Civil Enforcement Legal Court Claim

Jammin1

Hello

Many thanks in advance for the help from this amazing community.

I am assisting my wife as she has received a court claim from Civil Enforcement legal team on behalf of Civil Enforcement Ltd. This dates back to a PCN which was issued in 2022, during a time when her V5C logbook's address hadn't been updated, and so she didn't receive it at the time. So now we are at the court claim stage. The issue date was: 16/04/2024 and the acknowledgment of service 26/04/2024 (after 4pm so I think it will go through tomorrow on 27/04/2024). By my calculations that would make the defence due on Sunday 19th May.

Just to give you some background about the incident and what we've done since. We were driving in an unfamiliar area and decided to stop for coffee and do some work. The car park apparently provides free parking for up to 2 hours. However, I believe a camera clocked the car as being in the car park for 2 hours 18 minutes, and therefore 18 minutes over. My wife is the keeper, but she was not driving the car.   

We put in a formal complaint to Costa Coffee as we were legitimately paying customers during those 2 hours 18 minutes, but the complaint was rejected and they said the following: 

'Whilst I completely understand your upset and frustration, Costa are unable to assist in anyway with parking fines. Parking restriction management is extremely common nationwide and regardless of whether the car park was used to visit our store, there is no exemption from these restrictions. The responsibility will always be with the driver to ensure they are familiar with the terms and conditions of the car park and to adhere to the terms accordingly.

If there are extenuating circumstances relating to your fine and you believe you have reason for an appeal, we advise you follow the instructions detailed on the PCN without delay to prevent the fine from increasing.

Once again I am very sorry but we are unable to assist you on this occasion.'

So now my next stage is to draft a defence. I would really appreciate any 'case specific facts' that I can put for the first few points of my wife's defence. Or otherwise any other advice regarding anything else we should do would also be much appreciated.

Many thanks for the help! 

KeithP

Jammin1 said:

I am assisting my wife as she has received a court claim from Civil Enforcement legal team on behalf of Civil Enforcement Ltd.
So now we are at the court claim stage. 
The issue date was: 16/04/2024 and the acknowledgment of service 26/04/2024 (after 4pm so I think it will go through tomorrow on 27/04/2024). By my calculations that would make the defence due on Sunday 19th May.

With a Claim Issue Date of 16th April, and having filed an Acknowledgment of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Monday 20th May 2024 to file your 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'.

Everywhere I have written 'you' or 'your' I do of course mean the named Defendant. Everything must be done in the name of the named Defendant.

Coupon-mad

That's an odd reply:

"Costa are unable to assist in anyway with parking fines".

We have seen Costa cancel loads over the years. I think even one that was at court stage.

Gr1pr

I am surprised that Costa called it a FINE too, you would expect that they would know the basics, not a fine , not a penalty, plus that they could be jointly and severally liable with their contractors, if Costa have a contract with the parking company ( and aren`t tenants , because as tenants they may have no sway over it apart from being a large company , but I do believe that they could intervene somehow , if they weren`t in fob off mode )

Coupon-mad

I think this complaint needs escalating.  Costa always step in.

Jammin1

Coupon-mad said:

I think this complaint needs escalating.  Costa always step in.

Thanks I've just sent another complaint to Costa informing them that this company is now taking one of their customers to court for parking while they were patronising their business, and asked them to escalate the complaint to a manager, so we'll see where that goes. In the meanwhile though, we'll need to prepare a defence which is due in 3 weeks, but I'm not sure exactly what the case specifics are. There doesn't seem to be anything that unique about the case. Just an apparent overstay of 18 minutes while enjoying a coffee and a chat.

Coupon-mad

Bet the POC don't say 'overstay'.

You know which version defence to use then, because para 3 of the Template Defence links you to it.

Jammin1

Please see a draft of my defence below. Please let me know what you think and what else I should add.

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. However, the Defendant was not the driver of the vehicle at the time of the incident.

3. The driver of the vehicle entered the Costa Coffee car park and patronaged Costa Coffee where the driver spent just over two hours before leaving. The driver told the Defendant that they could not see any clear signage indicating any terms and conditions of parking.

Coupon-mad

Don't admit to staying over 2 hours.

"patronaged" - no such verb!

Your para 5 is oddly numbered as '3'.

And I'm not sure why you haven't included the CEL v Chan transcript images, like in the defence you are copying, and you haven't referenced that you will of course add (and RE-NUMBER) the rest of the (long) template defence through to the Statement of Truth.  Don't show us the whole 30 paragraphs, though!

Jammin1

Coupon-mad said:

I think this complaint needs escalating.  Costa always step in.

I sent in another complaint and asked to escalate to a manager, and received a pretty similar response to the first time: 

I would like to introduce myself, my name is Gemma and I am a Costa Customer Service Team Leader.  Your case has been passed to me by way of escalation as we believe you are unhappy with our response relating to the parking fine you received when visiting the Costa store in Milton, Milton Gate, DT.  Upon checking, unfortunately it transpires your fine occurred because you stayed over the time limit. 

We completely understand how upset and frustrated you are with the outcome, especially now this has been escalated to Civil Enforcement, however we are afraid that Costa is unable to assist you any further for the reasons outlined below.

Costa, like many large retailers, have a number of our stores and Drive-Thru’s which are located within or alongside privately owned carparks. Whilst the carparks are open for use by Costa Coffee customers, they are owned and operated by a third party, who manage the Terms and Conditions and determine how long a car can be parked there. We do not control the Terms and Conditions or subsequent charges and fines set by the third party.  We are extremely sorry but we simply don’t have any influence to ask for these fines to be cancelled.

 

Once again, we would like to apologise we cannot assist you any further with this matter. Appeal is always an option, so if you do feel you have a genuine case to appeal,  please kindly follow the instructions on the PCN.

Any more advice for escalating with Costa? Or should I just focus on the court defence?

Thanks

Coupon-mad

Dear Gemma,

Please escalate this complaint to the CEO of Costa in the UK.  It is not resolved.

You appear to be telling me that the car park is "owned" by the same third party who make up the deliberately tight time limit (i.e. the parking firm, Civil Enforcement Ltd).  That's not true. Ex-clampers like this notorious lot never own the car parks they infest.

Are you lying to me, or merely trotting out some "we're fed up with complaints about parking firms" new wording, to fob off and drive away customers for good?

This is just not good enough. I think the CEO will agree with me. Blaming the customer is the wrong party to blame.

How exactly does your CEO think an ANPR-reliant parking firm makes its money? It's not from hordes of unknown trespassers...  it's by picking off your customers and staff. When will the penny drop with Costa that litigious ANPR firms don't operate 'free'?

I am being sued for a sum close to £300 for the heinous 'crime' of using your establishment and I will publicise this further (the case is already being discussed on Martin Lewis' MSE website). If I have to appear at a hearing over this farce, I will require you to attend in person too, unless Costa nominate an alternative staff member in time.

I reiterate that these are my questions for the CEO:  Did Costa contract with Civil Enforcement at this site?  If Costa didn't, who did?  Who can call off Civil Enforcement?

And I expect Costa to kindly supply me with the full name and address for service of the staff member who will attend a hearing.

Yours sincerely,