Advice wanted regarding Letter of Claim from DCB Legal

Coupon-mad

Yes. The sums are generic.

People show their court claims all the time.
I stated what to redact to protect your data.

We know they are claiming £170 (possibly £160)  and interest, and the £35 filing fee and £50 legal fees are capped so these figures don't identify your case at all. 

Even if a PPC pm'd someone it affects nothing. We've seen it all over the years and we aren't fazed.  Be confident!

It's all part of the intimidation. They are a desperate industry which the Government openly states is 'in market failure'. And Judges don't allow forum posts in evidence anyway because they could be anyone.

aRatherAnnoyedCitizen

Coupon-mad said: It's all part of the intimidation. They are a desperate industry which the Government openly states is 'in market failure'. And Judges don't allow forum posts in evidence anyway because they could be anyone.

Ah, I honestly hadn't thought of it that way. Thanks for pointing that out!

Coupon-mad said:

We know they are claiming £170 (possibly £160)  and interest, and the £35 filing fee and £50 legal fees are capped so these figures don't identify your case at all.

You're almost spot on there, give or take a couple of quid, (Totals just over £260) but if you want the uncensored sums I can post them?

Coupon-mad

Yes please.  Claim forms help us help you later on at WS stage and you redacted too much.

aRatherAnnoyedCitizen

@Coupon-mad sorry for the delay, here's the re-edited screenshot:

On the subject of my defence in my previous post, anything I should add or remove from that?

Coupon-mad

That POC doesn't state the actual term breached so you know what to do: the Template Defence already links you to what to add.

aRatherAnnoyedCitizen

Coupon-mad said:

That POC doesn't state the actual term breached so you know what to do: the Template Defence already links you to what to add.

Thanks - As directed on the template I've copied in paragraphs 2 & 3 as well as the images containing the transcript of the Judgement from Hharry100's thread and re-numbered accordingly. I've inserted these at paragraph 3 on my draft, though I'm a little confused as to where exactly on my draft to put it as the standard template puts it at paragraph 3, whereas hhary100's draft puts it on paragraph 1. - Which one would be better to follow?

Asides what we've discussed, does my wording of the facts sound ok?

Unless there's anything glaring, it would appear my Defence is ready to sign + send?

Coupon-mad

Doesn't matter which order. As long as it flows.

aRatherAnnoyedCitizen

Thanks - I've gone and put that at the beginning as the 2nd paragraph.

So now it looks like this:

<Paragraph 1 - Defendant denies that the claimant is entitled to relief... etc>

Preliminary matter: The claim should be struck out

2. The Defendant draws to the attention of the allocating Judge that there is now a persuasive Appeal judgment to support striking out the claim (in these exact circumstances of typically poorly pleaded private parking claims, and the extant PoC seen here are far worse than the one seen on Appeal).  The Defendant believes that dismissing this meritless claim is the correct course, with the Overriding Objective in mind.  Bulk litigators (legal firms) should know better than to make little or no attempt to comply with the Practice Direction.  By continuing to plead cases with generic auto-fill unspecific wording, private parking firms should not be surprised when courts strike out their claims based in the following persuasive authority.

3. A recent persuasive appeal judgment in Civil Enforcement Limited v Chan (Ref. E7GM9W44) would indicate the POC fails to comply with Civil Procedure Rule 16.4(1)(e) and Practice Direction Part 16.7.5. On the 15th August 2023, in the cited case, HHJ Murch held that 'the particulars of the claim as filed and served did not set out the conduct which amounted to the breach in reliance upon which the claimant would be able to bring a claim for breach of contract'. The same is true in this case and in view of the Chan judgment (transcript below) the Court should strike out the claim, using its powers pursuant to CPR 3.4. 

<Images: Transcript of Judgement from Hharry100's draft here>

The facts known to the Defendant:

4. The facts in this defence come from the Defendant's own knowledge and honest belief.  Conversely, the Claimant sets out a cut-and-paste incoherent and sparse statement of case. The 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". The Defendant is unable, on the basis of the POC, to understand with certainty what case, allegation(s) and what heads of cost are being pursued, making it difficult to respond. However, the vehicle is recognised and it is admitted that the Defendant was the registered keeper and driver.

5. The Defendant arrived at the car park on the date in question on a routine visit to shop in the local town. The Defendant understood that the terms and conditions allowed up to 2 hours of Free Parking, though any additional time spent after this period could be paid for retroactively even after the initial free period had elapsed as long as it was paid prior to departure.
The Defendant returned to the car park just over 2 hours after parking. Knowing they had arrived just after the maximum free period and 10 minute grace period had been exceeded, they proceeded to a Payment terminal to pay the parking fee.

6. Upon arriving at the closest Payment terminal, the Defendant found that the terminal was out of order, and was displaying an error, complete with a prominent prohibition symbol to indicate as such. The Terminal would not respond to any input at all.
The Defendant then proceeded to walk the entire area of the car park to attempt payment on a different terminal, but found that all of the designated payment terminals were also non-functional and displaying identical errors.
The Defendant then attempted to download a parking app to their phone, but was unsuccessful in doing so.

7. The Defendant consulted the signs posted around the car park to see if there was a phone number that could be called in order to pay. They only found one phone number which was dedicated specifically to disputing or paying Parking Charge Notices already issued. At this stage the Defendant had no outstanding charges against them. With no way of paying the fees, the Defendant, anticipating a possible parking charge notice used their mobile phone to take photographic/video evidence showing the four terminals, all out of order. The Defendant then left the car park just over 3 hours after initially parking.

8. The Defendant wishes to draw particular attention of the allocated Judge to the fact that all of the available terminals in the car park were out of order. The claimant should have been aware of this technical fault, yet chose to issue a parking charge notice to the Defendant anyway. This would suggest that either the claimant was not aware of the issue, or willfully ignored it. This raises questions about whether the claim was issued in good faith.

7. The Claimant will concede that no financial loss has arisen... etc

***

I added paragraph 8 to emphasize that the terminals were out of order and that there's reason to believe they were not aware or willfully ignored these technical faults - Is it worth keeping this or would this be pushing my luck?

Unless there's anything glaring I will see about signing + sending this by the end of the week at the latest.

I filed the AoS on the 30th November, so definitely no turning back now!

Coupon-mad

Yes that's fine except you have two number sevens, and remove the word 'allocated' from paragraph 8.

I'd also change thus:

The Defendant then attempted to download a parking app to their phone, but was unsuccessful in doing so.

to this:

The Defendant then attempted to download a parking app to their phone, but the app failed.  All methods of payment failed, rendering any contract void for impossibility.

Le_Kirk

Do you really need all that detail, as your claim contains sparse or vague particulars, how do you know what you are defending against?