'I've been waiting for someone to bring this up': Dude gets parking ticket for literally no valid reason, fights it in court and WINS

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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Apr 3, 2023 8:00 AM EDT

The determination of this guy is genuinely inspiring. Who hasn't gotten a parking ticket that seemed like a BS violation of a BS rule? But what do you do most of the time? You comply and pay it because it simply takes too much effort and work to fight something like that in, you know, literal court. However, this Redditor got a parking ticket for "violation number 27" and kept asking everyone at every step of the process what the heck violation number 27 is. And of course, no one had an answer.

 

So rather than comply, this guy decided to contest the ticket and thankfully, he was dealing with a judge who seemed to be waiting for this magical day to arrive. Keep scrolling below to learn how this guy pulled it off, what transpired with the verdict, and what violation number 27 actually was supposed to mean. For more stories like this, here's another tale of parking drama.

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  • 01
    Motor vehicle - "Don't want to tell me what that parking ticket is for? OK. I'll get that ticket thrown out in court"
    via Caspar Rae
  • 02
    Font - Don't want to tell me what that parking ticket is for? OK. I'll get that ticket thrown out in court... along with jeopardizing any ticket the city wrote on that same form. TLDR; Way too long way of saying I got a parking ticket. Wasn't satisfied with an answer to a basic question about the violation. Fought it in court and won, with the judge ruling that every ticket the city had written on that form was suspect.
    via u/que_he_hecho
  • 03
    Font - The ticket This was mid to late 90s in a northern Midwest, mid-sized city. Parking near my apartment near a university was only on-street parking. Bad in the best of times, it got miserable in winter with alternate side parking eliminating half the parking on major streets such as where my apartment was.
    via u/que_he_hecho
  • 04
    Font - Failing to find any parking, some nights I would risk it. Sometimes I got a ticket. Sometimes not. But at least I typically knew why I got the ticket, until one morning. I was cited for violation number 27. I had no idea what that was all about. It wasn't an alternate side violation. Not an expired meter issue. Not a loading zone thing. I just didn't know what it was.
    via u/que_he_hecho
  • 05
    Font - What did I do wrong? I went by the office to pay the ticket and I asked the clerk, "BTW, what is violation number 27? I don't know and don't want to get ticketed for whatever it is again." Her reply set me off, "We don't have to tell you."
    via u/que_he_hecho
  • 06
    Font - Uh, excuse me!? I took my check* out of her hand and picked up my ticket. *(It was the 90s. I told you it was a long time ago! We used to write out little slips of paper called checks that the recipient could take it to the bank and deposit. Half you kids reading Reddit have probably never written a check. I'm old. Sue me. Now get off my lawn!)
    via u/que_he_hecho
  • 07
    Font - I asked her who could tell me. She shrugged, "Maybe the prosecutor's office?" she replied. I left, ticket unpaid. I stopped by the prosecutor's office, ticket in hand, to ask. I apologized to the receptionist for such a ridiculous waste of time. I just wanted to know. And she rolled her eyes at me. I got nowhere there.
    via u/que_he_hecho
  • 08
    Font - Digging in my heels, doing legal research For a poor recent college grad I certainly wasn't going to waste my money with a lawyer but was hard headed enough to want to know what violation number 27 was before I paid it. I resolved to go to the public library* and pull out the law books with the city ordinances and state statutes. *(Library, a physical building with actual printed books where people used to have to go to look up information before everything was online. I'm old. I told you
    via u/que_he_hecho
  • 09
    Font - I settled in, flipped through pages, cross referenced ordinances and statutes, and found something interesting. Possibly it was very interesting. I checked the court date on the ticket and made up my well fight City mind. I would Hall.
    via u/que_he_hecho
  • 10
    Font - Court time I showed up in court. Some paperwork was handed out to those of us who were present. Just before it was to be my turn the prosecutor graciously offered to let me pay the ticket plus court costs to make this go away. Uh, it is a 1 parking ticket. I'm already here. Why bother?
    via u/que_he_hecho
  • 11
    Font - After waiting my turn I stepped before the judge. The judge said a few things. The prosecutor said few things. And then it was my turn. "Your honor, I move to dismiss the ticket based upon a Due Process violation on the 14th Amendment." I think that prosecutor might have gotten whiplash, her neck snapped so fast.
    via u/que_he_hecho
  • 12
    Font - I told my story. I just want to know what violation number 27 is. I looked. It's not in the law books. Not in the city ordinances. I am being charged with something without being told what it is. And the judge smiled a bit, turned to the prosecutor, and said, "I've been waiting for someone to bring this up." The prosecutor's jaw dropped.
    via u/que_he_hecho
  • 13
    Font - "Your honor", I went on, "state statute requires certain elements to be on any citation for it to be valid. Among those things is a citation to statute or ordinance. And there are a couple other issues with the ticket. It does not conform to the statutory requirements for a citation. "
    via u/que_he_hecho
  • 14
    Font - The judge turned to me and asked if I had the ticket. "Yes ma'am, I do". And she asked if I had the paperwork that was handed out when I arrived in court. I did. And then the good judge took a few moments to walk us through that paperwork to show that neither the parking ticket nor the paperwork contained the requisite statutory elements for a citation or summons. Then the judge advised she would take the matter under advisement.
    via u/que_he_hecho
  • 15
    Font - The verdict A few weeks later I got a big manila envelope in the mail with the judge's order. In clearly written legalese she went step-by-step through my argument, the requirements in statute and ordinance, and the utter failure of the city to write* a single valid parking ticket on their standard form in many years. *(Years ago parking enforcement officers actually took a pen and physically wrote in ink on a three-part pre- printed parking ticket form. Barbaric, I know. They didn't have
    via u/que_he_hecho
  • 16
    Font - She detailed that the city, to allow their parking enforcement officers to write tickets faster, used their own list of violation numbers (Expired meter is #1, No Parking zone is #2...) that did not correspond to any section numbers of the statute or ordinance. If you didn't have the list you just might not know.
    via u/que_he_hecho
  • 17
    Font - And the judge threw out my parking ticket as a Due Process violation of the 14th Amendment. Oh, and that violation number 27 was parking too close to a handicapped ramp. I didn't see it under the snow. My bad. Didn't matter. I had moved out of town by then.
    via u/que_he_hecho
  • 18
    Rectangle - deliciae13 8 hr. ago . "I've been waiting for someone to bring this up." Beautiful. 925 Reply Share
    via u/que_he_hecho
  • 19
    Rectangle - PurBldPrincess. 5 hr. ago That judge was like a kid in a candy store that day. 276 Reply Share
    via u/que_he_hecho
  • 20
    Font - imarealchap 7 hr. ago I was just going to come up and congratulate you on a job well done. But alas, I'm not allowed on your lawn. 232 Reply Share
    via u/que_he_hecho
  • 21
    Font - Lay-ZFair. 8 hr. ago Never hurts to fight a ticket, worst case scenario you wind up paying while best case it's dismissed. I have a friend who always fights tickets. The police officers who show up don't care cause they're getting paid anyway and he doesn't care because according to him, at least while they're in court they're not out writing someone else a ticket! 116 Reply Share
    via u/que_he_hecho
  • 22
    Font - jerry111165 5 hr. ago You're old? It was the 90's?? Guess we have different definitions of "old".
    via u/que_he_hecho

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court legal petty revenge petty ticket reddit thread Reddit parking
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