DCB Legal Court Claim for 2018 UKPC PCN

Winston_Smith2

Coupon-mad said:

Except you also need the extra stuff seen in the thread I linked you to already.

Sorry, my mistake. I wasn't sure what thread you meant at first. Found it and have adapted it now.

Winston_Smith2

Boat_to_Bolivia said:

The defence template CM is advising you need to copy and adapt is the one by @Johny86.

Click on the link above and look for their discussions. You will find it there.

It is not the sticky one at the top of the forum you posted earlier.

Thanks very much for pointing me in the right direction!

Winston_Smith2

For your reference, here are copies of the claim form and all the evidence I got back from the SAR.

Winston_Smith2

I have adapted the defence by @johnny86. Please can you all give it a read and let me know if it's ok as is? Is there anything I should change/remove? Are there any other point I could add to make it better? Thanks a lot everyone for all your help so far!

1. The parking charges referred to in this claim did not arise from any agreement of terms. The charge and the claim was an unexpected shock. The Defendant denies that the Claimant is entitled to relief in the sum claimed, or at all.  It is denied that any conduct by the driver was a breach of any prominent term, and it is denied that this Claimant (understood to have a bare licence as managers) has standing to sue or form contracts in their own name. Liability is denied, whether or not the Claimant is claiming 'keeper liability', which is unclear from the Particulars.

 

The facts as known to the Defendant:

2. It is admitted that on the material date the Defendant was the registered keeper and driver of the vehicle in question, but liability is denied.

3. The Defendant was an NHS patient at Watford Health Centre.  On the date in question, the Defendant drove to Watford Health Centre for the purpose of attending a cognitive behavioural therapy session for depression and anxiety, as prescribed by the Defendant’s GP.  There were no signs at the entrance of the on-site car park to make it clear that it was not for patient use.  The car park itself was dimly lit and the inadequate amount of signage was not displayed prominently enough for the Defendant to see.

4. The Particulars of Claim ('POC') appear to be in breach of CPR 16.4, 16PD3 and 16PD7, and fail to "state all facts necessary for the purpose of formulating a complete cause of action”. 

5. The Defendant is unable, on the basis of the POC, to understand with certainty what case is being pursued. 

6. The POC are entirely inadequate, in that they fail to particularise (a) the contractual term(s) relied upon; (b) the specifics of any alleged breach of contract; and (c) how the purported and unspecified 'damages' arose and the breakdown of the exaggerated quantum. 

7. The claim has been issued via Money Claims Online and, as a result, is subject to a character limit for the Particulars of Claim section of the Claim Form.  The fact that generic wording appears to have been applied has obstructed any semblance of clarity.  The Defendant trusts that the court will agree that a claim pleaded in such generic terms lacks the required details and requires proper particularisation in a detailed document within 14 days, per 16PD.3 

8. The guidance for completing Money Claims Online confirms this and clearly states: "If you do not have enough space to explain your claim online and you need to serve extra, more detailed particulars on the defendant, tick the box that appears after the statement 'you may also send detailed particulars direct to the defendant.'" 

9. No further particulars have been filed and to the Defendant's knowledge, no application asking the court service for more time to serve and/or relief from sanctions has been filed either. 

10. In view of it having been entirely within the Claimant's Solicitors' gift to properly plead the claim at the outset and the claim being for a sum, well within the small claims limit, such that the Defendant considers it disproportionate and at odds with the overriding objective (in the context of a failure by the Claimant to properly comply with rules and practice directions) for a Judge to throw the erring Claimant a lifeline by ordering further particulars (to which a further defence might be filed, followed by further referral to a Judge for directions and allocation) the court is respectfully invited to strike this claim out. 

B789

Winston_Smith2 said:
The facts as known to the Defendant:

2. It is admitted that on the material date the Defendant was the registered keeper and driver (?) of the vehicle in question, but liability is denied.

3. The Defendant was an NHS patient at Watford Health Centre.  On the date in question, the Defendant drove to Watford Health Centre for an appointment the purpose of attending a cognitive behavioural therapy session for depression and anxiety, as prescribed by the Defendant’s GP.  There were no signs at the entrance of the on-site car park to make it clear that it was not for patient use.  The car park itself was very dimly lit and the sparse number of almost illegible signs were inadequate amount of signage was not displayed prominently and were not obvious or even visible to enough for the Defendant to see.

That PCN does not appear to be POFA compliant unless it was stated on the back. If it wasn't POFA compliant, have you already admitted to being the driver in any earlier appeal? If not, then you should not be admitting to being the driver and be suing the POFA defence of non-transfer of liability to the RK.

Aside from that, I wouldn't put so much detail in item 3. You only need to highlight the points on which you are defending. You can go into detail later, if necessary in your WS. Obviously, if you are also going to rely on POFA, then it has to be reworded slightly to differentiate between "Defendant" and "Driver".

Winston_Smith2

Thanks @B789, I have updated paragraph 3 and worded it how you suggested.

Apart from contacting UKPC for the SAR and notifying DCBL about the SAR, I have had no correspondence with either party and at no point have I admitted to being the driver. The thing is, I'm an honest and transparent person by nature. Yes, admitting to being the keeper (but not the driver) and going on to say the driver did this and that isn't technically lying, but isn't it misleading? The fact of the matter is that I was the driver. My worry is that if this ended up with a court hearing, I wouldn't be able to keep up the façade that I wasn't the driver - nor would I want to. If faced with a judge, the core of my argument would be that the signage was inadequate, which resulted in me unknowingly parking where I wasn't allowed. And I'd rebuttal any counter arguments from the DCBL representative that "I should have done my due diligence beforehand" by arguing that I was young, naïve and not in a healthy state of mind. 

If I didn't admit to being the driver in the defence I'm drafting, could this come back to bite me in the event of a court hearing?

Coupon-mad

It won't.  There will be no hearing (honestly) and if there was you'd answer truthfully.

Also your para 3 says "the Defendant drove"!

That NTK is non-POFA so you can copy Johny86's para 4 which you haven't, so far.

Winston_Smith2

Thanks for the reassurance @Coupon-mad. In the unlikely event this matter does get to a court hearing, I will just be truthful.

Are there any further amendments to be made or arguments to add that would help my case? Here's the latest draft:

The facts as known to the Defendant:

2. It is admitted that on the material date the Defendant was the registered keeper of the vehicle in question, but liability is denied.

3. The Driver was an NHS patient at Watford Health Centre.  On the date in question, the Driver went to Watford Health Centre for the purpose of attending an appointment.  There were no signs at the entrance of the on-site car park to make it clear that it was not for patient use.  The car park itself was very dimly lit and the sparse number of almost illegible signs were not displayed prominently enough and were not obvious or even visible to the Driver.

4. The Defendant avers that the Claimant failed to serve a Notice to Keeper compliant with the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. Consequently, the claimant cannot transfer liability for this charge to the Defendant as keeper of the vehicle.

5. The Particulars of Claim ('POC') appear to be in breach of CPR 16.4, 16PD3 and 16PD7, and fail to "state all facts necessary for the purpose of formulating a complete cause of action”. 

6. The Defendant is unable, on the basis of the POC, to understand with certainty what case is being pursued. 

7. The POC are entirely inadequate, in that they fail to particularise (a) the contractual term(s) relied upon; (b) the specifics of any alleged breach of contract; and (c) how the purported and unspecified 'damages' arose and the breakdown of the exaggerated quantum. 

8. The claim has been issued via Money Claims Online and, as a result, is subject to a character limit for the Particulars of Claim section of the Claim Form.  The fact that generic wording appears to have been applied has obstructed any semblance of clarity.  The Defendant trusts that the court will agree that a claim pleaded in such generic terms lacks the required details and requires proper particularisation in a detailed document within 14 days, per 16PD.3 

9. The guidance for completing Money Claims Online confirms this and clearly states: "If you do not have enough space to explain your claim online and you need to serve extra, more detailed particulars on the defendant, tick the box that appears after the statement 'you may also send detailed particulars direct to the defendant.'" 

10. No further particulars have been filed and to the Defendant's knowledge, no application asking the court service for more time to serve and/or relief from sanctions has been filed either. 

11. In view of it having been entirely within the Claimant's Solicitors' gift to properly plead the claim at the outset and the claim being for a sum, well within the small claims limit, such that the Defendant considers it disproportionate and at odds with the overriding objective (in the context of a failure by the Claimant to properly comply with rules and practice directions) for a Judge to throw the erring Claimant a lifeline by ordering further particulars (to which a further defence might be filed, followed by further referral to a Judge for directions and allocation) the court is respectfully invited to strike this claim out. 

Coupon-mad

Yep that's fine - it will be over 30 paragraphs once the rest of the template defence is added.

B789

Winston_Smith2 said:

The thing is, I'm an honest and transparent person by nature. Yes, admitting to being the keeper (but not the driver) and going on to say the driver did this and that isn't technically lying, but isn't it misleading?

It's not even "technically" lying. It is how you word defences against these bottom-dwelling scammers. All you are is stating facts, none of which are untrue.

Anyway, as @Coupon-mad explained, the whole point of these robust defences is that the claimant now has to consider whether to proceed with the claim and whether there is any mileage in paying for the hearing and their time in preparation, although we know it is very little as they are a robo-claim specialist with most of their stuff already templated. They inevitably discontinue when they see the well-defended claims that will get them spanked if they ever get in front of a judge.