A restaurant owner spoke of his astonishment last night after a clamping firm tried to charge him for “loss of earnings” because he warned customers to avoid a private car park next door.Yes, unbelievable as it seems, they claimed that he was preventing them from
I’d say they ought to be ashamed of themselves, but then, ‘car clamping firm’ and ‘shame’ aren’t natural chums in anyone’s sentence…Zak Hussein, 50, told customers they faced being clamped and fined £150 if they left their vehicles in the permit-only car park next to his Indian restaurant, The Chillies.
But the warning so angered Whites Car Park Solutions it launched a legal action, claiming Mr Hussein’s actions were scaring away its own “customers” and depriving it of release fees.
Luckily, he got a judge who was similarly unamused at the temerity of thisIn a letter to Mr Hussein, Jason White wrote: “If you carry on to warn people away from the car park causing me loss of earning I will have to issue a county court summons in the region of £150 for each day you do this.”
Mr Hussein was stunned when he then received a letter from Northampton County Court saying Mr White had lodged a claim for £535. The clamper had demanded £500 “loss of earnings”, a £35 “court fee” and £150 per day until the court case.
It’s just as well he struck it out. Think of the legal precedent this could have set!At Southampton County Court District Judge Andrew Grand dismissed White’s claim, saying that Mr Hussein was allowed to warn customers.
He said: “It is ordered that the claim is struck out as disclosing no reasonable grounds for bringing proceedings.
“It is not tortious to warn people of vehicle clamping operating in a car park.”
8 comments:
Splendid blog, as ever. This is very nearly beyond belief. I only wish it were entirely so
Next we will be hearing of those naughty AA meetings depriving Carlsberg-Tetley of revenue.
If ‘chutzpah’ is an euphenism for a four-lettered Anglo Saxon word generally considered to be quite offensive, then yes.
Clampers.
Just keep a diamond edged hacksaw in the boot.
Or an angle grinder ...
The sheer bonkers logic of this remionds me of the chap the police tried to prosecute for warning drivers passing his house of a speed trap further up the road. He was accused of 'interfering with the course of justice' and nearly got into a lot of trouble. It was only when someone pointed out that he was actually helping people stay within the law that the police changed their minds. If they had gone ahead, it would have been clear that they wanted people to break the law first and then get a fine, rather than not break it in the first place.
And what about the burglar who tried to sue the police for preventing him going about earning a living? Or was that a joke? It's hard to tell these days.
On that basis, the tax people could sue me for not working hard enough.
I quite deliberately never earn enough to pay more than basic rate tax.
It's probably against some law they've just made up.
"This is very nearly beyond belief. I only wish it were entirely so..."
Me too!
"Next we will be hearing of those naughty AA meetings depriving Carlsberg-Tetley of revenue."
Indeed. It's a concept with a great deal of possibility.
"The sheer bonkers logic of this remionds me of the chap the police tried to prosecute for warning drivers passing his house of a speed trap further up the road."
Yes, I remember that one, but couldn't find it on a cursory Google search.
"On that basis, the tax people could sue me for not working hard enough."
I'm pretty suire they would if they could. So much easier than chasing down criminals evading tax, after all.
The case was heard in Northampton and Southampton?
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