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ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis: Difference between revisions
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==={{casenote|ParkingEye Ltd|Beavis}}=== | ==={{casenote|ParkingEye Ltd|Beavis}}=== | ||
Naughty Mr Beavis parked in a private car park which charged a £85 for motorists overstayed | Naughty Mr Beavis parked in a private car park “unusually attractively located for shoppers and others,” and which was free for the first two hours, but charged a £85 for motorists who overstayed their two-hour free period. Naughty Mr Beavis overstayed. He did so by almost an hour. Wicked Mr Beavis. ParkingEye levied its £85 fine. | ||
Truculent Mr Beavis would not pay. He had a friend | Truculent Mr Beavis would not pay. In ParklingEye’s terms and conditions the charge would be reduced to £50 if paid within two weeks, and for those wanting to cry-off with some justification, there was an appeals procedure as well. Naughty Mr Beavis ignored all that. He ignored reminder notices, warning letters and eventually found himself before the Designated Civil Judge of East Anglia, arguing “a point of some principle, likely to affect many other similar claims”. We surmise Mr Beavis had a law student friend with some acumen in the idioms of the common law, but less in the tenets of basic common sense. In any case rather than paying £50 and moving on, as even the most sanctimonious pedant would do, Mr Beavis asserted ParkingEye’s charge was an unenforceable [[Penalty clause|penalty]] (or, pleading in the alternative, an [[unfair contract]] under the [[Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999]]) and threw himself at the mercy of the British justice system. | ||
And lo, it came to pass that a piffling dispute between a veritable latter-day ''[[Fardell v Potts|Albertus Haddockus]]'' and the owner of some attractively located tarmac, over less than a [[monkey]], led fully seven law lords (Lords Neuberger, Mance, Clarke, Sumption, Carnwath, Toulson and Hodge) to create a [[media:ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis.pdf|124 page judgment]] which forges a new path in English contract law. | |||
Poor naughty Mr Beavis — though, actually not poor, as transparently he got what was coming to him — lost. “If this car park is unusually attractively located for shoppers and others, the evidence shows that the £85 charge has not been fixed at a particularly high level to reflect that fact. Further, as Mr Kirk QC pointed out on behalf of ParkingEye, it is equally true that the consumer gets the benefit of free parking in that unusually attractively located car park for two hours, and, save in unusual circumstances, it is entirely within his or her control whether the two-hour limit is exceeded. And if the consumer considers that the circumstances are unusual, he or she can invoke the appeals procedure.” | |||
Some lessons for the players — especially for Mr Beavis: | |||
*Unpleasant though owners of unusually attractive parking locales may be, sanctimonious shoppers who wantonly ignore clear signage and then argue the imposition of spurious wrongs to the highest court in the land are worse, and should not expect sympathetic treatment. Besides, the parking locale let you park for ''nothing'' for a couple of hours, so actually ''wasn’t'' that unpleasant. A small-minded citizen is worse. | |||
*Beware of law student friends who lack common sense. That’s most of them. | |||
==={{casenote|Cavendish Square Holdings|El Makdessi}}=== | ==={{casenote|Cavendish Square Holdings|El Makdessi}}=== | ||