Received a county court claim form. Please help

Redx

the bottom


be careful how you write these things from now on, its too easy to slip up , better to not slip up at all by avoiding the words


"MY , ME , MYSELF & I"

Coupon-mad

I have found the abuse of process paragraphs, where's the best part in 'barepoles' example to add them into?

You can work that out, as you know what they are talking about (costs). Read it and it will make sense.

Please see my reply as you need the other wording about two claims and you need to make yourself a note to reply to EVERY court letter repeating the words.

TS_1186

I'm going to send this off tonight. Please have a look and tell me what you think.

1. The Defendant denies that the Claimant is entitled to relief in the sum claimed, or at all. The Court is invited to take note that the Claimant has issued two claims, numbers XXXXXXXX and XXXXXXXX, against the Defendant at or around the same date, and with substantially identical particulars. It is submitted that this constitutes an abuse of process, making the Defendant potentially liable for two instances of issue fees, solicitor costs, and hearing fees, and runs contrary to the overriding objective of CPR 1.1, the disposal of cases justly and at proportionate cost. The Court is invited to consolidate the claims to be determined at a single hearing, and to apply appropriate sanctions against the Claimant.

2. The facts are that the vehicle, registration XXXX XXX, of which the Defendant is the registered keeper, was parked on the material date in a very poorly marked bay allocated to a business which no longer looks in operation on XXXXX street in XXXXXXX. The car park itself is off a public road which gives no clear indication to be a private car park upon entering.

3. The Particulars of Claim state that the Defendant was the registered keeper and/or the driver of the vehicle(s). These assertions indicate that the Claimant has failed to identify a Cause of Action, and is simply offering a menu of choices. As such, the Claim fails to comply with Civil Procedure Rule 16.4, or with Civil Practice Direction 16, paras. 7.3 to 7.5. Further, the particulars of the claim do not meet the requirements of Practice Direction 16 7.5 as there is nothing which specifies how the terms were breached.

4. Due to the sparseness of the particulars, it is unclear as to what legal basis the claim is brought, whether for breach of contract, contractual liability, or trespass. However, it is denied that the Defendant, or any driver of the vehicle, entered into any contractual agreement with the Claimant, whether express, implied, or by conduct.

5. Further and in the alternative, 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.

6. The terms on the Claimant's signage are also displayed in a font which is too small to be read from a passing vehicle, and is in such a position that anyone attempting to read the tiny font would be unable to do so easily. It is, therefore, denied that the Claimant's signage is capable of creating a legally binding contract.

7. The Claimant is put to strict proof that it has sufficient prorpietary 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. The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4, at Section 4(5) states that the maximum sum that may be recovered from the keeper is the charge stated on the Notice to Keeper, in this case £100. The claim includes an additional £60, for which no calculation or explanation is given, and which appears to be an attempt at double recovery. This Claim is an Abuse of Process and the Claim should be struck out as the costs on the claim are disproportionate and disingenuous
8.1. 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.
8.2. 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. 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.
8.3. 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. It is indisputable that the alleged 'parking charge' itself is a sum which the Supreme Court found is already inflated to more than comfortably cover the cost of all letters.
8.4. 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.
8.5. 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.
8.6. 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.
8.7. 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 an earlier General Judgment or Order of DJ Grand, who on 21st February 2019 sitting at the Newport (IOW) County Court, had struck out a parking firm claim. One was a BPA member serial Claimant (Britannia, using BW Legal's robo-claim model) and one an IPC member serial Claimant (UKCPM, using Gladstones' robo-claim model) yet the Order was identical in striking out both claims without a hearing:
''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...''
8.8. 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 mendacious in terms of the added costs alleged.
8.9. 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.
8.10. 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, not least due to the abuse of process in repeatedly attempting to claim fanciful costs which they are not entitled to recover.

9. 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.

KeithP

TS_1186 wrote: »

I'm going to send this off tonight.

Why is that then?

Are you expecting instant responses to your request for comments?

Remember...

...you have until 4pm on Tuesday 27th August 2019 to file your Defence.

Do not rush this step. Take your time and get it right.

Le_Kirk

Order was identical in striking out both claims without a hearing:
''IT IS ORDERED THAT The claim is struck out as an abuse of process.

Better as: -

Order was identical in striking out both claims without a hearing. The defendant quotes the words of the district judge:
''IT IS ORDERED THAT The claim is struck out as an abuse of process.

This is to make sure the court understands you are quoting from a judgment not issuing an order or instruction to this court.

TS_1186

I am on holidays for the next two weeks, so I figured i'll send it off now.

TS_1186

Hi all,
its been a long time, but I now have my court hearing.
Please could someone help me at this stage.
So from what I've read I understand I would need to submit a witness statement. I have seen the examples which I intend to use.
I'm just wondering where do I send this witness statement? Is there a way I can send it via email?
Also is there anything else I need to do?
I will be gathering evidence regarding the signage and the lack of warnings upon entering the car park.
If there's anything else please advise.
Thanks.

Coupon-mad

Read and copy what monkeynuts45 did.

His thread is a shining example; he understood the issues and his thread includes his WS and skeleton argument and exhibits, v ES Parking.

You also need to read CEC16's thread to understand the thing about PPCs not being allowed to add £60.

nosferatu1001

You cannot leave it 5 months to then ask wher eyou send your witness statement to....

SERVE on the claimant by sending it to the address on the claim form. STRICTLY according to the rules you cannot use email unless they have agreed you can, HOWEVER if you have already been exchanging docs over email - for example the DQ - it would be hard for them to say it was OK for one and not the other.

FILE with the court by taking it in, by hand, and giving them the nicely filed divided titled etc folder with everything in it.

What is your deadline to have this with the C and the Court? Usuaully it i 14 days before the hearing, but NEVER assume.

TS_1186

I am slightly confused with if I can send my witness statement with my evidence to the claimant via email. On some threads it says I can, however here it says I cant?
Also if I make a video showing me entering the car park, should I save this video on a USB and include it with my Witness statement when I give this to the courts by hand?