Posted on 02/03/2018 7:05:38 AM PST by JP1201
Drivers sent tickets by New Miami, Ohio speed cameras will be getting a refund. The state appeals court has upheld the ruling handed down by the lower court last spring. At stake is $3 million in fines, illegally obtained by the town.
The Ohio Court of Appeals on Monday delivered a heavy blow to New Miami's attempt to block a court-ordered refund of $3,066,523 in speed camera citations. The village insisted that the lower court (view ruling) got it wrong and that the village should not be forced to pay back any amount on the grounds of sovereign immunity. Not so, said the unanimous three-judge panel.
"While it is true that New Miami has the authority to enforce its traffic laws, it must do so in a constitutional manner," Judge Michael E. Powell wrote for the appellate court. "New Miami does not have the authority to do so in an unconstitutional manner."
This is the end of six year legal battle over New Miami's speed cameras. The lower court had problems with the lack of options made available to ticket recipients to challenge speeding tickets. It also had problems with New Miami's cozy relationship with the speed camera company, which provided free cameras in exchange for a percentage of collected fines. This fostered an unhealthy relationship between the two, leading to the town becoming most famous for being a speed trap. The company saddled New Miami with a minimum of 100 operating hours per camera each month. This led to spike in tickets and a healthy thirst for continual cash infusions on the part of New Miami's governance.
The Appeals Court addresses New Miami's last-ditch attempt to salvage the $3 million it obtained unconstitutionally. The town tried to go the "sovereign immunity" route, claiming it could not be held responsible for monetary damages arising from a civil suit. The court explains handing out refunds isn't the same thing as issuing a check for monetary damages. From the order [PDF]:
[P]laintiffs are seeking the recovery of the specific amount of penalties they paid pursuant to the unconstitutional ordinance and that were therefore wrongfully collected by New Miami. That is, Plaintiffs are seeking the return of specific monies that had once been in their possession and so belonged to them "in good conscience," and thus have asserted a claim for the return of the very thing to which the class was allegedly entitled in the first place. Santos, 2004-Ohio-28 at ¶ 13-14. The action seeking restitution by Plaintiffs "is not a civil suit for money damages but rather an action to correct the unjust enrichment of" New Miami. Id. at ¶ 17. As the Ohio Supreme Court plainly held, "A suit that seeks the return of specific funds wrongfully collected or held by the state is brought in equity" and "is consequently not barred by sovereign immunity."
The government also tried to claim the speed camera funds were not unjustly obtained. It argued it had a legal right to impose fines for traffic violations. The court agrees the town can indeed do that, but points out it has to comply with the Constitution when it does.
New Miami claims that this is not a case where Plaintiffs are seeking reimbursement for services rendered or money "wrongfully collected." New Miami asserts that the penalties paid by Plaintiffs were not "wrongfully collected" because New Miami has the authority "to operate traffic programs and collect penalties for violation of traffic laws."
Apparently, it is New Miami's contention that because it has legal authority to collect penalties for violation of its traffic laws, Plaintiffs' claim is necessarily for money damages based upon a denial of due process in the collection of those penalties. While it is true that New Miami has the authority to enforce its traffic laws, it must do so in a constitutional manner. New Miami does not have the authority to do so in an unconstitutional manner.
Hopefully, this will be the end of New Miami's run as "the little speed trap that could." It's been told otherwise -- twice. It can't. Not the way it's been doing things. If the town wants to assess fees for traffic violations, fine. But it has to provide an avenue for recipients to challenge tickets. Its cozy relationship with the camera company prevents that. And its contractual obligations pervert the incentives, moving it from public safety to generating revenue.
They were pretty brutal about making people pay their fines. The website you mention has some horror stories, people being dragged out of schools and offices because the town got a judge to issue a bench warrant for people who were late paying their fines. I always avoided West Broad Street/US40 for that reason.
The way this (usually?) always works, the cameras are installed and the company takes their percentage. The cities just get a tiny fraction.
No points are assessed on anyones license. This is part of the inherent contradictions. If it’s truly about safety then people need to be held accountable. But it’s more complicated than that.
The real problem is municipalities are run on a long obsolete funding and revenue model from 50 or 100 years ago, when the currency markets, banking, bonds etc etc were sane, and decent paying jobs were relatively common. That’s all vaporised. They have huge obligations and will not be able to pay them. Human employees today cost too much money - Maybe the cameras can send tickets to the automated self-driving cars. Problem solved!
She is a very careful driver (especially in an unfamiliar car in unfamiliar territory), and had absolutely no recollection of the violation until the rental co. notified her and billed her $30.00 for "processing."
Then came the citation from FL and a $158.00 fine on top of that.
Sure, she could challenge it in court; all it would take is a few days off, a round-trip flight to FL and lodging and meals.
There's no doubt traffic laws are in place for a good reason, but this, and the aforementioned OH case smacks of a "follow the money" scam.
In other words, when the government screws up, it isn't accountable. Let a private citizen do the same thing and he'll likely hang.
Do you ticket a speeding car or the person driving it?
If you loan me your car and the camera catches it speeding, should you get the ticket>
Who receives the ticket when the vehicle is a rental car?
I wasn't driving the car
Lol. When they run a racket for a while, people start to notice. I am all for speed limits and laws, but abusing them and tricking people to raise revenue can only be called highway robbery.
Yep - lots of States/communities do that to prey on those passing through - would cost much more to fight it than to just pay.
My comment was to the one who asked what they were doing that was unconstitutional.
This is a shakedown, nothing more.
Same thing happened to me in an adjoining state. I avoided the state while I still owned the car, but I've since traded it and now I feel pretty safe driving through there.
The ticket I got showed the car, but had no image of the driver. There is no way the court could prove that I was the operator at the time, although they could establish that I was the owner. If they want to issue a summons to the car, they're free to do so.
NO because the toll increase is ad hoc. The driver has no way to anticipate that there will be a spike to $42 or some such in the toll and plan to travel at a different time of the day. He is caught. Furthermore this scheme is a corrupt public private scam on the peopel. It is done on public land. No private company bought up land, built a freeway and then set up toll collection.
The trouble is free-marketers and libertarians play into this nonsense. Nothing about these things is "free market."
As long as the officials don’t have to give back any consideration they received from the camera companies, only the taxpayers get hurt. (Bribes were properly reported on the tax forms, weren’t they?)
The name of the camera company isn’t given, but Redflex is known to have paid bribes in Ohio. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/watchdog/redlight/ct-red-light-cameras-karen-finley-met-20161019-story.html
They also paid bribes in Illinois http://stlouis.cbslocal.com/2016/09/12/man-given-6-months-for-passing-along-red-light-camera-bribes/
Right up to where a bunch of lawyers bring a class action suit to bankrupt the town to enrich themselves. You think this town has the $3M. It was long spent on graft.
For the drivers out there... Not all towns are listed. You have to hit the VIEW FULL LIST OF CITIES button to see some of the smaller vicious speed traps.
I have been stopped several times on interstates and divided highways for “speeding” even though my cruise control was set properly.
I later checked my mileage, at 60 mph on a divided highway with mile markers. My cruise control was accurate, but I was still stopped. No ticket though. Now I set my control at 68 for a 70 mph zone.
I've learned from locals that most of the fines are generated against unsuspected morning commuters long before the tavern opens. They actually risk being rear-ended if they come to a complete stop (versus a rolling stop) because few do so given that there is a traffic signal at the junction of those two U.S. highways and there is clear visibility of oncoming traffic.
We have one here that I drive thru all the time. Don’t know if they have cameras but don’t think I’ve driven through once when I didn’t see a car pulled over by local police. Speed limit goes from 60 to 55 to 45 to 35 within about a half a mile. You really have to watch it and sometimes break to hit the speed limit.
It’s a major 4 lane highway with a podunk town set right in the middle of it.
“This fostered an unhealthy relationship between the two,”
Unhealthy? Try corrupt.
L
When the state opened a new 70 MPH interstate through the corner of a speed trap town near here, (JOHNSON, ARKANSAS)the local cops came out in force and were ticketing everyone they could for violating the city’s 40 mph limit.
The governor had to issue a cease and desist order to get them to stop.
I got my first speeding ticket in another state on I-40 when the government suddenly dropped the speed limits from 70 mph to 55 back around 1974. Tucumcari NM had more traffic cops on I-40 than you will realize! I still won’t stop in that town. I go on to Santa Rosa, or Amarillo.
Always fight a speeding ticket , just not worth the increase in insurance fees and points. Delay, delay, delay.
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