Minneapolis Refuses To Refund Illegal Ticket Money To Citizens
A recent court ruling required the city of Minneapolis to refund money to 167 vehicle owners who challenged their traffic tickets. The tickets were given out by the city’s automatic ticketing machine called “PhotoCop”. Earlier this year, the Minnesota Supreme Court deemed the ticket camera system illegal because it videotaped vehicles without proving who was behind the wheel.
The city has decided not to appeal the ruling and will refund the illegal ticket money to the 167 vehicle owners who challenged their tickets. However, the city refuses to refund money to the 15,000 to 20,000 drivers who already paid their tickets. The city’s position is that if those people want their money back, they can sue for it. And much to their chagrin, there has been a lawsuit filed in federal court that aims to put the illegally-collected money back in motorists’ pockets.
It’s clear that Minneapolis was in the wrong here and yet instead of admitting their mistake and refunding the money, they have chosen to use their legal resources against the people they financially harmed. And the final slap in the face is that they’re using taxpayers’ funds to do it.
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Watcher,
Do you have any idea how much it costs to start a lawsuit? If you can find an attorney to take the case, it will probably cost you more for two hours of his time than what you can recover from the City. This is all part of the plan. Keep the actual cost of the fines cheap enough where it isn’t worth fighting it, but high enough that they can make their money. This is why most red light camera tickets are around $75. To me $75 isn’t worth taking a day off from work. If points are going to be assessed on your license then it might be different.
The last thing one of these municipalities wants is for you to get points on your license. Know why?
In order to assess points on your license they have to notify the State DOT. The State then takes a cut of your fine money. By pleading the points, the municipality acts like they are doing you a favor, when they are just keeping all of the fine money for themselves.
What they need to do is have each and every single one of those ticketed individuals, sue the city individually. One at a time, thus forcing the city to spend tons of money on legal fees and tying up the city staff for years! If I was one of those ticketed, I would then subpeonia each of the cities workers and elected officials…to give testimony about other plans by the city to screw the population. ANYTHING to bring the machine of local government to a grinding halt.(not that it moves much anyway). Eventually they will sit up from their 2 hour lunch breaks and notice that it aint fun to keep getting called into court for some BS idea. Its only a short step from this to marshal law. If they think they can get away with this, what will they think up next week?
The city is using its taxpayers resources to fund the lawsuit and the majority of those ticketed who paid their tickets do not wish to be bothered with future harassment on the issue. Sheep in the pen have already paid their due, so they figure the fox will leave them alone in the future. The fox is already digging under the fence because the law has closed the gate surrounding it. Tennessee has a financial responsibility law. In 1972 I was hit by my disabled car parked on what little area there was of a shoulder on a county road. It was dark and a truck hit the back of my car and I was in front of it. The car was knocked across a ditch and into a field and I was dragged about 60 feet. While still in the hospital I was visited by a law-enforcement officer and served papers stating if I did not sue the truck driver I was admitting guilt in the accident. My car stalled and the electrical system died. I was not even driving ( Duh! )
My insurance expired the night before the accident so a technicality put me on death row. that phrase is a figure of speech I use when it comes to those who do not stand up for what is right and complain because we as citizens do not make our representatives accountable.
I’m sure some of the thousands of tickets already served were justified, while some were not. How do you propose to sort that out? I think that all these technological approaches to law enforcement should be monitored by 3rd party auditors so that the fox guarding the henhouse doesn’t dial himself in a little advantage.
I wonder if this city thinks that it is its own city state? Amazing they are, aren’t they.
The City will lose on this.