[This is a guest blog]
When most everyone decides that enough is enough and they have to sue someone in the Small Claims Court the parties tend to know each other. They have lived in each others pockets engaged in their dispute for quite some time and know each other very well. However, when a Parking Company decides to sue a motorist they do not know that person. So something important is missing, and very personal, from their knowledge.
Sue someone with a mental health problem, when you don’t know them, and you don’t appreciate that they ignore your demands because they simply do not understand what is taking place or how important it is to deal with the matter. You get Judgment and then enforce that court decision and perhaps get Bailiffs to take their goods away to sell them to get your debt paid..........and still that Defendant does not understand what is going on.
ParkingEye is presently suing someone with dysphasia. Look it up and you will see that this creates a number of difficulties as a result of a defect in the brain leading to poor memory, a difficulty in logical reasoning and a poor understanding of language and reasoning. Broadly, when ParkingEye serve court papers on folk with this problem the motorist doesn’t appreciate their importance and the necessity to deal with them and ParkingEye get Judgment in default.
The CPRs (Rule 21) indicate that such individuals are “Protected Persons” and that no action can be taken in proceedings, after a claim has commenced, until that defendant has a Litigation Friend appointed to assist them. ParkingEye don’t know their victim so, in the absence of a response from the Defendant, they press ahead and get judgment in contravention of those “Protected Person” protocols.
Then someone has to try and sort it out before ParkingEye goes too far.
If ParkingEye used pay on exit systems then there would not be a problem with over-parking and those who need extra help would not be penalised because of their disability.
How many people are in this position and does ParkingEye care or is the money more important?
Prankster Note
Parking court cases are fairly unique in that the two parties have no contact whatsoever and know next to nothing about each other. If there is no response from the motorist, parking companies have automatic systems that escalate all the way from parking overstay to enforcing a default judgment with minimal human intervention after the charge is first issued.
With ParkingEye issuing over 30,000 claims a year, it is therefore inevitable that cases like this will occur.
Happy Parking
The Parking Prankster