Sunday Times Article - One Parking Solution

AnotherForumite

There should always be an ending if your narrating something, even if it does not go in your favour.

Someone had to update the thread, given that neither the lay reps or OP have bothered to do so.

AnotherForumite

As requested: https://www.mediafire.com/file/e9l8862x0q9dc58/One_Parking_v_Wilshaw.pdf/file

I understand that this was handled by the most prolific members of this forum, and the motorist now has a bill for over £3k to pay due to being pushed to defend.

I guarantee that the motorist now wished they had just paid £60 instead of listening to the anti-parking enforcement enthusiasts.

BigBrother1984

Paragraph 101 of the Judgment is telling: 
“ With great regret, I must find that the ground of appeal that there was apparent bias in this case is made good. Whether taken together, or individually, all the above points would justify a finding of apparent bias. Furthermore, the DDJ went out of his way in his judgment to praise the Defendant because she was “an English literature expert with aspirations for Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre” and made subsequent references to Shakespeare, in juxtaposition with his complaints about the way in which managers of parking sites take up a disproportionate amount of court time. Neither of these matters were of any relevance to this individual case. If low value cases are taking up a disproportionate amount of time then this is for the courts to manage not for a litigant to be castigated for in an individual case. The overall impression a fair minded and informed observer would get from the judgment would be that the DDJ had set about doing something about the number of claims brought by this Claimant. The orders inviting the various non-party entities to report to the court suggest this.” 

D_P_Dance

If complicated cases are handled by retired family law solicitors one must expect them to get things wrong on occasion,  I thought at the time that the judge had perhaps gone to far.

However, I must take issue with being referred to as a fanatic.  Her Majesty .was gracious enough to refer to me as trusty and wellbeloved, is she wrong?

AnotherForumite

D_P_Dance said:

If complicated cases are handled by retired family law solicitors one must expect them to get things wrong on occasion,  I thought at the time that the judge had perhaps gone to far.

However, I must take issue with being referred to as a fanatic.  Her Majesty .was gracious enough to refer to me as trusty and l
wellbeloved, is she wrong?

Apologies, I have reworded.

Johnersh

@AnotherForumite as you've said, there is nothing new with that judgment. The DJ was "off piste" and an appeal court is never going to address fresh issues.

Rather than as you suggest, the Defendant probably wishes the DJ had simply found for them without sticking the boot in, because it ain't the loss that made the claimant incur the costs of appealing, but the way in which they lost with allegations of fraud. It then became a project for them. 

But it is the costs order that you've raised and its that what I'd like to see the judgment on.

Assuming the defendant was represented for that, there would have been submissions.

For context, these cases rarely come to appeal and win or lose are unlikely to generate those costs. 

D_P_Dance

£3000 + does not seem a lot for a ding dong such as this.  When I downsized my house lin 2018 , due to several fails in my purchases, including one vendor whom I took to court,  my bill from the solicitor  came to c@ £2400  I winder how much the PPC spent on this.

Johnersh

@D_P_Dance. The thought had occurred that the costs were capped. I imagine that properly qualified staff were brought in to make submissions for C rather than the usual crowd who are emailed papers the night before. 

But win or lose its always helpful to study the position, which is why I objected to merely banding around the amount ordered.

So, for example, the largest defendant costs ordered for a single *first instance* hearing were close to £1500. However, that is meaningless without understanding that the ppc were not present to defend it and that the defendant was a QC who'd normally get paid about 8k for taking 3 hours out of his working day.  Proportionately his claim was limited.

Finally I should add that conveyancing is a bad comparison as fees are usually book figures in a very competitive market. Once you start buying legal services on an hourly rate of £200+ the costs can ramp up enormously.  

bargepole

I represented the OP at the costs hearing. The Appellant was represented by Ryan Hocking, of counsel.

Their application for costs was for £6,620, and both Mr Hocking and I filed skeletons for the hearing. The Appellant's case was that they should be awarded costs either a) because the signage said 'costs on the indemnity basis', or b) because the Respondent had behaved unreasonably by attempting to sustain DDJ Harvey's flawed Judgment, in which he made findings of fraud and dishonesty, exceeding his remit.

Both sides' skeletons referenced the leading case of Dammerman v Lanyon Bowdler.

HHJ Simpkiss ruled that the Appellant could not succeed on the contractual costs argument, because that hadn't been pleaded in their claim particulars. He said that Ms W had not behaved unreasonably regarding the first hearing, but that she should have withdrawn her support for the DDJ's findings of fraud and dishonesty at the appeal stage.

He therefore made a summary assessment of costs at £3,250, plus £25 for the first hearing fee, and £120 for the appeal fee, so £3,395 in total.

So OPS recovered half their legal fees, and Ms W has to find far more than she was expecting. Not a happy result for either side.

Redx

Johnersh said:

@AnotherForumite as you've said, there is nothing new with that judgment. The DJ was "off piste" and an appeal court is never going to address fresh issues.

Rather than as you suggest, the Defendant probably wishes the DJ had simply found for them without sticking the boot in, because it ain't the loss that made the claimant incur the costs of appealing, but the way in which they list with allegations of fraud. It then became a project. 

But it is the costs order that you've raised and its that what I'd like to see the judgment on.

Assuming the defendant was represented for that, there would have been submissions.

For context, these cases rarely come to appeal and win or lose are unlikely to generate those costs. 

Looks like your assumptions were correct and the final bill had nothing to do with the £60 parking PCN or original claim per se , but was to do with the allegations and what that led to by not withdrawing from the allegations of fraud , dishonesty etc

2 separate issues in my book

Neither side came out of it with any victory and it has cost OPS a lot of money to not get £60 for a PCN