DCBL Court claim

Charbil

Is this sufficent for the my section of the defence? 

The defendant was knows she was parked to visit their grandmother at Bolton NHS Hosptital who was an in patient, suffering with ill health. She can not recall the arrival & departure times as she visited numerous times over a period of weeks.

The POC does not state the details of the breach & the defendant does not recall if there were any issue on the day, or any of the days. Defendant has a diagnosis of ADHD, which along with numerous other things, often affects her recollection of minor things like parking.

Charbil

Charbil said:

AOS done 🤞🏼

Just been reading the defence post and just want to check about this, does it mean Claims from Parking Eye direct? Not DCBL on behalf of PE?

Ive just noticed the claim form states Parkingeye LTD as the claimant & DCBL as the correspondance address, does this mean i need to look at this and change my defence template?

Coupon-mad

Just another DCB Legal claim that they will discontinue before the hearing!

Charbil

Thanks, Re writing my defence.... i cant actually remember if i didnt have the funds to cover my parking or if it was just an issue with the contactless payment, do i state that or not? As i would basically be admitting i didnt pay?

Coupon-mad

Either is 'an issue with the payment method'.

Charbil

Does this sound ok? Or isit abit too over share?

The defendant feels it is important you know that she was off work on long term sick & had been for 6 month due to stress/anxiety, which were a result of undiagnosed ADHD, she received a diagnosis of ADHD in the month prior to the date of the alleged breach. She had started the prescribed medications that week. She also suffers with anxiety.

The defendant was parked to visit their grandmother at Bolton NHS Hosptital who was an in patient, suffering with ill health. Her other family members were away on holiday which meant the defendant was visiting more often than usual during this particular period of her grandmother being an in patient at said hospital.

The defendant know she parked in the same car park each visit and knows that she did have a problem with payment on one of the occasion although could not say which. The contactless payment would not go through and the defendant had no physical cards or cash alternatives. She became anxious and panicky after several attempts and returned to her car to try & calm herself. The defendants mobile battery then meaning she was unable to contact the hospital reception & with the high anxiety levels did not feel comfortable going back into the hospital and

By the time she was home and able to charge her phone, she had forgotten about ringing the hospital back. She was under a lot of stress, dealing with her mental health, two young children, her grandmothers health, her father’s health, grief & financial struggles on top. She did not open the letters when they came, only when the amount was increased and ultimately buried it at the back of her head as she felt she did not have the mental capacity to resolve things and could not afford the amount required with the added charges.

Charbil

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 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. 

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 & driver.

5. The defendant feels it is important you know that she was off work on long term sick & had been for 6 month due to stress/anxiety, which were a result of undiagnosed ADHD, she received a diagnosis of ADHD in the month prior to the date of the alleged breach. She had started the prescribed medications that week. She also suffers with anxiety.

6. The defendant was parked to visit their grandmother at Bolton NHS Hosptital who was an in patient, suffering with ill health. Her other family members were away on holiday which meant the defendant was visiting more often than usual during this particular period of her grandmother being an in patient at said hospital.

7.The defendant know she parked in the same car park each visit and knows that she did have a problem with payment on one of the occasion although could not say which. The contactless payment would not go through and the defendant had no physical cards or cash alternatives. She became anxious and panicky after several attempts and returned to her car to try & calm herself. The defendants mobile battery then meaning she was unable to contact the hospital reception & with the high anxiety levels did not feel comfortable going back into the hospital and

8. By the time she was home and able to charge her phone, she had forgotten about ringing the hospital back. She was under a lot of stress, dealing with her mental health, two young children, her grandmothers health, her father’s health, grief & financial struggles on top. She did not open the letters when they came, only when the amount was increased and ultimately buried it at the back of her head as she felt she did not have the mental capacity to resolve things and could not afford the amount required with the added charges.

9. The Claimant will concede that no financial loss has arisen and that in order to impose an inflated parking charge, as well as proving a term was breached, there must be:

(i). a strong 'legitimate interest' extending beyond mere compensation for loss, and

(Ii). 'adequate notice' of the 'penalty clause' charge which, in the case of a car park, requires prominent signs and lines.

5. The Defendant denies (i) or (ii) have been met. The charge imposed, in all the circumstances is a penalty, not saved by ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis [2015] UKSC67 ('the Beavis case'), which is fully distinguished.


Exaggerated Claim and 'market failure' currently being addressed by UK Government

10. The alleged 'core debt' from any parking charge cannot exceed £100 (the industry cap).  It is denied that any 'Debt Fees' or damages were actually paid or incurred.

11. This claim is unfair and inflated and it is denied that any sum is due in debt or damages. This Claimant routinely pursues an unconscionable fixed sum added per PCN, despite knowing that the will of Parliament is to ban it.

12. This is a classic example where adding exaggerated fees funds bulk litigation of weak and/or archive parking cases. No checks and balances are likely to have been made to ensure facts, merit or a cause of action (given away by the woefully inadequate POC).

13. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities ('the DLUHC') published a statutory Parking Code of Practice in February 2022: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/private-parking-code-of-practice.

The Ministerial Foreword is damning: "Private firms issue roughly 22,000 parking tickets every day, often adopting a labyrinthine system of misleading and confusing signage, opaque appeals services, aggressive debt collection and unreasonable fees designed to extort money from motorists." 

.............. (rest of template)

Do i need to included the evidence from the Chan case or can i just remove the words (transcript below)?

patient_dream

There is a big difference between Parking Eye doing this themselves or farming it out to DCBL.   Over the years PE has been doing this for cases  they don't want to take to court.  In a nutshell, why pay out good money when there is another company happy to waste their OWN money.  Enter DCBL. 

Coupon-mad

POC does not state the details of the breach 

Therefore there is far too much information in that draft defence.  Do not think you have to make excuses!

And you are meant to have the 4 Chan images embedded above your facts section.

Typo here: 'Hosptital'

Add something like this (below) instead of your 7 & 8 and leave out all the detail guessing that it was your fault and saying how stressed you were:


7. Due to the woeful POC, the Defendant is left to guess which terms applied and what the alleged breach even was. In a hospital car park, this could be any one of these, or many more:

- parked outside of bay lines
- parked obstructively in an ambulance area
- parked in a staff permit area
- parked in an accessible bay without a badge
- parked without a permit
- parked without paying
- insufficient fee paid
- failure to display a ticket/receipt
- overstay of paid-for time
- overstay of free drop-off time
- not paying in time (grace period exceeded).

8. And the above list assumes that there was a breach and that the payment methods were functioning, neither of which are admitted.  This is automated decision-making by ANPR, after all.   The Defendant knows from a BPA article that ANPR technology is flawed in the hands of private firms. Absent more information and timings, these events could be examples of what the Government's new incoming Code calls a 'double dip' (two short visits in a 24 hour period assumed to be one).  This is especially likely given the frequent daily visits to the hospital by the Defendant that week. The Defendant reserves the right to respond to whatever new information arises in the case, if it is not struck out in view of the above failings.

Charbil

Thank you so much, will make a few amends and add chan docs