In a 2-1 decision, The Eighth District Ohio Court of Appeals ruled last week that Cleveland couldn’t issue red light camera and speed camera tickets to the drivers of leased vehicles. The dispute arose after a pair of speed camera tickets were mailed to the Dickson and Campbell law firm in January 2007. Attorney Blake A. Dickson noticed that under Cleveland’s ticketing ordinance, only the registered owner of a vehicle could be held liable for an automated ticket. He then appealed the $100 fines before the Cleveland Parking Violations Bureau, arguing that his law firm leased the car from VW Credit Leasing, the registered owner. “OK. Well, we are going to go after the [lessee] then, sir,” the hearing officer said as he declared the firm guilty.
Dickson appealed the decision to the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas, which immediately rejected the argument as a clever trick designed to deprive Cleveland of millions in revenue.
“Appellant is attempting to avoid the inevitable with an argument based on semantics,” the court ruled. “If this court were to follow appellant’s reasoning, then every driver of a leased car would be free from liability of speed traffic offenses simply because they do not ‘own’ the vehicle. Therefore the court finds the [Parking] Violations Bureau’s decision to be supported by reliable, probative, and substantial evidence and is in accordance with law as appellant had the care, custody, and control of the vehicle in question at the time of each violation.”
The court of appeals noted that both the hearing officer and lower court judge accepted that Dickson and Campbell was the lessee and not the registered owner of the vehicle. State vehicle title records listed VW Credit Leasing as the sole owner. The appeals court put the blame on Cleveland for failing to write its ordinance properly.
“It is not difficult to decipher the difference between ‘owner’ of a vehicle and ‘lessee’ of a vehicle,” Judge Melody J. Stewart wrote for the majority. “If the City of Cleveland had intended to hold lessees liable under CCO 413.031, it would have included them in the ordinance as other municipalities have.”
An older Cleveland ordinance specifically holds those leasing vehicles responsible for parking tickets. The appeals court concluded that the city would have to abide by the rules it wrote and cancel the automated ticket issued to the law firm.
“The common pleas court’s reasoning that drivers can escape liability by leasing vehicles is inaccurate,” Judge Stewart wrote. “Every driver of a leased vehicle can still be liable for speeding and running a red light through traditional means, namely, being cited by a police officer for doing so… Dickson and Campbell cannot be liable for the speeding infractions since they were the lessee of the vehicle and not the owner.”
It’s nice when the rule of law prevails. Unfortunately that requires experienced lawyers, working for themselves as a matter of principle, to take the issue past the corrupt worthless townie Judge and to the Court of Appeals.
If you have to ask what this would cost you, then you can’t afford it. And that is how justice falls apart.
“Every driver of a leased vehicle can still be liable for speeding and running a red light through traditional means, namely, being cited by a police officer for doing so. . .”
The Court of Appeals does not mention by name the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge who failed to abide by the rule of law, but instead twisted the law to increase city revenue. But the Judge’s name is Eileen T. Gallagher. The above quote is a bit of an F-U to that Judge from the Court of Appeals “We actually have people called police officers, we don’t rely solely on scameras.”
You can find the lower court case here:
http://cpdocket.cp.cuyahogacounty.us/p_NameSearch.aspx
Just type Dickson into the company name field, it is case number CV-07-621893.
I’m guessing the law will be changed by sundown.
Making camera ticket revenue expensive to collect should be a primary goal for anyone who would object to their use in the first place. Bravo, Blake A. Dickson, even if you only pursued this as an excercise in legal dick-swinging.
If they want to use photo radar, fine. Have a cop standing next to each one verifying the act. Because you still have the right to confront your accuser, in this case a camera, even if the accuser is presenting such great evidence as video.
legal dick-swinging
If dick-swinging is outlawed… something something.
I’m avoiding Cleveland until they remove these systems. I live about 70 miles to the south and it’s the closest place to go for Major League Baseball games, NFL events, major concerts, and big-city culture events like plays and musicals. It’s just sad that no one has taken the initiative to start a petition and collect signatures to get the issue put on the ballot. Because everywhere it’s come up for a vote, people have overwhelmingly told the camera enforcement people to go screw themselves, and ‘get out of my city’ first.
When I went to the final “informational meeting” with the city of Canton, a couple of gentlemen spoke on getting tickets from the system up in Cleveland, one of them erroneously, and the one guy’s son had just gotten a SECOND invalid ticket in the mail in the last month! The Redflex salesman gave the excuse that Cleveland “wasn’t his company’s system.”
Hooray for lessees, at least temporarily. Next I want to see everyone using my brilliant idea of blaming all citations on a minor child or relative (when there’s no proof they were at school or work, etc) then just have them refuse to pay. I think that works because they are a minor and it’s a civil fine, but you’d have to talk to a lawyer to be sure.
Did somebody forget that leasing companies charge the lessee for outstanding tickets to a leased vehicle?
Actually, under the ordinance the leasing company is required to pass the ticket along to the lessee. The leasing company is clearly not liable here, so there is no cost to the leasing company to be passed along to the lessee. The problem is passing the ticket itself along to the lessee, standing alone, doesn’t make the lessee liable for the ticket. Passing the ticket along to the lessee is technically an exercise in futility. The net effect is that leased vehicles can’t legally be “auto-ticketed,” so to speak, under the ordinance as written.
Note that such speeding tickets are civil cases in cleveland. They are issued to the car, not the driver. There are no points, and no insurance hit.
I don’t know what the recourse is if you do not pay it. Maybe they can turn over to a collection agency, but how can an agency attach your paycheck or seize your assets without a judgement in the first place? Where’s the due process, even for a civil case, to a trial by jury?
The guys an idiot in my view. I’ve seen too many near misses at intersections. When people learn that yellow means stop they won’t be necessary.
lets start with red means stop.
Since yellow has never meant stop, and never will.