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A local judge has decided not to order the city of Girard to pay any damages in a class-action lawsuit filed by more than 7,000 people who were cited and billed for speeding -- even though they weren't.
Trumbull County Common Pleas Judge Andrew D. Logan last month reaffirmed an August preliminary settlement in a civil suit against Girard city, but we believe damages are warranted because the city should be held accountable for the error that occurred after the city continued its ongoing practice of policing for profit.
Not only does Girard collect high profits at the expense of unsuspecting motorists, but now it appears the city won't be punished even after improperly billing motorists going the legal speed limit.
Attorney Marc Dann, who is representing motorists in the class-action suit, is appealing the ruling and reaffirming his request for damages.
From our vantage point, evidence presented in the case provides just one more reason why we believe speed cameras should be scrapped.
Here's what attorneys and court documents say happened.
A speed limit, reduced from 65 mph to 55 mph during road construction on a stretch of Interstate 80 through Girard, was returned to 65 mph Dec. 7, 2017, when the work was completed. However, for the next month, the city and Blue Line Solutions, the city's speed camera contractor, continued to cite people for speeding through a construction zone that no longer existed, Dann said.
"As a result, thousands of people paid fines of $100 to $150 they did not owe, many were charged substantial late and collection fees, and those who appealed the citations were hit with an additional fee of $25 even though they had done nothing wrong. The entire situation was inexcusable and outrageous," Dann said.
We agree.
Under a settlement reached in the suit, Blue Line Solutions agreed to pay $175,000 to settle the claims filed by Dann's Cleveland-based firm on behalf of 7,700 motorists. The judge dismissed Blue Line Solutions from the lawsuit and ordered the defendants to pay a little more than $66,000 for attorney fees and court costs and $1,000 to each of the six class representatives for their time and effort in working the case, the judge wrote, also deciding not to order the city to pay any damages.
Girard Mayor James Melfi defended the action as "very fair," and said he believes use of speed cameras has slowed traffic.
That explanation is outrageous and begs the question of where does it ever end?
Routinely, civil citations show up in the mail of automobile owners who probably never knew they were clocked allegedly speeding because no police officer ever stopped them.
Officers operating speed cameras are not required to execute an actual traffic stop. There is no guarantee of who was driving the vehicle, and when the vehicle owner receives the ticket in the mail weeks later, he or she has no choice but to trust that the speed was recorded accurately and that the camera had been calibrated correctly before the speed was recorded.
As the Girard lawsuit proves, that isn't always the case.
In other, more orthodox traffic stops executed by police officers operating radar guns, officers can be called to testify and swear under oath that the speedometer of the camera had been accurately calibrated before the speed was detected. In the case of speed cameras, there's no individual testimony to that effect.
Motorists have described the speed camera fines to our reporters as "scams" and "unethical tolls."
We couldn't agree more.
Girard, like multiple other local police departments including Liberty and Weathersfield, continue to use the cameras, but their justification that the cameras will slow traffic and improve safety is illogical. If that were the sole concern, after all, officers would park in highly visible locations -- not hide on bridges along busy thoroughfares like U.S. Route 422 or Interstate 80, where they can generate the most revenue from unsuspecting motorists.
They argue if you don't speed, you have nothing to worry about. But this is still America, where citizens are innocent until proven guilty and have the right to face and challenge their accusers.
Attorney Dann said he hopes the Ohio General Assembly can take the information released in this lawsuit and continue in its effort to "rein in the speed camera racket."
We couldn't agree more.
editorial@tribtoday.com