Court Report - Warwick (by Telephone) - Another BW Legal Failure

bargepole

Case No. H2DP012H – 3D Parking Ltd -v- Mr R, before Deputy District Judge Morrow-Brown

Claimant represented by Mr Lal, solicitors’ agent.

Mr R had visited Waterworld in Stoke-on-Trent in September 2019. The car park has a tariff of first hour free, then £3.50 for all day parking up to 8 hours. The pay machines are the old Metric type, which only take coins, and do not allow for payment by phone. As he did not have change, he went to the reception in the main building, where there is a terminal to enter a registration number and pay by card. He did so, and his bank statement shows a payment of £3.50 to 3D Parking on the relevant date. No receipt was issued by the terminal.

The Claimant’s case was that they had no record of his having paid, or of entering the correct registration. They produced a ream of printouts which appeared to relate only to the Metric machines in the car park, and in any event were inconclusive as many of the payment entries did not show any registration number.

All of the documents, including his evidence of having paid, were filed and served in time for the originally listed hearing on 20 July, but that was adjourned at the last minute due to lack of available Judges.

Today’s hearing was only listed for 30 Minutes, and the DDJ cut to the chase, saying that the onus was on the Claimant to prove that the Defendant hadn’t paid. Mr Lal relied upon the payment log, which did not show Mr R’s registration number around the time of entry. I pointed out that all those entries were from the Metric machines in the car park, which Mr R hadn’t used. There appeared to be no records of payments made via the contactless terminal in reception.

The DDJ concluded that the Claimant had failed to prove their case. He said ‘Claim dismissed, no order as to costs, thank you gentlemen and goodbye’ before I could draw breath.

Coupon-mad

Brilliant report!

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST! 

Shocking about no costs at the end but that's what has happened to me when lay repping too, as you know.

Redx

Congratulations , apart from the missing costs 👍👍😁😁

Why do these numpty parking companies keep trying it on when it's clear that they have failed !! Lol 🤔🤔😄😄

The good news is that it cost them hundreds of pounds to get zero back , much more than the £3.50 they obtained legally !

D_P_Dance

Why no costs?  Unless you represented him for free surely he must be out of pocket?  If so, have you advised him to complain?

bargepole

Why no costs?

As it says in the report, the Judge terminated the call before I could get in a word about costs It was 12:55pm, with lunchtime about to start.

Mr R is out of pocket, but not by much, he works part time, and wasn't due to be at work today, so no lost earnings. He's just grateful not to have to pay the best part of £300 to 3D.

patient_dream

The question is, and still remains .... WHY DO BWLEGAL bring such rubbish claims to court

Good result

Fruitcake

patient_dream said:

The question is, and still remains .... WHY DO BWLEGAL bring such rubbish claims to court

Good result

Because they keep getting paid.

patient_dream

Fruitcake said:

patient_dream said:

The question is, and still remains .... WHY DO BWLEGAL bring such rubbish claims to court

Good result

Because they keep getting paid.

There is no doubt ...... It's just like "hookers" and "their pimps"

More fool the parking companies who have no guts to DIY ?

Castle

patient_dream said:

Fruitcake said:

patient_dream said:

The question is, and still remains .... WHY DO BWLEGAL bring such rubbish claims to court

Good result

Because they keep getting paid.

There is no doubt ...... It's just like "hookers" and "their pimps"

More fool the parking companies who have no guts to DIY ?

Some of them would struggle to spell "DIY".

Half_way

Good result, I've always been curious as to if you could being further action/LBA against the principal and/or the PPC  to recover any costs ?

bargepole

Half_way said:

Good result, I've always been curious as to if you could being further action/LBA against the principal and/or the PPC  to recover any costs ?

Recovering costs is not an appropriate matter for a separate claim, the time for getting costs is at the end of the hearing after Judgment has gone in your favour. Unfortunately, in this particular case, the Judge kicked us out of the (virtual) courtroom before we could get to that bit.

If you were to launch a separate action against the Principal (landowner) and/or Agent (the PPC), it would have to be on the basis of damages for their breach of the Data Protection Act - the 1998 or 2018 version, depending on when the event occurred - or damages arising under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, which means you need evidence of sustained bombardment with chasing letters for a debt they were never entitled to recover.