PE discontinued at the site of the Beavis case! (Alleged overstay, Equality Act defence)

drellix

Ah, right. I'll still mention it in the defence as a cost that they didn't accrue, since they have in-house solicitors and presumably pay them already.

KeithP

drellix said:

Ah, right. I'll still mention it in the defence as a cost that they didn't accrue, since they have in-house solicitors and presumably pay them already.

But, say you take your car for a service at a garage, do they do it for free? After all, their in-house mechanics are presumably paid already?
Or getting back to solicitors... when buying a house is the conveyancing done without charge?

drellix

I was under the impression that claiming £50 for solicitor costs would be because they'd need to pay their legal representation, such as if they were being represented by DCBLegal etc. But they've filed all this themselves in-house, so they're basically double-dipping by getting me to pay costs for a solicitor which they wouldn't need to pay out for themselves, because they just use their own guys.

This is what I gleaned from, e.g., one of the provided templates:

12. This claim inflates the total charges in a clear attempt at double recovery. The Defendant trusts that the presiding Judge will recognise this wholly unreasonable conduct as a gross abuse of process. It was held in the Supreme Court in Beavis (where £85 was claimed, and no more) that a private parking charge already includes a very significant and high percentage in profit and more than covers the costs of running an automated regime of template letters. Thus, there can be no 'costs' to pile on top of any parking charge claim.

13. In addition to the original penalty, the Claimants have artificially inflated the value of the Claim by adding purported legal costs of £50, which have not actually been incurred by the Claimant. ParkingEye Ltd have not expended any such sum in this case, given that they have a Legal Team with salaried in-house Solicitors and (shamefully) this firm whose main business is supposed to be parking 'management' as a service provision, files tens of thousands of similar 'cut & paste' robo-claims per annum. No genuine legal costs arise, per case, and their in-house Solicitors cannot possibly be believed to be paid in the millions per annum for their services.

14. The added 'legal' cost is in fact an artificially invented figure, which represents a cynical attempt to circumvent the Small Claims costs rules and achieve double recovery. According to Ladak v DRC Locums UKEAT/0488/13/LA, a Claimant can only recover the direct and provable costs of the time spent by legally qualified staff on actually preparing the claim and/or the cost of obtaining advice for that specific claim, in a legal capacity.

If I've got the wrong end of the stick here, then fair enough!

Coupon-mad

That's really really old - we never argue this now - and Ladak v Locums doesn't say what that poster thought it did.  A firm with an in house legal team can add the £50.

drellix

I've come up with a few questions after trawling the latest threads:

Having just seen a similar thread regarding protected characteristics, I too fall into this category. I don't suppose anyone has successfully tried this in the past?

This car park doesn't use any kind of manual ticketing system, nor, as far as I'm aware, any human checks. I am unsure whether I visited the car park for two periods that day, but I might have done - there's a drive-thru in the car park which is only accessible by going past the cameras, for instance. I could have easily gone to shop earlier in the day, then returned to go through the drive-thru, etc. Given how unreliable ANPR is, could I argue that they're not sufficient alone as evidence to issue a PCN?

If I were to find out when PE changed the max stay from 3hrs to 2hrs, would using that alongside their apparent inability to cover up older terms on their entry signage be a fair point to make?

The signage isn't visible from the street outside the car park, and reading the entry signage requires turning a slight corner past one of the PCN camera arrays. Would saying that a motorist must become a captive audience, giving up some personal information in the process, before they decide to agree to the terms of the signage, be a fair point to make?

The POCs are super sparse and don't give a specific timeframe to a max stay period. Given the lack of specifics, would I be able to fairly make the point that the POCs lack a clear cause of action?

Coupon-mad

Yes, an Equality Act 2010 argument that will assist if you think there is a possibility there was an overstay, but your medical condition slowed you down (either mobility wise, or needing more time for other reasons).

But in your OP you said you were sure you didn't overstay - is there a chance this was two visits within 24 hours painted as one?

drellix

Just edited the previous post as I had further questions, which includes the potential that I visited twice in one day. Didn't want to double-post.

Coupon-mad

The POCs are super sparse and don't give a specific timeframe to a max stay period. Given the lack of specifics, would I be able to fairly make the point that the POCs lack a clear cause of action?

Yes - potentially - but as long as it says when/where/why and specifies the conduct and the sum claimed, that's good enough.  Usually, ParkingEye POC are perfectly OK.

drellix

Right - yeah, all the stuff you mention is there in the POC. I'll still mention it, though. Every tiny point counts in this game, I suspect.

drellix

I've just noticed that this car park is the same one from the Beavis case.

Given this, I think I need to make my Defence as robust as humanly possible.

I'll post a draft this evening. Now I know that this is where a battle was once lost, I want to completely obliterate PE in Court so that Beavis can forever be consigned to the rubbish bin.