Ruling on parking fees

Press, 29 May 1982, Page 5

Ruling on parking fees

The Ministry of Transport has been ordered to refund parking infringement tees paid after the start of court proceedings, Mr Justice Casey has ruled in a reserved decision given in the high Court. He dismissed an appeal by Bryan Michael Mogridge against three convictions for failing to pay parking tickets within the 21 days. Mr Mogridge argued his own appeal, and Mr A. M. Mclntosh appeared for the Ministry of Transport. Mr Justice Casey said that the three parking offences were committed in June, 1981. and he did not pay the fees within the 21 days prescribed. In September, 1981, notices of prosecution for minor offences were issued. He paid the $3 infringement fee on each notice on November 6.

Nevertheless the proceedings were continued and he was fined $2O. $2O and $l7 on

the three offences and was ordered to pay $8 costs on each charge. Mr Mogridge applied to the District Court for a rehearing on the ground that he believed that court action would not follow once the fees had been paid even though the payment had been late. He then appealed to the High Court against those convictions and argued his case very competently. Mr Justice Casey said.

In his submissions Mr Mogridge had referred to the standard letter sent out by the Ministry of Transport, which slated in part that the department had no authority to cancel the proceedings but the Court would be told that the fee had been paid and that a request would be made for leave to withdraw the charge. If it was not granted the hearing would continue.

There was no suggestion that Mr Mogridge had

received such a letter relating to the three offences which were the subject of the appeal. The department no longer sent out such letters and it simply notified the Court of the payments. However, Mr Mogridge was no stranger to the situation and thought that matters would be dealt with in the customary way and he would hear no more after having made the late payment of the $3 fees.

Mr Mogridge stated that had he known that the proceedings would continue he would have appeared in court to explain the offences. Even if he had received the letter there was no guarantee that the proceedings would be dropped - and he simply elected to take his chance.

The provisions made it clear that once the 21 days had expired and the payment had not been received the matter would be dealt with under the Summary Proceedings Act, and the fact that they had been paid could not affect their course.

Accordingly the appeals against conviction were dismissed. "I must confess to little sympathy with Mr Mogridge.

He did nothing about the notices for months, putting the deparment to the expense and trouble of issuing and serving the summonses before paying,” said Mr Justice Casey. He had been asked by counsel for the Ministry of Transport for some guidance about the late payment of the infringement fee. It was clear that payment at any time before the proceedings were issued was a defence, so that the department was obliged to receive it up to that point. "Payment after that date is irrelevant to the Summary Proceedings action, and in my view any practice to recover it is unauthorised. It raises false expectation in the mind of the payer and tends to fetter the Court’s discretion on penalty," Mr Justice Casey said.

There were circumstances in which payments would be mistakenly received by an enforcement authority after proceedings had been commenced and they should be refunded to the payer on the basis that the case was then being dealt with under the provisions of the Summary Proceedings Act, said Mr Justice Casey.