Court of Appeal - Appeal - allowed vs VCS - Well done Jackson Yamba!

ChirpyChicken · 4 March at 12:33PM

LDast said:

Well, Jackson didn’t have to do much as VCSs barrister managed to dig his own hole. The Judges retired to consider their decision based solely on VCSs barristers submission which was rightly questioned. Now costs have to be agreed.

Typical of VCS to instruct that this decision will be to appeal to the SC. Let’s see if that is accepted. Their argument appears to be very weak.

I will happily put money on it not being accepted and leave to appeal denied

ParkingMad · 4 March at 2:48PM

Link to original thread:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6544855/court-of-appeal-case-vcs-permission-to-appeal#latest

Coupon-mad · 4 March at 3:19PM

I haven't watched it yet as I'm out but I hear it focussed on 'the phone calls'?

These are the phone calls referred to by the CoA in the first judgment, which impliedly (or expressly) told VCS that he lived at the flats and not at the old address:

"It is arguable with a strong prospect of success that she was not justified in doing so, let alone in substituting the findings that she did. Her reasoning at paragraph 12 is questionable. It makes little sense to me to find that by ringing up the claimant and saying he was a tenant at the property where the car was parked and that his tenancy agreement gave him the right to park there, the defendant was not telling the claimant he was living there (and by necessary implication that he did not live elsewhere) whether he said so in one call or two. Her suggestion that it “could have made a difference” if the DJ had found that only one call made reference to the defendant being a tenant of the flat is therefore baffling. His reasoning does not depend on how many calls there were.

3. In any event the Circuit Judge's analysis of the evidence about the telephone calls fails to take proper account of the context; she appears to have assumed that the absence of express reference to a tenancy in the claimant's note of the second conversation is conclusive. But the “client” referred to in that note could only be the company from which the claimant was taking its instructions to levy the parking charges -i.e. the landlord or managing agents of the block of flats. The second conversation only makes sense in the context that the motorist was claiming the landlord had confirmed he had the right to use the car park without being served with a parking penalty notice — necessarily implying that he was a tenant.

4. Moreover the DJ did not simply rely on the two telephone calls; he also took into account the absence of any response from the defendant to any of the voluminous correspondence sent by the claimant to his former address. Whether or not that was enough in itself to put them on notice, the Circuit Judge does not explain how the “error” she identified would invalidate that assessment of the evidence."

h2g2 · 4 March at 3:44PM

From what I remember of it the main thrust of the VCS representative (and I think we all know why they would want to establish this) was that the address from the DVLA should have been presumed valid for service, absent explicit instructions otherwise. They want to be able to lazily use that address without having to go through the extra steps of a trace because a default CCJ is as good as a win (if not better) for them.

Of course, they can't say that directly since the DVLA are quite explicit that they do not guarantee that to be true (and, furthermore, cannot guarantee it to be true - keepers are allowed to sell the vehicle to someone else, and then the DVLA won't be notified of any change of address until that person comes to own another vehicle).

ChirpyChicken · 4 March at 3:54PM

Yes it did concentre on the calls.

Gr1pr · 4 March at 9:31PM

They also stated that VCS tried to get a current address from the dvla a second time and were refused due to the rules in the ( kadoe ) contract, so they should have traced him.by alternative means, but were lazy

JY didn't need to speak, in the end

The other barrister was repeating the weak case numerous times, but the 3 judges appeared to know the score, hence the decision to allow the appeal, he even mentioned driving licence instead of log book, I thought that he knew that he was flogging a dead horse

I bet JB at VCS EXCEL isn't happy , but Judge Iyer will be

h2g2 · 5 March at 1:07PM

I spoke to JY about my case today ("sorry it's a delayed, I was focussing on the VCS case", he said) and I said I'd watched the livestream.

He said it was a bit frustrating he didn't get a chance to talk, because he felt he could thoroughly dismantle case from the VCS representative (who's name was a little unclear on the audio). I guess it would have been a good opportunity to put a duty to perform a trace onto parties collecting debts, where they cannot confirm the service address with certainty.

Castle · 5 March at 1:15PM

h2g2 said:

I spoke to JY about my case today ("sorry it's a delayed, I was focussing on the VCS case", he said) and I said I'd watched the livestream.

He said it was a bit frustrating he didn't get a chance to talk, because he felt he could thoroughly dismantle case from the VCS representative (who's name was a little unclear on the audio). I guess it would have been a good opportunity to put a duty to perform a trace onto parties collecting debts, where they cannot confirm the service address with certainty.

Data Processors already have a statutory duty under the DPA/GDPR to ensure that the data is accurate and up to date.
Principle (d): Accuracy | ICO

Umkomaas · 5 March at 1:59PM

VCS barrister furiously typing as the CoA decision being given ....

'Dear Si

It's all going TU! Not only that, you're copping for a shedload of costs. You'll need mighty deep pockets if you're going to get to appeal to the SC.

Don't ring me.

Love and peace

Barry your Barri

PS - while we're on 'addresses', where do I send my invoice?'