an equal and opposite reaction
Case Details for "UBC"
University of British Columbia ordered to pay back $4m in parking fines
A judge in Vancouver determined that the University of B.C. has been unlawfully issuing parking tickets since 1990 and has ordered that more than $4 million in fines be paid back to thousands of violators.
In 2006, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Richard Goepel certified a class-action lawsuit on the issue after representative plaintiff Daniel Barbour filed suit against the university.
Barbour, a Vancouver chartered accountant, was angry when his two-door Jaguar was impounded after he left it in a parking lot on the UBC campus.
He was legally parked at the time but was ordered to pay $200 to get his car back after the university alleged he'd violated the parking regulations on at least one other occasion.
Up until the start of the trial, UBC argued that the parking fines were lawfully collected under the University Act but then admitted that the scheme was illegal.
It then submitted that there were ``private law justifications'' for the regulations, but in a ruling released Monday, Goepel said that those arguments were not sufficient to uphold the fines.
The judge said that UBC retains the power to remove vehicles that are improperly parked and to recover costs incurred, but he noted that in most cases the fines are far in excess of the damage caused to UBC by the miscreant parker, and said that those penalized trusted that UBC had the power to impose the fines.
Posted on:2009-03-31
Company: UBC
Class:
Scope: Nationwide
Type of Case: Consumer
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