Accidental small underpayment

Snakes_Belly

You made every effort to comply with the terms of the contract. It is the Claimant's fault that you were unable to do so. That in my opinion is the main defence. 

The WS from the other forum member should help but that will come later. 

Jimsnap

Ok, thanks.
I realise now that what I naively thought would be easily thrown out by a judge because it was so transparently unfair, actually needs to have a proper defence based on legal terms and precedents.

Jimsnap

My, hopefully, final draft

IN THE COUNTY COURT

Claim No.: XXXXXXXX

Between

Walton Wilkins T/A Premier Parking Logistics

- and -  

                       

James Callaghan

____________________

DEFENCE

____________________

The Defendant denies that the Claimant is entitled to relief in the sum claimed, or at all.  It is denied that a contract was entered into - by conduct or otherwise - whereby it was ‘agreed’ to pay a ‘parking charge’ and it is denied that this Claimant (understood to have a bare licence as managers) has standing to sue, nor to form contracts in their own name at the location.

The defendant admits to being the driver

The facts as known to the Defendant:

1. The car park was Pay and Display and was entered at night.  Signage by the pay and display terminal stated,  “Ticket will only be issued upon correct fee being inserted.”  The tariff was £6 for overnight and £3 for one hour.  The Defendant put the correct payment - £6 -  into the machine to pay for overnight parking, but the machine only registered £5, and issued a ticket for one hour with a value of £3.  This was not noticed by the Defendant.

2. Despite issuing a ticket worth only £3 the machine did not return the £2 overpayment, had it done so the Defendant would have been made aware of the problem. The Defendant submits that the machine was faulty due to its failure to register all of the coins and subsequently issue a ticket for a non-valid amount. 

3. Then Defendant submits there is a precedent in Jolley V Carmel Ltd [2002] 2-EGLR-154 where it was held that a party who makes reasonable endeavours to comply with contractual terms, should not be penalised for breach. .

4. When asked by the Defendant to provide data from the machine to see what had gone wrong, the claimant stated “the machine did not belong to Premier Parking Logistics” and did not reply to a further request.  The Defendant decided not to appeal to the IAS having researched as such, and finding it has been described by MP's as "putting Dracula in charge of a blood bank”.  The Defendant has knowledge of other faulty machine incidents connected to the claimant, these can be provided if needed.

brianposter

"only registered £5, and issued a ticket for one hour with a value of £3"

printed a ticket for £5 which permitted only an hour of parking which costs £3

Registering £5 is not a fault; issuing a ticket for one hour is not a fault.

Printing a ticket for £5 is a fault.

D_P_Dance

Have you taken this up with Trading Standards?

Le_Kirk

Jimsnap said:

Le_Kirk said:

Close up paragraph 2 and the sentence beneath it to make one paragraph, ditch 4 and you are done.  Adjust the numbering of the rest of the defence and don't forge to send ALL of it when submitting it by the advised e-mail route.

Done, the final draft is below.
I'm submitting via MCOL, is that what you mean by advised email route, the CCBCAQ email address given by KeithP?

Do not submit your defence via MCOL, if you put one word,, even full stop in the defence box o MCOL it is taken as your defence.  You follow the guidance in the template defence you are using to send it, as you say, to the e-mail address as advised by @KeithP

D_P_Dance

if you put one word,, even full stop in the defence box o MCOL it is taken as your defence. 

Surly this flies in the face of common sense.

Jimsnap

D_P_Dance said:

Have you taken this up with Trading Standards?

No, I did reply when you asked this a while back. I decided I have enough going on with the court procedure and don't feel confident they would be of much help without proof the machine was faulty.

Jimsnap

Le_Kirk said:

Jimsnap said:

Le_Kirk said:

Close up paragraph 2 and the sentence beneath it to make one paragraph, ditch 4 and you are done.  Adjust the numbering of the rest of the defence and don't forge to send ALL of it when submitting it by the advised e-mail route.

Done, the final draft is below.
I'm submitting via MCOL, is that what you mean by advised email route, the CCBCAQ email address given by KeithP?

Do not submit your defence via MCOL, if you put one word,, even full stop in the defence box o MCOL it is taken as your defence.  You follow the guidance in the template defence you are using to send it, as you say, to the e-mail address as advised by @KeithP

I acknowledged service via MCOL, are you saying even though I started the process with them, I don't need to file my defence with them?

Le_Kirk

D_P_Dance said:

if you put one word,, even full stop in the defence box o MCOL it is taken as your defence. 
Surly this flies in the face of common sense.

Maybe so but it is true.  The NEWBIE sticky (via links) tells everyone that to use the defence box on MCOL is wrong as it will not accept all of the defence and often destroys the formatting.  The common sense approach is to send the defence to the e-mail address that is in the NEWBIE sticky and can be found by following the link to the template defence and which is posted by @KeithP on nearly every thread.  If I have misinterpreted your comment @D_P_Dance, apologies.