County Court Claim form defence

MissA123

KeithP said:

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

Have you filed an Acknowledgment of Service?
If so, upon what date did you do so?
Your MCOL Claim History will have the definitive answer to that.

Hey yes i did do that, the issue date was 14th November and i did the acknowledgement on the 17th. 

MissA123

Coupon-mad said:

Your PoC without the PCN & VRM:


No you need to slow down. It's not ready.

I wish I could search the forum for 'payment due date defence' because I wrote a defence this month about that being premature.

I think your Claimant is Civil Enforcement ltd (am  I right?) and you could almost copy one written this month.  You will have to trawl back looking at thread titles for CEL claims, as the search function is currently broken.

Yes it is Civil Enforcement Ltd, someone posted a link in this thread, was it the one regarding the disability and being unsure who the driver was? 

KeithP

MissA123 said:

KeithP said:

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

Have you filed an Acknowledgment of Service?
If so, upon what date did you do so?
Your MCOL Claim History will have the definitive answer to that.

Hey yes i did do that, the issue date was 14th November and i did the acknowledgement on the 17th. 

With a Claim Issue Date of 14th November, and having filed an Acknowledgment of Service on 17th November, you have until 4pm on Friday 15th December 2023 to file a Defence.

That's over three 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 at the second post in the NEWBIES thread.

Don't miss the deadline 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'.

MissA123

KeithP said:

MissA123 said:

KeithP said:

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

Have you filed an Acknowledgment of Service?
If so, upon what date did you do so?
Your MCOL Claim History will have the definitive answer to that.

Hey yes i did do that, the issue date was 14th November and i did the acknowledgement on the 17th. 

With a Claim Issue Date of 14th November, and having filed an Acknowledgment of Service on 17th November, you have until 4pm on Friday 15th December 2023 to file a Defence.

That's over three 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 at the second post in the NEWBIES thread.

Don't miss the deadline 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'.

Thanks for this, i have read that post multiple times to get my head around it and found the defence template and from what i can decipher, i needed to add what happened in section 3, but i dont know if what i wrote in my original post is too much waffle and what i need to keep and not keep x
Thanks for listening 

Coupon-mad

I suggest that you use the linked one if it's the one about the dates (I haven't looked but I trust @Castle to know what I meant). 

Obviously you aren't copying irrelevant stuff (as in their paras 4, 5, 6 which is not what I was directing you to say).

MissA123

Coupon-mad said:

I suggest that you use the linked one if it's the one about the dates (I haven't looked but I trust @Castle to know what I meant). 

Obviously you aren't copying irrelevant stuff (as in their paras 4, 5, 6 which is not what I was directing you to say).

Thank you, do i mention anything from my original post in here? X

Coupon-mad

Just show us your draft first few paragraphs.

MissA123

DEFENCE

1.  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 in breach of any term.  Further, it is denied that this Claimant (understood to have a bare licence as agents) 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 boilerplate text in the Particulars of Claim ('the POC').

Preliminary matter: The claim should be struck out

2. 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 draws to the attention of the allocating Judge that there is now a persuasive Appeal judgment involving the same Claimant as this case, which supports striking out the claim without a hearing.

3.  The Defendant believes that dismissing this poorly-pleaded claim is the correct course, with the Overriding Objective in mind.  Bulk litigators like this Claimant (which has an in-house legal team and barrister) 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, this Claimant in particular should not be surprised when courts continue to strike out their claims, based in the following persuasive authority.

3. Civil Enforcement Limited v Chan (Ref. E7GM9W44) holds that 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. 

In the alternative,

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 Defendant is unable, on the basis of the POC, to understand with certainty what case, allegation(s), what heads of cost are being pursued and how/why the Defendant is being held liable, making it difficult to respond. The vehicle is recognised, as is the location.

5. The Defendant advises, they had visited the site regularly that week. The defendant parked in the car park Mon-Thurs, however the claimant is accusing the defendant of not entering their registration plate into the system on Thursday only.

The claimant is unable to provide CCTV evidence or supporting evidence that an attempt to enter the car registration was not made, or any evidence to dispute a system error/fault.

Evidence of a purchase receipt from the swimming baths for lessons had been sent to the claimant to confirm the reasonable use of the swimming baths car park but this was not recognised. It may be worthy to note that the swimming baths has since gone out of business, and the absurd parking charges related to their free car park has contributed to this as well as other factors.

 

6.  The Defendant does not believe that the Claimant complied with the strict requirements of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (the POFA) in terms of 'adequate notice' of the parking charge and in terms of serving a compliant Notice to Keeper ('NTK').  The POC is unhelpfully silent about the supposed basis of liability. It does not state whether the Defendant is being pursued under the POFA nor where/how they obtained his data, nor does it even state (as parking claims usually do) that they are pursuing the Defendant as keeper/driver.  These POC seem even more defective than seen from this same Claimant in the Chan case.

Coupon-mad

That's not the one linked by Castle.

however the claimant is accusing the defendant of not entering their registration plate into the system on Thursday only.

No, the claim doesn't say that.  Don't respond to stuff that isn't in the claim Particulars.

MissA123

The one linked is this 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 Defendant is unable, on the basis of the POC, to understand with certainty what case, allegation(s), what heads of cost are being pursued and how/why the Defendant is being held liable, making it difficult to respond. The vehicle is recognised, as is the shopping park location, but it is not known who was driving. It is a 50/50 chance that it was either the Defendant or his wife and the Defendant expressly denies any 'violation' (the Claimant's word, which they should know is banned under the incoming Statutory Code of Practice linked later in this defence).  In any event, the Equality Act 2010 applies to protect the driver/passenger, and any fixed policy term that may cause detriment to disabled persons 'at large' is illegal (indirect discrimination) under that legislation. 

5.   Due to the age of the alleged parking event - which is nearly 18 months old - and the fact there was no windscreen PCN, the Defendant is unable to recall the circumstances of an unremarkable day.  The Defendant and his wife are both elderly and vulnerable (qualifying for a Blue Badge) and both use this vehicle.  Both occasionally used this local retail site for food shopping around that time and neither were aware of any supposed parking terms or restrictions, despite both visiting the location fairly regularly. The uncertainty about who was driving that day is important because the Defendant takes the point that there can be no 'keeper liability'.

6.  The Defendant will rely upon the persuasive appeal case of Vehicle Control Services Ltd v Ian Edward.  In April 2023, His Honour Judge Mark Gargan sitting at Teesside Combined Court (on appeal re claim H0KF6C9C) held that a registered keeper cannot be assumed to have been driving. Nor could any adverse inference be drawn if a keeper is unable (or indeed too late, post litigation) to nominate the driver, because the POFA does not invoke any such obligation.  HHJ Gargan concluded at 35.2 and 35.3. "my decision preserves and respects the important general freedom from being required to give information, absent a legal duty upon you to do so; and it is consistent with the appropriate probability analysis whereby simply because somebody is a registered keeper, it does not mean on the balance of probability they were driving on this occasion..." Mr Edward's appeal succeeded and the Claim was dismissed.