Horizon parking court claim

winner1111

Le_Kirk wrote: »

It's a standard Bargepole defence from the NEWBIE sticky post # 2 and, if it suits your circumstances, you could submit it but, since you mention additional charges AND you have time, search the forum for a thread by beamerguy (with a comment on it at post #14 by Coupon-mad) about abuse of process. Search also for posts by others about abuse of process and how they used it in their defence.

Fantastic, thanks! I have used that to edit the defence and this is now below. I copied and pasted the ending 'Costs on the claim - disproportionate and disingenuous'. Please take a look.
Also, would I need to attach images of the signage/lack thereof of the car park in question to the defence or would this be saved for the WS?
................................................................................................................................................
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 in a marked bay at XXXX Retail Park. The car park was free.

3. The Particulars of Claim state that the Defendant XXXX; was the registered keeper and/or the driver of the vehicle XXXX XXX;. 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. Upon entering the car park from the Birmingham Road, Park Road roundabout, there is no signage whatsoever indicating parking terms and conditions.

6. Further and in the alternative, it is denied that the claimant's signage within the car park sets out the terms in a sufficiently clear manner which would be capable of binding any reasonable person reading them. The signs which are present are not visible to each driver who has parked their vehicle and are at a height that makes the print significantly difficult to read.

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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 £80. The claim includes an additional £70 (‘contractual costs pursuant to the Contract and PCN terms and conditions’) which appears to be an attempt at double recovery and also legal representative’s costs of £50 for which no calculation or explanation is given. There is also statutory interest added onto the total, this coming to £22.27. The total amount adds up to £247.27.

10. 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.

Costs on the claim - disproportionate and disingenuous

- 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.

- 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.

- 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.

- It is trite law that non-existent and untrue 'legal costs' are also unrecoverable. 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.

- 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.

- 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.

- Many informed Court Court Judges have disallowed all added parking firm 'costs' in County courts, such as these cases, struck out in recent months without a hearing, due solely to the pretence of adding 'damages' blatantly made up out of thin air.

(a) In Claim number F0DP163T on 11th July 2019, District Judge Grand sitting at the County Court at Southampton, struck out a overly inflated (over the £100 maximum Trade Body and POFA 2012 ceiling) parking firm claim without a hearing for that reason.

(b) In Claim number F0DP201T on 10th June 2019, District Judge Taylor 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. 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) where the abuse is inherent in the business model.

- The Order was identical in striking out all such claims without a hearing. - The judgment for these three example cases stated:!

''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...''

- 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.

- 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.!

- 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.!


Statement of Truth:

I believe that the facts stated in this Defence are true.


Name!

Signature


Date

KeithP

winner1111 wrote: »

Also, would I need to attach images of the signage/lack thereof of the car park in question to the defence or would this be saved for the WS?

Nothing gets attached to a Defence.

Evidence comes later, as you say, at Witness Statement time.

Coupon-mad

Where are the numbered points in the last few paras? You can't leave it as hyphens!

winner1111

Coupon-mad wrote: »

Where are the numbered points in the last few paras? You can't leave it as hyphens!

Ah, thank you. I simply copied and pasted it from the beamerguy thread. Shall I number them starting from 1. or carry on from 10.? I think the former since these para's are under a new heading but I just want to be 100%.

Once these are numbered am I good to go and get it sent off?

Redx

Renumber the whole document until it's correct from beginning to end (common sense)

You will have around 20 paragraphs when completed

nosferatu1001

Indeed - the para numbering is ONE SET of numbering. NEVER more than that. The idea is that you can later on say "see para 15..." - if you have two para 15, becaue youve staretd again, you have made it difficult for yourself

ALL the examples you have seen have ONE INDEX and ONE INDEX ONLY.

winner1111

Redx wrote: »

Renumber the whole document until it's correct from beginning to end (common sense)

You will have around 20 paragraphs when completed

Great, that's been done. So it's good to go? After paragraph 10. I left in the following title in bold: Costs on the claim - disproportionate and disingenuous - is this okay or should it be removed?

winner1111

nosferatu1001 wrote: »

Indeed - the para numbering is ONE SET of numbering. NEVER more than that. The idea is that you can later on say "see para 15..." - if you have two para 15, becaue youve staretd again, you have made it difficult for yourself

ALL the examples you have seen have ONE INDEX and ONE INDEX ONLY.

Getting close now, I'm itching to get this emailed!! is it okay to leave in that heading in bold just below Para 10.?

Le_Kirk

Leave it in but unbold it, give it a paragraph number and combine it with the section below to make one bigger paragraph 11 and then continue numbering each paragraph sequentially.

winner1111

Le_Kirk wrote: »

Leave it in but unbold it, give it a paragraph number and combine it with the section below to make one bigger paragraph 11 and then continue numbering each paragraph sequentially.

Done, thank you Le_Kirk. I will have this printed, signed, scanned, pdf'd and emailed today. Great stuff!!