Court Claim Form

KeithP

What is the Issue Date on the Claim Form?

Did it come from the County Court Business Centre in Northampton, or from somewhere else?

Dufflecoat

Hi


Thanks for all your help so far, I have been researching and looking things up in the meantime as well as getting on with the usual day to day.


I am beginning to understand better and that the witness statement should be words and evidence comes later in the day as required so I dont send anything other than the defence.


So far I have the following and as the signs were tiny (Since updated) and 11ft up from the ground I have gone with the following, including the final Beavis wordings;


Feedback appreciated,

In the County Court

Between

Premier Park Limited (Claimant)

and

XXXX (Defendant)

Claim Number XXXX

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 XXXX in a marked bay allocated to Company XXXX at XXXX, and had a valid permit to be parked in that bay and was paying specifically for a space on these premises. The vehicle was driven by more than one employee of the business.

3. The Particulars of Claim state that the Defendant was the registered keeper and/or the driver of the vehicle. 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.

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.

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.

With regard the costs and the additional charges the defendant has been advised to include the following details:

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.

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.

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.

The Parking Eye Ltd v Beavis case that BW Legal refer to 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.

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.

Quoting from the above source

“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.''

* 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.

* 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.

* 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...''

* 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 Distract 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.''

* 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.

* 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.


Statement of Truth:

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


Name

Le_Kirk

ALL the paragraphs require a number. Correct the spelling of proprietary in your para 7. There is a further case having been struck out for Abuse of Process at Caenarfon, search for beamerguy's thread again and you will see that Coupon-mad has added to her comment at post # 14 on that thread.

KeithP

Why does your paragraph numbering stop at 9?

Why does paragraph 9 start "In summary..." when it is nowhere near the end?

Dufflecoat

Thanks for the continued support, I will adjust the paragraphs, was just having a bit of a mare with word and its 'auto' numbering thing so will striaghten that out and have a look at the other case refered to above.


The court is at Northampton and I am sending back recorded delivery the acknowledgment of service today and hope to get the defence out early next week,


Issue date is early September so I have 14 days for the acknowledgment of service and 28 days for the defence although both should be back within 14 days.


Do they issue back a confirmation, I am going for recorded delivery as proof as I dont want to use online services.




Many thanks again all

KeithP

Dufflecoat wrote: »

The court is at Northampton and I am sending back recorded delivery the acknowledgment of service today...

No, don't do that.

To do the Acknowledgement of Service, follow the guidance offered in a Dropbox file linked from post #2 of the NEWBIES FAQ sticky thread. About ten minutes work - no thinking required.

Please answer the first question in post #12.

Coupon-mad

The court will not be Northampton once allocated locally to you, of course.

although both should be back within 14 days.

No, the defence does not have to be done that quickly as long as you did the AOS.

Do they issue back a confirmation,

Yes if you submit by email you get an auto-reply I believe. We advise EMAILING it.

I am going for recorded delivery as proof as I dont want to use online services.

No, you are not, have you ever worked in a large head office? I have. No to sending bits of paper to such a building, not even 'signed for' which is no guarantee of actual delivery.

Le_Kirk

Coupon-mad wrote: »

No, you are not, have you ever worked in a large head office? I have. No to sending bits of paper to such a building, not even 'signed for' which is no guarantee of actual delivery.

Worse than that of course, it is guarantee of non-delivery if they refuse to sign for it!

Dufflecoat

Hi


Thanks for the help once again, I have setup the gateway/MCOL, but login to the claim.


have put claim number in and it asks for defence pack password, but I dont know what a defence pack password is,



I have tried the Gateway password, but is the defence pack password something else?


I have been reading the guide.


Re the claim from the post above, it is from Northampton Business Centre, issue date I dont want to disclose here as I dont want the claim to be identifyable at the moment.


Thanks for all the advice so far


Regards

Dufflecoat

Hi

Found the password in the court papers, thought it was the gateway password but not, so have got in and done the AOS online...