I pretty much agree with b789 except perhaps about Chan not applying to the new slightly more detailed particulars of claim. . Obviously, in a case of forgetting to display a blue badge, the Equality Act argument will be the most important part of the defence but no harm in including the following for good measure:
1. The Defendant denies liability for the entirety of the sum claimed and save as expressly stated below makes no admissions.
2.The Particulars of Claim are deficient as they do not comply with Civil Procedure Rule 16.4, being in breach of the Practice direction to Part 16, in that they fail to ‘state all facts necessary for the purpose of formulating a complete cause of action.’(16PD3 and 16PD7)
3.The Defendant is unable, on the basis of the Particulars of Claim, to understand with certainty what legal cause of action is being asserted, what facts are relied on and what heads of cost are being pursued.
4. The attention of the allocating judge is respectfully referred to the persuasive decision of HHJ Murch in the appeal judgment in Civil Enforcement Limited v Chan (Ref.E7GM9W44, attached below) which would indicate this Claimant’s Particulars of Claim fail to comply with Civil Procedure Rule 16.4 and the Practice direction to Part 16.
5. In the present case, the Particulars of Claim, to the extent that they relate to a claim in contract, state merely ‘Failure to display blue badge.’ They provide no information as to the term or terms of any contract pursuant to which the amount claimed (or any amount) may be due from the Defendant to the Claimant in relation to the alleged failure to display blue badge.
6. Furthermore, the Particulars of Claim in the present case go on to assert in the alternative that ‘the Defendant is pursued as the keeper pursuant to POFA 2012 Schedule 4.’ While it is understood that this refers to Schedule 4 to the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, it is impossible for the Defendant to understand from this brief description whether it is alleged that the Claimant (a) delivered a ‘notice to driver’ in accordance with the procedures laid out in paragraph 7 of that Schedule followed by a ‘notice to keeper’ in accordance with the procedures laid out in paragraph 8 of that Schedule, or (b) delivered a ‘notice to keeper’ in accordance with the entirely different procedures laid out in paragraph 9 of that Schedule, making it impossible for the Defendant to respond meaningfully to the allegation.
7. This is hardly surprising because the Claimant’s solicitors are engaged in an industrial scale mass litigation practice in which claim forms with deficient particulars of claim are issued in bulk on a speculative basis, with little or no attempt to particularise the claims, in the hope of obtaining judgments by default, very often discontinuing claims, failing to serve witness statements and/or failing to pay hearing fees in contested cases. The Court is respectfully requested to take judicial notice of this pattern of behaviour, as well as the deficient content of the particulars of claim in the present case, in determining whether the Claim should be struck out as an abuse of the Court’s process. However, the particulars of claim in this case, even if considered solely on their own merits (or lack thereof), are so deficient as to amount to an abuse of the Court’s process.
8. Following the appeal decision in Civil Enforcement Limited v Chan, learned judges have unsurprisingly struck out claims filed by parking companies with particulars of claim as sparse as those in the present case in County Courts throughout the country including in Norwich, Reading, Peterborough, Basildon and Wakefield (without hearings) and (upon a hearing) in the County Court at York. It is respectfully pointed out that in the majority of these cases the court ruled that as the claim was for a very small amount (as it is in the present case), well within the small claims limit it would be disproportionate and contrary to the overriding objective to give permission to the claimant to amend the claim.
Did you receive my direct message?
