GRIESING LAW, LLC
By:
Francine Friedman Griesing, Esq. (Id No. 48982)
David Craig Callaghan, Esq. (Id No. 43815)
Filed and Attested by
PROTHONOTARY
1717 Arch Street
02 JUN 2014 04:50 pm
Suite 3630
L. OWENS
Philadelphia, PA 19103
(215) 618-3720
(215) 814-9049 [fax]
fgriesing@griesinglaw.com
dccallaghan@griesinglaw.com
www.griesinglaw.com
__________________________________
:
COMCAST OF PHILADELPHIA, LLC
:
COURT OF COMMON PLEAS
:
PHILADELPHIA COUNTY
-and:
:
COMCAST OF PHILADELPHIA II, LLC :
JANUARY TERM, 2014
Appellants
:
CASE NO. 02663
v.
:
:
PHILADELPHIA BUREAU OF
:
ADMINISTRATIVE ADJUDICATION
:
Appellee
:
___________________________________ :
APPELLANTS BRIEF
Appellants Comcast of Philadelphia, LLC and Comcast of Philadelphia II, LLC
(collectively hereinafter referred to as Appellants or Comcast) by and through their
undersigned counsel, hereby submit the following brief in support of their appeal of the
December 30, 2013 Decision of Appellee Philadelphia Bureau of Administrative Adjudication
(hereinafter referred to as Appellee or the BAA) arising out of the hearing that took place
on December 27, 2013 (Case No. 596910331):
Case ID: 140102663
I.
INTRODUCTION
The single issue before this Court is whether the subject parking tickets comply with the
specificity of location requirement mandated by Philadelphia Code 12-2804(3) that parking
violations contain sufficient information to identify the location of where the vehicle was when
the alleged parking violation occurred.
FACTUAL BACKGROUND 1
II.
On October 31, 2013 Comcast appeared before a BAA Parking Hearing Examiner
(Examiner) to dispute one hundred ninety-five (195) parking violations from Comcasts Fleet
Report issued October 22, 2013. After arguing the merits of the first twenty-two violations,
Comcast agreed to have the Examiner review the remaining violations on an ex parte basis.
Thereafter, as a result of the disputes that Comcast argued in person and the review of the
remainder of the violations conducted by the Examiner ex parte, five violations were dismissed
and liable findings were entered for the other 190 violations. Comcast was notified of the
BAAs decision on October 31, 2013 via email sent at 2:12PM.
On November 26, 2013, Comcast appealed 188 of the Examiners 190 adverse findings
and an appeal hearing was scheduled for December 27, 2013. At the December 27, 2013, BAA
Appeal hearing, Comcast again argued that parking violations that only identify the block
where the vehicle was allegedly illegally parked (e.g., the west side of the 500 block of North
18th Street; the west side of the unit block of South 20th Street) was inadequate. It was
Comcasts position that there must be more specific location information available that the
issuing officer should have recorded to more precisely describe the location of the violation.
See December 30, 2013, Opinion of the BBA Appeal Panel as issued following the December 27, 2013 BAA
Appeal Hearing (December 30, 2013 BAA Opinion).
Case ID: 140102663
During the BAA Appeal Hearing, three of the 188 parking violations were individually
considered and read into the record. Two of these three parking violations contained only a
block location and one contained the actual street address where the Comcast vehicle was
allegedly parked in violation of the Philadelphia Parking Code (i.e., 1029 Cherry Street).
Thus, consistent with its position regarding the degree of location specificity the parking
violation could and should contain to be enforceable, Comcast withdrew its dispute with
respect to the 1029 Cherry Street parking violation.
No other parking violations were read into the record for specific discussion of the
merits at the BAA Appeal Hearing. Rather, Comcast stated that it was going to raise the same
defense for each of the remaining violations and did not deem it a good use of anyones time to
go through each of the remaining violations. It was Comcasts position that its vehicles all
display contractor placards and were legally parked at meters when the violations were issued.
Comcast claimed an objection for all remaining violations on the basis that because the
locations recorded by the issuing officers were insufficiently specific Comcast had no way to
defend itself.
On December 30, 2013, the BAA issued the following decision in connection with
Comcast appeal of the original Examiners findings:
After review of the Citys prima facie case for each ticket and careful
evaluation of the evidence/testimony you submitted in appeal of the
original decisions, it was found that there was insufficient basis on which
to modify any of the original decisions. Therefore, the finding of the
Appeal Panel is that decisions of the original hearing examiner have been
sustained upon appeal as listed on the attachment and that you have been
found liable under the Philadelphia Code as cited. The amount now due is
$13,633.00.
December 30, 2013 BAA Opinion, at P. 2 (emphasis in original). It is this decision of the BAA
Appeal Panel that Comcast now appeals to this Court.
3
Case ID: 140102663
III.
LEGAL ARGUMENT
In pertinent part, Philadelphia Code 12-2804(3) Issuance and Service of Parking
Tickets mandates that [t]he parking ticket shall also contain other sufficient information to
identify the vehicle and to inform the person of the nature, date, time and location of the
violation alleged. Appellee argues that simply identifying an entire block, rather than a
specific location within that block, satisfies the codes mandate to provide information
sufficient to identify the location of the alleged violation. Remarkably, it was less than two
years ago that this Court considered the same argument and rejected it out of hand. Pavlock v.
BAA, 2012 Phila. Ct. Pl. LEXIS 303.
In Pavlock the subject parking ticket contained the same non-specific block
identification as in the parking violations disputed by Comcast. The Pavlock parking ticket
identified the location of the Pavlock vehicle at the time of the alleged violation as: the 599
blk N 22nd St. ES. Pavlock, at 8. In finding in favor of Pavlock and against the BAA, this
Court found that only identifying an entire block was inadequate to sustain liability for a
parking violation, noting that there are numerous blocks with simultaneous legal and illegal
parking in the County of Philadelphia. Id. 9.
Also, any attempt by Appellee to argue that the identification of entire blocks, as
contained in the subject parking violations, provides the best information available to the
issuing officer is belied by the very record before this Court. Consider for example, Parking
Violation # 596164012, issued on October 5, 2013 at 2:49 PM in connection with an alleged
violation of 12-9031(c) of the Code, which identifies the location of the alleged violation as
the 200 BLK S 13TH ST WS. However, the inadequacy of the 200 BLK description
becomes readily apparent because a more specific description of the alleged location of this
Case ID: 140102663
violation was available to the issuing officer. We know this to be true because Parking
Violation # 595913872, issued for the very same code violation on October 16, 2013,
specifically identifies the location of the alleged violation as 208 S 13TH WS.
Despite the fact that more specific location identifications of the alleged violations were
available to the issuing officers, they have failed to adhere to the Codes mandate as made clear
by this Court in its 2012 Pavlock decision directing the BAA that: [i]n order to sustain a
parking violation, require that, as best as reasonably can be described, the parking violation
contain sufficient information identifying the location of the vehicle where the alleged parking
violation occurred, in conformity with The Philadelphia Code 12-2804(3), as there are
numerous blocks with simultaneous legal and illegal parking in the County of Philadelphia.
Id., 9.
Therefore according to the mandate of Philadelphia Code 12-2804(3) and this Courts
ruling in Pavlock, each of the Parking Violations subject to this appeal containing nothing more
than a reference to a particular block within the County of Philadelphia, rather than setting forth
a specific location within such block, should not have been sustained by the BAA.
Accordingly, the BAAs decision of December 30, 2013, should be reversed as to any such
violations.
IV.
CONCLUSION
For all of the foregoing reasons, Comcast respectfully requests that this Court reverse
the decision of the BAA Appeal Panel and declare null and void the Parking Violations that are
the subject of this appeal.
Case ID: 140102663
Respectfully submitted,
Griesing Law, LLC
By:
/s/ Francine Friedman Griesing
Francine Friedman Griesing, Esq.
D. Craig Callaghan, Esq.
Attorneys for Appellants
Dated: June 2, 2014
Case ID: 140102663
CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE
I, Francine Friedman Griesing, Esq., hereby certify that on this 2nd day of June, 2014, I
caused a true and correct copy of the foregoing Appellants Brief to be served via this Courts
electronic filing system and by U.S. First Class Mail upon the following:
City of Philadelphia
Bureau of Administrative Adjudication
913 Filbert Street
Philadelphia, PA 19107
City of Philadelphia Law Department
1515 Arch Street, 14th Floor
Philadelphia, PA 19102
/s/ Francine Friedman Griesing
Francine Friedman Griesing, Esq.
Case ID: 140102663
