Court Declares Nix To Lawsuit Over Tix

The accused parking violators were on the wrong side of the law in their attempt to keep the city from collecting more than $50 million in fines, Commonwealth Court has ruled.

The ticketed car owners charged that it would be criminal for the city to collect for the two years the Traffic Court was switching from a summary criminal court to a civil court.

Some violators said the move, between 1987 and 1989, deprived them of rights they would have had in criminal court, pointing out that they were prosecuted outside of a two-year statute of limitations.

So they filed a class-action suit trying to bar the city from collecting on three million parking tickets issued in those years.

Last week, they learned that their case has been parked in a space reserved for losers.

It was dismissed.

The court said the ticket holders were probably better off in civil court, and lost no constitutional rights.

Senior Judge Samuel L. Rodgers said that even though the move converted summary offenses to civil violations, and eliminated the two-year statute of limitations, it also did away with the threat of the ``arrest of the person and incarceration as remedies for unpaid parking tickets.''

The reorganization placed parking violators in the hands of a hearing examiner for the city's Finance Department. Common Pleas Court was always available for appeals.

``Even though the plaintiffs did not consent, any deprivation of their rights fails to amount to a constitutional violation . . . ,'' Rodgers added.

Rodgers pointed out that if the rebels won, the city would have been forced to suffer a great financial burden and an administrative hassle.