxx (Defendant)

________________________________________
DEFENCE
________________________________________

1. The Defendant denies that the Claimant is entitled to relief in the sum claimed, or at all.

2. The facts are that the vehicle, registration XXXX, of which the Defendant is the registered keeper, was parked on the material date on the pavement at XXXX Business Park. The vehicle was insured for 2 drivers and the Defendant was not the driver on the material date.

3. It is denied that the Claimant's signage sets out the terms in a sufficiently clear manner which would be capable of binding any reasonable person reading them. They merely state that vehicles must be parked correctly within their allocated parking bay, giving no definition of the term 'correctly parked', nor indicating which bays are allocated to whom.

4. The Claimant did not display clear, large, prominent signs within the site that were capable of being read from the driver's seat and/or forming a contract, contrary to the BPA CoP, PoFA and the Beavis Vs ParkingEye 2015 case.

5. Even if the court believes the signs were visible, the wording is prohibitive, it states 'no parking outside a marked bay', therefore there was no offer allowing parking, only banning parking where the car was parked. It is therefore unable to offer a legitimate contract allowing parking for £100 if the driver decides to park.
6. This is clear from several cases. An example, PCM-UK v Bull, where residents were parking on access roads. The signage forbade parking and so no contract was in place. A trespass had occurred, but that meant only the landowner could claim, not the parking company.
7. 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.
8. CPR 44.3 (2) states: ''Where the amount of costs is to be assessed on the standard basis, the court will –
(a) only allow costs which are proportionate to the matters in issue. Costs which are disproportionate in amount may be disallowed or reduced even if they were reasonably or necessarily incurred; and
(b) resolve any doubt which it may have as to whether costs were reasonably and proportionately incurred or were reasonable and proportionate in amount in favour of the paying party.

9. Whilst quantified costs can be considered on a standard basis, this Claimant's purported costs are wholly disproportionate and do not stand up to scrutiny.

10. The standard wording for parking charge/debt recovery contracts is on the Debt Recovery Plus website - ''no recovery/no fee'', thus establishing an argument that the Claimant is breaching the indemnity principle - claiming reimbursement for a cost which has never, in fact, been incurred. This is true, whether or not they used a third party debt collector during the process.

11. In fact it is averred that the Claimant has not paid or incurred such damages/costs or 'legal fees' at all. Any debt collection letters were a standard feature of a low cost business model and are already counted within the parking charge itself and there has been no legal advice or personal involvement by any solicitor in churning out this template claim.

12. The Parking Eye Ltd v Beavis case is the authority for recovery of the parking charge itself and no more, since that sum (£85 in Beavis) was held to already incorporate the minor costs of an automated private parking business model. There are no losses or damages caused by this business model and the Supreme Court Judges held that a parking firm not in possession cannot plead any part of their case in damages.

13. Unlike this mendacious and greedy Claimant, ParkingEye themselves took on board the Beavis case outcome and they never add fake costs on top of the parking charge. It is indisputable that an alleged 'parking charge' penalty is a sum which the Supreme Court found is already inflated to more than comfortably cover all costs. The case provides a finding of fact by way of precedent, that the £85 (or up to a Trade Body ceiling of £100 depending upon the parking firm) covers the costs of the letters, and all parking firms are very familiar with this case:

http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKSC/2015/67.html


at para 98. {re ...The desirability of running that parking scheme at no cost, or ideally some profit, to themselves} ''Against this background, it can be seen that the £85 charge had two main objects. One was to manage the efficient use of parking space in the interests of the retail outlets, and of the users of those outlets who wish to find spaces in which to park their cars [...] The other purpose was to provide an income stream to enable ParkingEye to meet the costs of operating the scheme and make a profit from its services...''

at para 193. ''Judging by ParkingEye’s accounts, and unless the Chelmsford car park was out of the ordinary, the scheme also covered ParkingEye's costs of operation and gave their shareholders a healthy annual profit.''

at para 198. ''The charge has to be and is set at a level which enables the managers to recover the costs of operating the scheme. It is here also set at a level enabling ParkingEye to make a profit.''


14. Any purported 'legal costs' are also made up out of thin air. Given the fact that robo-claim solicitors and parking firms process tens of thousands of claims handled by an admin team or paralegals, the Defendant avers that no solicitor is likely to have supervised this current batch of cut & paste claims. The court is invited to note that no named Solicitor has signed the Particulars, in breach of Practice Direction 22, and rendering the statement of truth a nullity.

15. According to Ladak v DRC Locums UKEAT/0488/13/LA a Claimant can only recover the direct and provable costs of the time spent preparing the claim in a legal capacity, not any administration costs allegedly incurred by already remunerated administrative staff.

16. The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4 (POFA) makes it clear that the will of Parliament regarding parking on private land is that the only sum potentially able to be recovered is the sum in any compliant 'Notice to Keeper' (and the ceiling for a 'parking charge', as set by the Trade Bodies and the DVLA, is £100). This also depends upon the Claimant fully complying with the statute, including 'adequate notice' of the parking charge and prescribed documents served in time/with mandatory wording. It is submitted the claimant has failed on all counts and the Claimant is well aware their artificially inflated claim, as pleaded, constitutes double recovery.

17. Judges have disallowed all added parking firm 'costs' in County courts up and down the Country. In Claim number F0DP201T on 10th June 2019, District Judge Taylor sitting at the County Court at Southampton, echoed earlier General Judgment or Orders of DJ Grand, who (when sitting at the Newport (IOW) County Court in 2018 and 2019) has struck out several parking firm claims. These include a BPA member serial Claimant (Britannia, using BW Legal's robo-claim model) and an IPC member serial Claimant (UKCPM, using Gladstones' robo-claim model) yet the Orders have been identical in striking out both claims without a hearing, with the Judge stating: ''It is ordered that The claim is struck out as an abuse of process. The claim contains a substantial charge additional to the parking charge which it is alleged the Defendant contracted to pay. This additional charge is not recoverable under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4 nor with reference to the judgment in ParkingEye v Beavis. It is an abuse of process from the Claimant to issue a knowingly inflated claim for an additional sum which it is not entitled to recover. This order has been made by the court of its own initiative without a hearing pursuant to CPR Rule 3.3(4) of the Civil Procedure Rules 1998...''

18. That is not an isolated judgment striking a parking claim out for repeatedly adding sums they are not entitled to recover. In the Caernarfon Court in Case number FTQZ4W28 (Vehicle Control Services Ltd v Davies) on 4th September 2019, District Judge Jones-Evans stated:

''Upon it being recorded that District Judge Jones-Evans has over a very significant period of time warned advocates [...] in many cases of this nature before this court that their claim for £60 is unenforceable in law and is an abuse of process and is nothing more than a poor attempt to go behind the decision of the Supreme Court v Beavis which inter alia decided that a figure of £160 as a global sum claimed in this case would be a penalty and not a genuine pre-estimate of loss and therefore unenforceable in law and if the practice continued he would treat all cases as a claim for £160 and therefore a penalty and unenforceable in law it is hereby declared [...] the claim is struck out and declared to be wholly without merit and an abuse of process.''

19. In summary, the Claimant's particulars disclose no legal basis for the sum claimed and it is the Defendant's position that the poorly pleaded claim discloses no cause of action and no liability in law for any sum at all. The Claimant's vexatious conduct from the outset has been intimidating, misleading and indeed untrue in terms of the added costs alleged and the statements made, in trying to justify the unjustifiable.

20. There are several options available within the Courts' case management powers to prevent vexatious litigants pursuing a wide range of individuals for matters which are near-identical, with meritless claims and artificially inflated costs. The Defendant is of the view that private parking firms operate as vexatious litigants and that relief from sanctions should be refused.

21. The Court is invited to make an Order of its own initiative, dismissing this claim in its entirety and to allow such Defendant's costs as are permissible under Civil Procedure Rule 27.14 on the indemnity basis, taking judicial note of the wholly unreasonable conduct of this Claimant.

Statement of Truth:

I believe the facts contained in this Defence are true.

Name
Signature
Date

Coupon-mad

Penguin_123 wrote: »

What does the consideration refer to? What would normally be included for that? Is this something I should be putting in my defence?

I already answered that in my first reply, did you miss it?

'no parking outside a marked bay'
...could be argued to be a prohibition, such that there was no consideration provided by the claimant. No offer allowing parking, only banning parking, where the car was parked.

Penguin_123

Thanks Coupon mad, I didn't realize it was the same point at first. I have included that in my defence above.

I have just come across this when searching for some background of past cases on the judge for my case - would you recommend including any of this:

- in May 2017, in case D6GM2199 CEL v Mr B, Bury County Court, before DJ Osborne, a motorist was awarded £900 because another ex-clamper parking company of the same type as your client (in this case, Civil Enforcement Limited) committed data protection breaches against him. Mr B. was the vehicle keeper but was not the driver on the day. As the NTK was not POFA compliant (same as your client's NTK), the parking firm had no valid claim against the keeper. In addition, Wright Hassall (mirroring the conduct of BW Legal's robo-claim modus operandi) had acted unreasonably in artificially inflating the claim from £100 to £300 by adding spurious amounts.

Mr B filed a counterclaim and this was upheld. In his judgment, DJ Osborne ruled a data breach had occurred, the tort of damages was applicable and that £500 was not an unreasonable amount in the circumstances. He added an additional £405 in costs, part of which were awarded on the indemnity basis, under rule 27.14.2(g) for the unreasonable behaviour of CEL. The Judge also stated he was disappointed in the claimant bringing an unfounded case, and in the behaviour of Wright Hassall who were otherwise a respectable law firm.

Penguin_123

Sorry for all the questions...does it matter in my case if I can prove I was not driving...ie/ emails/CCTV showing I was at work at time? Not sure what I can obtain yet, but thought it could be useful.

Coupon-mad

No, I would not use those.

In your draft defence you have the wrong citation of the Beavis case, plus the Bull case thrown in but without its claim number or court, and acronyms without explaining what they mean first:

contrary to the BPA CoP, PoFA and the Beavis Vs ParkingEye 2015 case.

Assume your Judge doesn't know what ANY of the above means and has never heard of PCM v Bull. And the Beavis case needs its full citation the first time you mention it (as seen in lots of defences every day here!).

As well as Bull, I have heard about another parking case decision like it which also has a transcript that we might be able to start using:

CENTRAL LONDON COUNTY COURT on 15.8.19, claim no. F6G5322Z, ​​PACE RECOVERY & STORAGE LIMITED​ v Mr F, where the Defendant prevailed and the Judge's reasoning was twofold:

''firstly, lack of signage and secondly the wording of the sign was such that it does not lead one to conclude that this is a contract [...]...the wording was: “This is a no parking area. Warning, private land, 24 hour enforcement zone”. The inference to be drawn by the reasonable motorist looking at that would not be that a contract may be formed if you pay £100...''

No consideration = no contract (nothing of value) offered, does that make sense?

KeithP

But the point that nosferatu1001 was making about 'consideration' is that the Claimant has failed to comply with para 2(c) of the Court Order: "If a contract is alleged, what was the consideration provided by the claimant and what was the breach of contract".

Perhaps that failing should be mentioned somewhere in your Defence - maybe after para 5.

Maybe something along the lines of:

It should be noted that the Claimant's Particulars of Claim has failed to identify the consideration offered, as required by para 2(c) of the Court Order dated dd/mm/2019.