What constitutes a properly pleaded Particulars of Claim?

[Janicec12]

P.S. I realised that a particular paragraph needed explication and I re-worded it as follows:
As officially reported by letter dated 27^th October 2017 the Defendant acted to produce a revised Contract, to include the website price, without asking the Claimants if they were willing to accept a revised Contract. Throughout, the Claimants expressly sought to withdraw from the Contract and be refunded the deposit they had paid in good faith, an option the Defendant refused. For their part, the Claimants did not agree to a replacement Contract, informing the Defendant of this. A new Contract that necessitated them paying a lastminute.com employee they did not know was definitely not what the Claimants wanted due to issues of trust that left them disinclined to take what they perceived as a risk. In truth the Claimants never even accepted the original Contract because of issues of trust that arose due to systematic difficulties in making contact with the Defendant to raise complaints.

[Janicec12]

Hi Janice,

Going to be very blunt with you so don't take it too personally. Your POC contains far too much opinion - POC's are strictly for facts only, no opinions, legal argument or anything else should be included. I am yet to see in the draft POC where Last Minute have breached the contract, you seem to have written a lot of smoke but nothing is behind it. If I was a judge I would strike out your claim as having no reasonable cause of action.

Be straight to the point, keep it factual and identify the breaches, not your own personal opinions. I would suggest you re-visit your POC and have another go - I've uploaded a very revised version also with comments and brackets in there to help you along.

Give it another go and upload it here if you want further feedback. I assume you didn't include the headers at the top of the doucment because it contains personal information but you need to make sure that is included or its non-compliant and liable to be struck out. Also, you also need to remember that each paragraph needs to be numbered, otherwise it is non-compliant and liable to be struck out.

The document itself is set up so it has several styles which can be easily used but I don't know what version of Word you are using so difficult to show you. Anyway if you are using Word 2010 or above, you should see a number of styles at the top some of them are named as "Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3". They relate to the numbering system of the document. If you are struggling or don't know how to do it, then sort out your POC first and I can finalise the document before you submit it.

Be as blunt as necessary. I haven't taken it personally. I wouldn't have asked if I was unwilling to heed the advice. I have attempted to do just that, but need to stop for a few hours for a rest as I'm getting brain fagged. I attach what I've done with your amended version. By the way, I use Windows 7, 2003.

[R0b]

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I've had a look at your amendments and I have to admit I am still struggling where the breach of contract lay.

Para. 5 you've inserted the above image but that image/advertisement suggest you were doing something because it states at the beginning "Please wait we are checking the price for the chosen trip". You then immediately go on to say that the advertisement was clearly an exclusive offer but you've not actually said what was being offered.

Para. 6 then says you clicked "book now" and then you were informed that you had requested a booking. But it also says "choose your holiday from thousands of exclusive offers" giving the impression that it wasn't just an exclusive offer for that particular package holiday.

Para.8 then goes on to say that you received an email confirming the booking, but how can you have received an email confirmation if you only clicked on the advertisement saying "book now"? How did Last minute know your email address to send the confirmation?

There's a lot of gaps in your background and suffice to say that as it stands, I see no breach of contract. I can't understand how you are able to book something and Last Minute send you an email confirming you requested a booking of whatever package holiday without inputting your information.

I've used Last Minute once or twice before and like any other travel website, you need to go through several steps by inputting lots of information such as names of the parties, passport information, inputting your debit card details etc. Maybe its me, but it doesn't seem like you've clearly explained the situation and I can't understand it, then you are going to struggle getting a judge on board.

Reading between the lines and correct me if I am wrong, you would have done something like the following steps:

1. You went on to LastMinute.com

2. You searched for some holidays around Egypt based on the information you supplied e.g. name of airport, length of stay, number of people etc.

3. Whilst Last Minute were collating package holidays the loading screen showed the advertisement

4. Intrigued by the advertisement, you clicked on it

That's where I get lost.

[Janicec12]

Good morning,

I attach what I am hoping is more or less the PoC that will work. Please can you check the legal basis for the claims I am making re. breaches of implied terms. Again, many, many thanks.

[R0b]

Morning,
see the latest attached comments. You really need to nail down the issues at hand and really consider whether the advertisement is of any relevance. Personally I can't see it but it's your claim so ultimately your decision.

Once you are happy with the final version, let me know and I will make sure its all updated and properly referenced. You will also need to make sure the heading section is completed properly or risk having it struck out.

[Janicec12]

Help - how do I remove the formatting you have added?

[R0b]

Not sure what you mean by the formatting? I've done tracked changes so if you are talking about the strike-through text then you need to right click on the text and either accept or reject it.

[Janicec12]

Morning,
see the latest attached comments. You really need to nail down the issues at hand and really consider whether the advertisement is of any relevance. Personally I can't see it but it's your claim so ultimately your decision.

Once you are happy with the final version, let me know and I will make sure its all updated and properly referenced. You will also need to make sure the heading section is completed properly or risk having it struck out.

The attached is what I am left with. I do not understand why you have removed the breaches of implied terms.

The advertisement appeared during the booking process and may not be relevant except that it prompted us to make an immediate booking to obtain the stated price. That we even could book now to obtain a price was misleading information. Misleading actions are the issue plus that we couldn't get anywhere trying to complain.

On 16th July we did indeed complete passenger details, etc., and included my E-mail address. All documentation was sent to me via that E-mail address, including the Thomas Cook Airlines document detailing luggage. The cost of flights was included as part of the package and no flight charges were afterwards added..

I realise I have to put back the court dettails, etc.

I don't have more than a couple of hours to finalise this.

[R0b]

I've struck out a large part of the implied terms section because I can't see how you quoting from their website "we are obliged to maintain a high standard of service to you by ABTA's Code of Conduct" is relevant to you being misled.

I also don't see the relevance where you clam to be denied 'rapid contact' with Last Minute and you had to wait 40 minutes. You've not referred to any clauses or paragraphs of ABTA's Code of Conduct suggesting they have breached the Code. Stating that Last Minute "breached the ABTA Code of Conduct in all material ways" does not in any way explain what exactly has been breached under the Code itself.

On 8 b) you say that Last Minute confirmed the member number as E7760 being the relevant ABTA number but then going to say "as being the relevant number for the Claimants' booking". Last Minute are a member of ABTA under the number P7211 and Y6407 (which is their parent company ABTA number).
It's all a bit confusing and long-winded and the whole purpose of a POC is to provide a concise statement of facts. It will likely fall within the small claims track so it shouldn't be too complicated but you should be keeping it as short as possible while including the key facts and information, not all of the information you want to get across.

If you specifically relied on them being ABTA protected (which they are) and there has been a breach of contract as a result then you have not clearly demonstrated that. If they are not compliant with the ABTA Codes then that ought to be raised with ABTA - the only reference I can see in the guidance is that the logo must be shown where Last Minute are advertising their services and on their website. Though I don't know what it was like in 2016 the logo isn't shown on their current website but their ABTA numbers are. How has the lack of ABTA logo caused Last Minute to be misleading? If their website stated that they were a member of ABTA but did not include the logo itself, I can't see that as given false or misleading information or Last Minute acting in a deceiving way.

This is only my views but ultimately its your claim - if you want to keep it in then do so but be prepared to explain to a judge at a hearing it your POC are accepted.

I'm afraid I am going to be away for the next few hours so you are on your own to work out what you want to do.