Letter Of Claim from DCB Legal.

KeithP

Juliansnemesis said:

I have now received a CCBC claim form...

What is the Issue Date on this County Court Claim Form?

Juliansnemesis

@KeithP,

The issue date was 23rd December so I need to do the MCOL response by tomorrow. 

Juliansnemesis

@Coupon-mad,

Understood and will do. 

Thanks, 

JN.

Juliansnemesis

@Fruitcake,

MP letter sent today via the link you provided. 

JN

KeithP

Juliansnemesis said:

@KeithP,

The issue date was 23rd December so I need to do the MCOL response by tomorrow. 

With a Claim Issue Date of 23rd December, you have until Wednesday 11th January to file an Acknowledgment of Service but there is nothing to be gained by delaying it. 

To file an Acknowledgment of Service, follow the guidance in the Dropbox file linked from the second post in the NEWBIES thread.

Having filed an Acknowledgment of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Wednesday 25th January 2023 to file your Defence.

That's over two weeks away. Plenty of time to produce a Defence, but please don't leave it to the last minute.

To create a Defence, and then file a Defence by email, look again at the second post on the NEWBIES thread - immediately following where you found the Acknowledgment of Service guidance.

Don't miss the deadline for filing an Acknowledgment of Service, nor that for filing a Defence.

Do not try and file a Defence via the MoneyClaimOnline website. Once an Acknowledgment of Service has been filed, the MCOL website should be treated as 'read only'.

Juliansnemesis

@Coupon-mad , @KeithP, @Fruitcake,

Below are my suggested additions to the defense template for this case specifically. As you can see I have addressed both PCN's separately initially as I only have proof of payment for one of them. Coupon-mad I have adapted the cause of action estoppel defense from a template email you forwarded to me previously. Please let me know your thoughts. As KeithP stated I have until 25th Jan to amend it. 

Thanks in advance 

JN

2.  It is admitted that the Defendant was the registered keeper and driver of the vehicle on the days in question..  

3. Regarding PCN xxxxxxx the defendant denies liability because they did not contravene the signposted conditions of the car park namely;

i) “Payment of the parking tariff must be made by phone using RingGo services”.

ii) “all vehicles must be parked only within marked bays”.

4. The defendant can prove they paid the full Tariff required for a full day’s parking using RingGo. This was done on the day of parking and well before the Defendant returned to the car park and left in their vehicle. The defendant's vehicle was parked within a marked bay.

5. None of the signs within the car park suggest at what point payment for parking must be made. The majority of car parks make this explicitly clear i.e. pay on arrival; within a specified time of arrival, or prior to leaving the car park. The signage within the car park was, and still is, poorly worded with small font sizes, not clearly set out in large bold font, inconsistent, in poor condition and not even relevant to the specific car park itself.

6. Regarding PCN xxxxxxxx the defendant has not knowingly or purposefully contravened the signposted conditions and is adamant that they would not have left that car park on that date being aware that payment had not been made. The defendant has previously experienced faults with the RingGo payment system where payments have not been made, or the app has not worked properly. As there are no other options for payment this means that payment is impossible if the RingGo system is experiencing any kind of fault. 

Regardless of this the defendant still denies liability to the Claimant for both PCN’s as follows:

7. The Defendant also denies liability because the parking charge notice wording has no bearing on the signposted parking conditions. The wording given on the Parking Charge Notice is “PARKED WITHOUT MAKING A VALID PAYMENT”.

8. The claimant has now made TWO previous claims to the County Court Business Centre (references xxxxxx and xxxxxx), for separate PCN’s issued to the defendant under exactly the same circumstances. Again both of these claims have been raised by DCB Legal on behalf of the claimant. Claim H3KF8K9Z has since been discontinued by the claimant after the defendant submitted their defence statement. Astonishingly, even though Claim xxxxxx was discontinued on xx/xx//2021 the further similar fact cases, including this one, were raised by the claimant on xx/xx/2022 and xx/xx/2022.

8. As such the defendant feels that this is a case of the claimant having more than ‘one bite of the cherry’. The claimant will have had full knowledge of all PCN’s at all stages due to the date of all claims being made well after any of the PCN’s were issued. The defendant can see no reason why the claimant was unable to issue one claim for all PCN’s thus saving the courts, themselves and the defendant a lot of time and hassle. This is despite the defendant sending a Subject Access Request email to the claimant (Dated xx/xx/2021) in which the defendant specifically reminded the claimant that any claim must be for ALL outstanding PCN’s and not several separate ones.

9. The defendant sees this manner of putting forward several claims as an outright abuse of the civil litigation process and the defendant will kindly ask that the court dismiss this claim under ‘Cause of Action estoppel’. The claimant has detached or allowed to remain detached alleged debts which rely on essentially duplicate particulars and facts. By filing the first claim and failing to advance their whole case at that time, any cause of action was immediately extinguished for any other similar fact parking charges against myself as Defendant. 

10. The courts may estop a second/third claim where the cause of action is substantially the same and attention is drawn to the following cases:

a) Arnold v National Westminster Bank plc [1991] 3 All ER 41 the court noted that cause of action estoppel “…applies where a cause of action in a second action is identical to a cause of action in the first, the latter having been between the same parties or their privies and having involved the same subject matter.”

b) Henderson -v- Henderson [1843] 67 ER 313 the court noted the following: (i) when a matter becomes subject to litigation, the parties are required to advance their whole case; (ii) the Court will not permit the same parties to re-open the same subject of litigation regarding matters which should have been advanced in the earlier litigation, but were not owing to negligence, inadvertence, or error; (iii) this bar applies to all matters, both those on which the Court determined in the original litigation and those which would have been advanced if the party in question had exercised ''reasonable diligence''.

Coupon-mad

Looks good.

Fruitcake

You have two paragraphs numbered 8. Other than that I think it looks okay.