'Overstay' in gym car park

KMBayes

Turns out I was missing something. A loss. Two £100 tickets, £50 court fee, £50 solicitors fee and £27 and a few pence for trial fee. Interest rounded it up to £330. Only minor win was the £140 double recovery was wiped off. 

Pretty unpleasant experience overall. The claimant got a slapped wrist for various things like the terrible particulars of claim, the redacted contract etc. but the judge ultimately overlooked them and concluded the signage on the site was good enough and even though it's almost entirely illegible, the visibility of a few key lines on signs was deemed to be good enough. Boiled down to the judge not believing that the signage was so poor that you could fail to miss it after using the car park for several years.

Not_A_Hope

Turns out I was missing something

What were you missing? Shocking decision by that judge

Coupon-mad

KMBayes said:

Turns out I was missing something. A loss. Two £100 tickets, £50 court fee, £50 solicitors fee and £27 and a few pence for trial fee. Interest rounded it up to £330. Only minor win was the £140 double recovery was wiped off. 

Pretty unpleasant experience overall. The claimant got a slapped wrist for various things like the terrible particulars of claim, the redacted contract etc. but the judge ultimately overlooked them and concluded the signage on the site was good enough and even though it's almost entirely illegible, the visibility of a few key lines on signs was deemed to be good enough. Boiled down to the judge not believing that the signage was so poor that you could fail to miss it after using the car park for several years.

The Judge also reduced the interest. So it is a lot less than the £491 claim (plus interest), and has cost them a lot more than they'll recoup.

Almost all cases at hearings ultimately turn on signage interpretation by the Judge, if they aren't minded to strike a case out due to inadequate POC.

Sadly this Judge was satisfied about the signs. Nothing you could have done differently...

Except...hmmm...

...if YOU didn't park the car and these NTKs were 'non-POFA' worded, what was said in court that could possibly hold you liable?  The keeper can't be liable if these were non-POFA worded NTKs(?) you didn't park the car; or were you pursued as driver x 2?

Which Judge and Court?

If this were me, I believe BOTH OF YOU should leave this gym membership immediately and tell the Gym manager in writing, exactly why they've just lost two long term members.

KMBayes

I forgot the name of the judge but it was Sheffield. The judge I was expecting and who would have ruled on the papers was not the one we got. Not sure if we get something in the post but if we do I'll update.

I was pretty surprised by the conduct. We were made to feel massively uncomfortable right from the start with the manor and tone, it stuck me that the judge was on a power trip showing through his conduct that he was the one with power. We were treated to his opinions and anecdotes at length. I also wasn't prepared for this to be conducted almost like a trial. I felt at a disadvantage because the witness statement of the claimant who was not there in court could not be questioned.

We almost won it on the NtK wording but at the last minute the opposing solicitor got a word in that changed his mind. I had to be silent at this point as it wasn't my turn to speak.

It came as a surprise to me that the precise wording on the signs, which is deemed to be the basis of a contract, wasn't that important to him. When I pointed out that the signs submitted as evidence from pictures taken in Jan 2017 were not likely to be the ones that were in place in 2021 due to GDPR, he took the view that these would be similar enough. Apparently the small print doesn't matter to this judge. He was also happy to look at a jpeg file of the text on the sign that's very readable rather than the pictures of the actual signs on site. The judge I was expecting would probably have taken a different view based on a ruling from Feb this year.

Coupon-mad

We almost won it on the NtK wording but at the last minute the opposing solicitor got a word in that changed his mind. I had to be silent at this point as it wasn't my turn to speak.

You mean the rep convinced him the NTK was POFA compliant?

Or that the D was the driver so POFA is irrelevant (which is true)?

Did you tell this Judge about the case heard in February, if this was the same facts/location and Claimant? Or do you mean a case you read about that didn't involve you?

KMBayes

The case in Feb was heard by the district judge that was assigned to judge our case on the papers. It didn't involve me but I had picked up on some of his comments reported in the press that I'm confident would have worked as he seemed to be a details guy - he wanted to see the details of a contract before him in order to interpret it.

We were about to get a ruling in our favour as the NTK referred to parking charges and he'd concluded our offence was an overstay which involved no charges so the evidence they put forward didn't fit the claim. The solicitor was quick on his feet and referred the judge to the pdf of the sign in which a 'parking charge' is payable upon violation of any one of four conditions. So it was non specific still, but the exact text of 'parking charge' saved them.

The judge was an !!!!!!, but the solicitor was comfortable in that environment and worked him. I'll give him his dues, he earnt his fee.

Coupon-mad

Judge was a rookie, then, because if he had found in your favour that an overstay somehow doesn't lead to a parking charge he'd have been wrong and the division would have been a cinch for them to appeal.