County Court Judgment

KeithP

63realfan said:

I got sent this from the courts about pushing back the dates, can I grab some clarification on the bold part?

Hearings are listed weeks and months in advance.

This case is in second place which means it is reliant on another case being settled for it to take place. This may or may not happen.

That means there are two cases listed for that particular time slot and your case is second in the list. That in turn means if the other case goes ahead then your hearing will be delayed and may not actually happen on that day. Conversely, if the other hearing is cancelled then yours is more likely to be heard on time.

Boat_to_Bolivia

I think it must be a remote hearing so yes indeed you will able to 'attend' from wherever you are.

Just keep waiting for it to be discontinued....

Coupon-mad

Boat_to_Bolivia said:

I think it must be a remote hearing so yes indeed you will able to 'attend' from wherever you are.

Just keep waiting for it to be discontinued....

CVP (video) definitely means a remote hearing.  You can attend from abroad.

Re the complaint, I suggest you do escalate it to the Supervisor and say this (thanks to @B789 for the basis for this wording):


The CCBC is an executive agency of the Ministry of Justice responsible for handling civil claims and cases. It would appear that it is breaching the Civil Procedure Rules and Practice Direction Part 6 - Service of Documents. Specifically, the CCBC is in breach of CPR 6.3(1)(a) by failing to use first-class post, document exchange, or other service that provides for delivery on the next business day.

Practice Direction Part 6 provides the guidelines for the service of documents in civil proceedings. According to this rule, first-class post or document exchange service that guarantees delivery on the next business day should be used, unless there is a good reason to use an alternative method.

The fact that your system is 'automated' is no excuse; in fact my case (and the many other Defendants with similar stories) exposes the failure of your system to comply with your public duty to take reasonable steps to ensure service of a claim is properly effected in a timely manner.

You had good reason to use an alternative method during Royal Mail postal strikes.  This was a time when you knew that it was not just unlikely but provably impossible for court claims that week, to be served in time (if at all).

You knew you were feeding claims into a back hole that week.

This is yet another example of the CCBC favouring the rights of Claimants (even scam parking firms and their bullyboy bulk litigators with zero merit to their case, who use the courts as a cheap method of false debt recovery) over the rights of consumer Defendants.

You also know from receiving many complaints (several of which I have seen posted online) that a significant number of these claims from that week in December were never delivered.

Yet it appears no investigation has taken place and no affected Defendant has been contacted, let alone compensated. Has the CCBC done ANYTHING to report this known failure to your Senior Management Team? Is anyone investigating how widespread this failure was?  Is anyone taking responsibility?

If the CCBC is not complying with CPR 6.3(1)(a) by using an appropriate method of service which provides for delivery on the next business day, can it be sanctioned by, and does it have to report its failure to the MoJ?

If not, how do I report this failure and escalate my complaint?

63realfan

Boat_to_Bolivia said:

I think it must be a remote hearing so yes indeed you will able to 'attend' from wherever you are.

Just keep waiting for it to be discontinued....

I've just re-read that and totally missed what they put to me. I read it originally as a "maybe" hahah. Thank you

63realfan

Coupon-mad said:

Boat_to_Bolivia said:

I think it must be a remote hearing so yes indeed you will able to 'attend' from wherever you are.

Just keep waiting for it to be discontinued....

CVP (video) definitely means a remote hearing.  You can attend from abroad.

Re the complaint, I suggest you do escalate it to the Supervisor and say this (thanks to @B789 for the basis for this wording):


The CCBC is an executive agency of the Ministry of Justice responsible for handling civil claims and cases. It would appear that it is breaching the Civil Procedure Rules and Practice Direction Part 6 - Service of Documents. Specifically, the CCBC is in breach of CPR 6.3(1)(a) by failing to use first-class post, document exchange, or other service that provides for delivery on the next business day.

Practice Direction Part 6 provides the guidelines for the service of documents in civil proceedings. According to this rule, first-class post or document exchange service that guarantees delivery on the next business day should be used, unless there is a good reason to use an alternative method.

The fact that your system is 'automated' is no excuse; in fact my case (and the many other Defendants with similar stories) exposes the failure of your system to comply with your public duty to take reasonable steps to ensure service of a claim is properly effected in a timely manner.

You had good reason to use an alternative method during Royal Mail postal strikes.  This was a time when you knew that it was not just unlikely but provably impossible for court claims that week, to be served in time (if at all).

You knew you were feeding claims into a back hole that week.

This is yet another example of the CCBC favouring the rights of Claimants (even scam parking firms and thug bulk litigators with zero merit to their case, who use the courts as a cheap method of false debt recovery) over the rights of consumer Defendants.

You also know from receiving many complaints (several of which I have seen posted online) that a significant number of these claims from that week in December were never delivered.

Yet it appears no investigation has taken place and no affected Defendant has been contacted, let alone compensated. Has the CCBC done ANYTHING to report this known failure to your Senior Management Team? Is anyone investigating how widespread this failure was?  Is anyone taking responsibility?

If the CCBC is not complying with CPR 6.3(1)(a) by using an appropriate method of service which provides for delivery on the next business day, can it be sanctioned by, and does it have to report its failure to the MoJ?

If not, how do I report this failure and escalate my complaint?

That was a seriously well constructed reply. What a come back, so strong. Love it. CM my hero, thank you! All sent off 

63realfan

CCBC not budging - their response. Only thing I can do now is appeal their decision in writing apparently although an email address was left - 

“ Thank you for your letter of 13 May 2023 about your complaint. I'm sorry to hear you're not happy with the first letter we sent.

 

I can see you are concerned that we did not send out your claim response pack in line with CPR and that the postal strikes should have been taken into account when calculating response times. Having  reviewed all the details, I have not found that we have breached any rules. Claims issued via the County Court Business Centre (CCBC) come under CPR Part 7, practice direction 7B 1.3 which confirm that claim packs are served by the Court rather than by the Claimant to which you have referred. We allow 5 days from the date of issue before the claim is deemed to be served.

 

I am afraid that we hold no jurisdiction over the Royal Mail and the service they provide. If you are unhappy with their service, I would advise that you contact them directly. I will not be considering your claim for compensation. 

63realfan

On a bright note - at the end of their email they said “ From looking at your case file I can see that the claimant has now discontinued the claim. The hearing date should therefore be cancelled by ALDERSHOT & FARNHAM County Court, but you may want to contact them if you haven't had an update” - haven’t received anything yet but that’s handy!!!

Coupon-mad

It is very good news - another DCBLegal discontinuance for @Umkomaas to note on his thread.

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST!

...but you are still £275 out of pocket.

You should appeal the decision - given that is an option - and ask why they think they are exempt from the CPR you quoted and is there an Ombudsman or ADR they supply when impasse is reached in a complaint?

And make or escalate a formal complaint with Royal Mail to claim your wasted costs as a direct result of their failure to deliver this court claim.  Your receipt and emails with the CCBC will help as evidence of actual loss.

63realfan

Coupon-mad said:

It is very good news - another DCBLegal discontinuance for @Umkomaas to note on his thread.

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST!

...but you are still £275 out of pocket.

You should appeal the decision - given that is an option - and ask why they think they are exempt from the CPR you quoted and is there an Ombudsman or ADR they supply when impasse is reached in a complaint?

And make or escalate a formal complaint with Royal Mail to claim your wasted costs as a direct result of their failure to deliver this court claim.  Your receipt and emails with the CCBC will help as evidence of actual loss.

Thank you CM. I’m in Las Vegas at the moment but when I’m home I’ll do this asap. Hopefully I’ll have a nice letter waiting for me saying it’s been discontinued. 

Many thanks 

63realfan

@Coupon-mad Hi Cm, been chasing Royal Mail last few months who continue to deny liability and say they can’t offer “compensation”. I’m 4 complaints in. First 2 with customer service & then one with escalation team which all gave same generic response that they can’t compensate for this kind of situation otherwise the compensation side of things with this could be limitless. I’ve taken it further and complained again to have it reviewed by the main reviewing team. I did say in the previous email I’d pursue legal action and have followed it up on the new complaint in a bid they’ll compensate the £400 asked and hopefully called their bluff but I really don’t think I’ll get anywhere with Royal Mail at this rate. 

If it doesn’t work out with the reviewing team I’ll turn my attention back to the CCBC. Issue I got is I was so happy with the CCJ result on the day when speaking to the judge I totally forgot to ask about the order of the refund. She did speak on it but I was too distracted to even go on about the refund. The fact the judge didn’t order it or see it feasible is enough for CCBC to continue to refuse but I’ve still got another escalation with CCBC to go but thought I’d give Royal Mail ago to put it all to sleep. It’s so wrong that I’m totally victim to the fault of RM and CCBC. I didn’t choose to be in that situation, if getting a CCJ wasn’t bad enough everyone just refuses liability on refunding costs owed. 

Disgusting and cruel by both companies for not fulfilling their duty to protect their customers/public.