Court Report - Central London (Teams) - PCM (UK) Lose for the Third Time to the Same Defendant

bargepole

Claim no. H6GF495K – Parking Control Management (UK) Ltd -v- Miss L, before Deputy District Judge Brafield

No appearance for Claimant, as previously notified on CPR 27.9 notice.

This matter had originally been filed at Reading County Court, but was transferred for the hearing to the County Court at the RCJ, who are having a ‘blitz week’ to try to clear some of the mounting backlog of cases in London and surrounding areas.

This was the third time that PCM had issued a claim against Miss L. The first was back in 2016, when she was one of the successful defendants in the ‘High Wycombe Three’ case before DJ Glen, and she had successfully defended a second claim in October 2020, when the DDJ dismissed the claim on the basis that the Claimant’s evidence was shoddy and inadequate.

In the Defence, and supported by evidence in the WS, we made the point that this claim related to 2 x PCNs issued in Feb 2019. The previous case , heard last October, related to a PCN issued in Jan 2019. The claim form for that one was issued in June 2019, therefore the Claimant, or Gladstones, should have consolidated all three PCNs into a single claim. The previous claim having been dismissed, the doctrine of cause of action estoppel applied, and we relied upon Henderson -v- Henderson [1843] 67 ER 313, and more recent authorities, which establish the principle that when a matter becomes the subject of litigation, the parties are required to advance their whole case.

The DDJ, after referring to the White Book, accepted that argument, and dismissed the claim as an abuse of process for that reason. We did not, therefore, have to get into the substantive arguments about Miss L’s Lease granting her a right to park, without the need to display a permit.

The DDJ awarded her witness expenses of £95, and agreed that the Claimant had acted unreasonably in pursuing the matter, so also awarded my fee of £130. The C must pay her a total of £225 within 14 days.

 

D_P_Dance

Very well done.  However, £225 is a very small sum for such massive incompetence in my opinion  However, it must have cost  PCM considerably  more than that. 

When will judges start awarding real money when these companies waste peoples' time, especiall in residential car parks..  

I hope that the management company has been informed and takes appropriate action., these companies arre a blight on small landlords.

patient_dream

Was this a Gladstones case ?

bargepole

patient_dream said:

Was this a Gladstones case ?

Yes - it says so in the report.