County Court Claim

mercuteio

Coupon-mad wrote: »

Good idea except add a covering email that uses the words you find about asking the court to consolidate the claims, when you search the forum for:

two claims? abuse of process

Then REPEAT that form of words at every stage till a Judge sees it and agrees. I mean at EVERY stage, every form you send in, put a covering note asking for consolidation by a Judge.

Ooh, this is some solid advice! Thanks!!

Sorry for the delayed reply - actually couldn't find the quote for a little while, but eventually realised I was using the search forum the wrong way. I think the words you're referencing are these ones:

The Court is invited to take note that the Claimant has issued two current claims, numbers XXXXXXXX and XXXXXXXX, against the Defendant with substantially identical particulars.

The issuing of separate claims, by the same Claimant and for essentially the same cause of action, is an abuse of the civil litigation process. The long-established case law in Henderson -v- Henderson [1843] 67 ER 313, and more recent authorities, establishes the principle that when a matter becomes the subject of litigation, the parties are required to advance their whole case. In the event that similar matters proceed to claim issue, they must be particularised as a single claim and not as multiple separate cases, otherwise (as an extreme analogy) a builder purportedly owed money by an individual customer, could file a separate claim for each brick laid.

The facts of these cases are duplicated in every respect: Claimant, Defendant, location, parking charge breach allegation, and added unrecoverable 'debt collection' and/or 'legal' costs for each case, that are an abuse of process in themselves, given that the Claimant did not in fact ever incur such costs and that they are disallowed by virtue of the ceilings set in the POFA 2012 and the Supreme Court decision in ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis.

Multiple claims and disproportionate added costs run 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 vacate the other hearing, and the Defendants asks that these two cases be put before a Judge at the earliest opportunity - before allocation - to apply appropriate sanctions against the Claimant for a gross abuse of process and to strike out the imaginary and unrecoverable added 'damages/debt collector' costs, which do not exist even once, let alone multiple times per claim.

Sounds like these need to go in both the defence as well as all of the emails/other communication - is that correct?

Thanks again!

mercuteio

mercuteio wrote: »

The facts of these cases are duplicated in every respect: Claimant, Defendant, location, parking charge breach allegation, and added unrecoverable 'debt collection' and/or 'legal' costs for each case, that are an abuse of process in themselves, given that the Claimant did not in fact ever incur such costs and that they are disallowed by virtue of the ceilings set in the POFA 2012 and the Supreme Court decision in ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis.

Multiple claims and disproportionate added costs run 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 vacate the other hearing, and the Defendants asks that these two cases be put before a Judge at the earliest opportunity - before allocation - to apply appropriate sanctions against the Claimant for a gross abuse of process and to strike out the imaginary and unrecoverable added 'damages/debt collector' costs, which do not exist even once, let alone multiple times per claim.

Man, these are some delicious words, @Coupon-mad!

Ok, I've adapted my previous defence statement to include this at the end. Would someone mind double-checking that this looks ok prior to me submitting?

Thank-you!



IN THE COUNTY COURT

CLAIM NUMBER: XXXXXXXX

BETWEEN:

VEHICLE CONTROL SERVICES LIMITED (Claimant)

- and -

XXXXXXXXXX (Defendant)


DEFENCE STATEMENT


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

2. The facts are that the Defendant was the registered keeper of the vehicle, registration XXXXXXX, on the date 06/05/2019 on which the alleged parking charge notice was issued.

3. 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.

4. 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. The Defendant notes that no less than three separate companies have signage within the same space of land, each claiming that parking represents acceptance by conduct of a contractual agreement with themselves only, and therefore each contradicting the possibility of such actions forming a contractual agreement with those other companies displaying signage. This causes an entirely ambiguous and unclear situation in which there is no certainty as to whom any such contract could be in agreement with, and as such no contract can be construed from the Claimant’s signage under the doctrine of contra proferentem.

5. 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 miniscule 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.

6. 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.

Costs on the claim – disproportionate, disingenuous and an abuse of process

7. 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. Such a claim represents an abuse of process.

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. 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.

10. 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.

11. 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 administrative 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.

12. 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.

13. 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).

14. 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, 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...''

15. 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.

16. 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.

17. 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.

Two substantially identical current claims – a further abuse of process

18. The Court is invited to take note that the Claimant has issued two current claims, numbers XXXXXXXX and XXXXXXXX, against the Defendant with substantially identical particulars.

19. The issuing of separate claims, by the same Claimant and for essentially the same cause of action, is an abuse of the civil litigation process. The long-established case law in Henderson -v- Henderson [1843] 67 ER 313, and more recent authorities, establishes the principle that when a matter becomes the subject of litigation, the parties are required to advance their whole case. In the event that similar matters proceed to claim issue, they must be particularised as a single claim and not as multiple separate cases, otherwise (as an extreme analogy) a builder purportedly owed money by an individual customer, could file a separate claim for each brick laid.

20. The facts of these cases are duplicated in every respect: Claimant, Defendant, location, parking charge breach allegation, and added unrecoverable 'debt collection' and/or 'legal' costs for each case, that are an abuse of process in themselves, given that the Claimant did not in fact ever incur such costs and that they are disallowed by virtue of the ceilings set in the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 and the Supreme Court decision in ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis.

21. Multiple claims and disproportionate added costs run contrary to the overriding objective of Civil Procedure Rule 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 vacate the other hearing, and the Defendant asks that these two cases be put before a Judge at the earliest opportunity - before allocation - to apply appropriate sanctions against the Claimant for a gross abuse of process and to strike out the imaginary and unrecoverable added 'damages/debt collector' costs, which do not exist even once, let alone multiple times per claim.



Statement of Truth:

I believe the facts contained in this Defence Statement are true

KeithP

What is the Issue Date of your second Claim?

When filing that Defence, as C-m suggests, include those words about 'consolidation' in the covering email too.

mercuteio

KeithP wrote: »

What is the Issue Date of your second Claim?

When filing that Defence, as C-m suggests, include those words about 'consolidation' in the covering email too.

Yup, planning to do exactly that, Keith - thank-you. Issue date was 17th October, Acknowledgement of Service went in today, and depending on the reaction of this community’s wisened senate, Defence Statement will probably be submitted tomorrow.

Coupon-mad

Defence looks good. Except the heading:

DEFENCE STATEMENT

No, just:

DEFENCE

mercuteio

Thanks so much, Coupon-mad! Will send off in the morning
Warm regards.

Coupon-mad

Can you add something about the fact the car parks are unclear and it was a medical emergency, which the Claimant knew from the note on the windscreen? I'd be admitting to driving so you can give an honest account at the hearing, in your case.

mercuteio

Coupon-mad wrote: »

Can you add something about the fact the car parks are unclear and it was a medical emergency, which the Claimant knew from the note on the windscreen? I'd be admitting to driving so you can give an honest account at the hearing, in your case.

Hmm, so my thought had been to bring this up in the Witness Statement rather than the Defence. I figured that, whilst this is an important aspect of the story, it's not legally solid so far as I could see (whilst the Road Traffic Act appears to have provisions for emergency care vehicles, it does not appear to obviously extend these to emergency care workers themselves, as far as I can tell). I figured I should probably streamline my Defence to items that are based on solid legal statute, and then can expand on things like the medical emergency in the Witness Statement.

What do you think?

mercuteio

Hello everyone,

Quick question: I am a little late with starting to sort out my witness statement. It's due on Tuesday 19th November at 4pm. Can this be uploaded to the MCOL website, or emailed in? Or does it have to be sent by post?

Just making plans for the next couple of days - if it needs to be posted then I need to be ready to send by first class registered post on Monday (18th Nov).

Thanks a lot!

KeithP

Definitely do not send anything to the CCBC.
You finished dealing with them weeks/months ago.

You have a Notice from the court where the hearing is due to take place that tells you to send everything you 'intend to rely on' to both the court office (from where that notice cam) and the Claimant. The Claimant's address for service of documents is on your Claim Form.

Do not use registered post - whatever that is.

Do not use any service that requires a signature. All that does is allow the intended recipient to refuse to sign and thus refuse delivery. Having proof of non-delivery is not what you want.

Send the Claimant's stuff by standard first class post obtaining a free Certificate of Posting at the Post Office counter. The item is deemed delivered two worling days later.