You Can’t Fight City Hall – or City Court
PARKING TICKET
So I was in Scottsdale City Court yesterday taking care of a parking ticket for my grandfather-in-law. The poor guy. So sue him – yes, he forgot to put his handicapped placard on his rear-view mirror! With all due respect, this great man can barely move. It didn’t matter. It was a civil violation, not criminal, and it was what we in the law call “strict liability.” In other words, no matter how well-intentioned you are, if you don’t do x or y, you’re in the wrong.
Now for a little lesson, just a little one. If you have insurance but you get pulled over and don’t have it in your car, once you show you *were* insured on the day/time you got pulled over, most courts will dismiss the ticket; those tickets are cited under the state of Arizona traffic laws. But my grandfather’s parking ticket was cited under a Scottsdale city ordinance. So even though we could prove that he indeed had a handicapped placard and was very needful of one, it didn’t matter. On a happier note, the judge was a nice man and agreed to reduce his fine from $300+ to only $90.
CAN’T FIGHT THE CITY
As I was waiting my turn to talk to the aforementioned judge, a well-dressed young man without an attorney was trying to plead his case. In the interests of privacy, I won’t divulge details. Suffice to say that he had indeed been “screwed” by the system, not maliciously, but still screwed. The Judge was patient and let the kid have his say, but over and over the judge said, “I can’t give you legal advice from the bench.”
I felt sorry for the kid. He didn’t know what to say, what to do. There are “magical words” we lawyers know to say in situations like that. Certain approaches. Lawyerly ways to do things. It’s sad, and maybe even unfair, but sometimes, oftentimes, ya just gotta get a lawyer!! And that’s all there is to that!
