USA - City ordinance violation Suppose an individual had some rocks for landscaping dropped off at their house, and placed in the street in front of their house. Without any correspondence from the city on the issue, the city removed the rocks, paid to have them dumped as waste, and is now billing this hypothetical individual 200$. Suppose upon investigating the city code, it would seem these actions are not in line with how the process is supposed to take place; namely, they did not notify this hypothetical individual that it was an issue that needed to be addressed. Suppose this hypothetical city code is verbatim the code found here: http://4.17.232.139/vcode.asp?show=section&amp;id=6145 or here, under Chapter 38: Section 81: Removal of Obstruction: http://www.cityblm.org/index.aspx?page=262 Also suppose the superintendent in charge of this particular branch of the city government, upon being spoken to, claimed the city acted properly, and was otherwise dismissive. What might one suppose would be the legal basis for challenging this decision? Is this a proper interpretation of these hypothetical city codes given this hypothetical circumstance? Thank you EDIT: for whatever reason this SE requires 50 rep to comment, so in reponse to user6727's answer: The city has the home-owner on file, they know where to send the water bill to; they even had the address on hand to send this fine to. Therefore, it would stand to reason that "they we're unable to contact" the responsible party would not be a very solid legal defense, no?
The ordinance is not very specific about how notice is to be given: therefore, it need not be in writing, and it need not be sent by mail. It would not be surprising if the "notification" came in the form of a city person inspecting the reported obstruction, walking up to the house and knocking and finding nobody home (thus triggering the "In case the owner cannot be found" condition), whereupon the city removes the rocks. That clause does not mean "In case we do not know who the owner is", it almost certainly means "in case the owner cannot be contacted immediately". Article III is in general about obstructions on streets, which are not allowed, except by permit in section 78 under "Permit to Obstruct Traffic Lane". Assuming that no obstruction permit was obtained, what usually happens is that an officer is sent to tell the owner to remove the obstruction (more or less immediately), and if nobody is at the site whom they can tell, they probably won't go any further (e.g. asking neighbors where the owner is). There is no legal definition of "reasonable time", instead the law simply takes that to mean "the amount of time a reasonable person would require". It would thus depend particularly on the size of the obstruction and the volume of traffic. One measure would be how quickly the rocks were moved -- if it was a matter of days and there was no notice, written or otherwise, then there would not be the kind of urgency that might justify the "We knocked and nobody was home" version of notification.
A reasonable hypothetical example of where your clause "C" would be applied: A defendant is written a citation for "spitting on the sidewalk," in violation of a hypothetical Portland city ordinance. In presenting extenuating details, the defendant indicates that the expectoration occurred because she had taken a bite of vended food that was belatedly discovered to have been infested with maggots. The notion of encountering rotted food would clearly not have been contemplated by the definition of the "spitting on the sidewalk" ordinance, where the notion of having a cheekful of chewing tobacco definitely would be.
Is this charge legal in Georgia? No. It seems unlawful. First, it appears that the landlord was negligent and failed to mitigate damages. Since in general utilities are billed monthly, it is unreasonable for the landlord to have waited this long for a $2 charge that occurred on the first day of your tenancy. Second, legislation typically sets a deadline for a landlord to send a former tenant an itemized bill to cover for damages other than normal tear and wear. According to O.C.G.A. § 44-7-34(a), that deadline in Georgia is 30 days. Whereas the $2 charge is right (at least from a moral standpoint, as you mention), the $50 surcharge is devoid of merit.
Does the town have any responsibility towards the direct and indirect damage done to these properties? What can be done to hold the town responsible for potentially lost property value, and direct property damage? Most claims are barred by some sort of governmental immunity and also face strict procedural hurdles, but it isn't impossible that the defectively installed storm drains could give rise to some liability for property damage if the suit were brought swiftly in the proper manner. Also, even if there is liability this will almost certainly not extend to lost property value, only to direct property damage, because while the direct property damage might be caused by something that the government has waived sovereign immunity for, the lost property value is almost entirely due to its discretionary regulatory decisions about land use and whether it should provide storm drainage at all. There are several potential theories of municipal liability that need to be considered. One is that the township has liability because it approved development that foreseeably caused this problem. This claim is probably without merit although there might be a claim against the homeowners who inadequately drained their properties in a way that impacted their neighbors. This is because land use regulation is a discretionary governmental action. A second is that the township has liability because it had a duty to an individual property own to provide adequate storm drainage and failed to do so. This claim is probably also without merit. This is also a discretionary governmental action and even if it was not, would not meet New York State's &quot;special relationship&quot; test set forth below. A third theory is that the township has liability because once it undertook to install storm drains the workmanship of the storm drains that it installed fell below the standard of reasonable care in workmanship that applies to all construction work that foreseeable causes injuries to persons or property. This is a much closer call and might prevail, although it would still be subject to the strict procedural limitations of the New York Court of Claims Act including a 90 day statute of limitations under Section 10(3) of the Act and a notice requirement. There would also be no right to a jury trial in the case. Once the storm drain is actually built, there is arguably a non-discretionary duty to build it in a workman-like manner and the location of the particular defective drain may trigger New York's &quot;special relationship&quot; test. Also, it might be possible to sue the private contractor that defectively installed the storm drain for the township. As explained in a July 8, 2014 article written by a lawyer in the New York City law department which is more or less identical in its sovereign immunity status to a New York State township: When municipalities are sued in tort, two of the most powerful bars to recovery are the public duty principle and the governmental function immunity defense. When these two principles are applicable, the City will not be made to pay compensation even if a City employee had been negligent and caused an injury. . . . An injured person alleging an injury caused by the City’s failure to perform a public duty cannot recover unless the injured person alleges and establishes, as an element of his or her claim, a special relationship by which the City assumed a specific duty with respect to the injured person. . . . the plaintiff, to present a prima facie case for recovery, must first successfully establish a special duty. If the plaintiff cannot get past the special duty hurdle, there is no need for the court to address the applicability of the governmental function immunity defense, which provides absolute immunity for discretionary determinations where discretion has been exercised. The often-repeated policy reason for limiting governmental tort liability is that government would not be financially viable if it were made the insurer of the safety of the public for injuries caused principally by third parties. Governmental entities could have a disincentive from providing important governmental services if they knew that doing so could seriously jeopardize the public treasury. The courts do not limit recovery, however, when a municipality acts in a proprietary capacity — when its activities essentially substituted for or supplemented those undertaken by a private enterprise, such as property ownership, operation of a motor vehicle, or providing hospital services. When a municipality acted in its governmental capacity, sovereign immunity historically protected the municipality against tort recovery by injured persons. That absolute protection against tort recovery lasted in New York until the State Legislature, in 1929, waived New York State’s sovereign immunity as part of the Court of Claims Act. Although the waiver by the State Legislature only mentioned the State of New York, the Court of Appeals in 1945, in Bernardine v. City of New York, 294 N.Y. 361 (1945), interpreted the waiver to apply as well to municipal entities like New York City. But as the Court of Appeals subsequently held, the waiver did not eliminate all governmental immunities or other bars to governmental liability. In the years since 1945, courts wrestled with sorting out when liability was appropriate and when it was not. For example, courts generally refused to hold municipal governments liable for failing to prevent fires or crime. Municipal governments undertake all sorts of public duties like police protection, fire protection, child protection, education, building inspections, and the like. Were a municipality liable every time a crime was committed that governmental actors had failed to prevent, or an inspector made a mistake, or a student was not sufficiently educated, it would be under a crushing financial burden that could result in bankruptcy. At the same time, courts created exceptions that allowed negligence claims to proceed even where municipalities performed quintessential governmental functions. Special duty was one such exception. Another exception allowed for liability where the governmental action was ministerial rather than discretionary. . . . In October 2011 the Court of Appeals [*ed. the highest court in the state of New York called a state supreme court in most other states] in Valdez v. City, 18 N.Y.3d 69 (2011) clarified 70 years of jurisprudence and articulated an analysis to be applied when considering whether an individual may sue a municipal government for negligent performance of, or failure to perform, governmental functions. The decision in Valdez must now be the starting point in analyzing liability in any negligence tort suit against the government or governmental actors. First, the Court of Appeals confirmed the basic tenet that although sovereign immunity was waived in the Court of Claims Act, tort liability will generally not attach to governmental entities or government employees performing governmental functions, regardless of whether the function is discretionary or ministerial. Where statutory or regulatory mandates require a government to act for the benefit of the public as a whole, the government and its actors cannot be sued for failing to provide or negligently providing such services. The Court articulated this principle as the “public duty” rule, not as “immunity.” In order to overcome the public duty bar, an individual as a threshold issue must show that there existed a special duty running in favor of the claimant as an individual. The Valdez Court held that for a litigant to proceed successfully with a tort suit against a municipality, a plaintiff must first plead a “special duty” running specifically to him or her. A special duty can be formed when a municipality or its employee: • violates a statutory duty enacted for the benefit of a particular class of persons; • assumes positive direction and control in the face of a known, blatant, and dangerous safety violation; or • voluntarily assumes a duty that generated justifiable reliance by the person through the employee’s actions or promises to the person. The Valdez Court also held that whether the facts are legally sufficient to establish a special duty is an objective question of law for the court. The Court of Appeals made clear, therefore, that special duty is neither an exception to immunity nor a defense, but instead is an initial and essential element of any tort claim against the government and governmental actors. The Court of Appeals also made clear that, even if a plaintiff succeeds in articulating a viable special duty, tort liability may still be barred by the “governmental function immunity defense.” Valdez, 18 N.Y.3d at 75-76. That defense shields governmental entities from liability for discretionary actions taken during the performance of governmental functions. This discretionary defense is qualified in that the municipality must establish that the governmental action related to the incident was both a discretionary one and that discretion was, in fact, exercised. A government employee’s failure to perform a ministerial action, on the other hand, may subject the government to liability if a special duty has been established. In late 2012 and mid-2013, the Court of Appeals issued two additional opinions which reconfirmed Valdez’s analysis of when the government may be sued in tort. In Metz v. State, 20 N.Y.3d 175 (2012), twenty people were killed and many others injured when a tour boat on Lake George capsized. Plaintiffs claimed that State inspectors had negligently inspected the vessel and had failed to exercise any discretion in fixing the number of passengers who could safely travel on the tour boat. They argued, therefore, that the State was not entitled to immunity for their actions. The Appellate Division, Third Department, ruled that the inspection function was governmental and found that plaintiffs had failed to establish a special duty. However, the Third Department went on to find a viable claim against the State because the State could not demonstrate that it exercised discretion in certifying the vessel as seaworthy. The Court of Appeals reversed and rejected the Third Department’s analysis. The Court, relying on Valdez, ruled that, since inspections are a governmental function, the Appellate Division’s analysis should have ended with the finding that plaintiffs had not established a special duty. Insofar as the plaintiffs did not and could not articulate a special duty, no liability could be imposed against the State and the nature of the governmental conduct – discretionary or ministerial – was not relevant. There was no reason to address the immunity defense since the plaintiff had not established the initial requirement of a special duty. In Applewhite v. City, 21 N.Y.3d 420 (2013), plaintiff, a 12-year-old child living at home and cared for by a private nurse, went into cardiac arrest after being administered certain medications. The plaintiff’s mother called 911 and an ambulance arrived within minutes. The plaintiff child and mother sued the nurse and the City, claiming that the child suffered severe brain damage as a result of negligent treatment at the scene. Plaintiffs argued that, although maintaining the 911 system and ambulance services are governmental functions, once the EMTs cross the threshold and tend to the patient, the function becomes a proprietary one. The City responded that the function continues as a governmental one and that no special duty was created. The Court of Appeals agreed with the City’s argument that the emergency rescue function is a governmental police protection function both before and after the emergency medical personnel arrived. Because these were governmental and public duties, the plaintiffs needed to articulate a special duty in order to state a viable tort claim. The Court then ruled that there existed a question of fact as to whether the City assumed a special duty under the unique circumstances of the case and remanded the case for trial. For litigants against the City, step one in developing a claim is to distinguish the City’s proprietary activities from the governmental. If proprietary, then there generally is no issue of a public duty bar and the claim may proceed. If the activity is governmental, however, the public duty bar must first be overcome. As an element of the plaintiff’s claim, the plaintiff must allege and establish the existence of a special duty. Assuming a plaintiff successfully overcomes the special duty hurdle, the government will still not be liable if the challenged conduct was discretionary and it exercised discretion. If plaintiff overcomes the public duty principle and the immunity bar, the plaintiff’s tort claim may then proceed.
The statement ABCGym refuses to refund payment it accepted for membership to a gym ABCGym closed. ABCGym has substituted an inferior-to-me option. could certainly be considered as defamatory. However, in the US and many other countries, truth would be a valid defense, if the person making the statement could prove that the statement is true. I don't see how it could be construed as solicitation. If worn on a shirt into ABC, the management could surely ask the wearer to remove it. If that request is refused, they could ask the wearer to leave. If the wearer has a valid membership, then it would depend on the exact terms of the membership contract, and provisions of local law, whether ABC could insist that the wearer leave, or have the wearer arrested for trespass should the wearer refuse. Any regulations incorporated by reference into the contract would also matter. At least in the US. walking back and forth on a public sidewalk just outside ABC's door, wearing such a shirt or carrying a classic picket sign with such a message would be pretty clearly legal, provided that others are not unduly obstructed, and no valid local ordinance is violated. In the wear-the-shirt-inside case, if the wearer refuses to remove the shirt or leave, the management would probably call law enforcement. LE will not want to decide whether wearer has the legal right to remain in the club wearing the shirt. They will probably ask the wearer to leave. If the wearer protests that s/he has a valid membership and thus a contractual right to stay, who knows what they would do. If they still ask the wearer to leave, the wearer would be wise to comply and perhaps take legal action to enforce his or her membership rights, which will depend on the contract details as mentioned above. A lawyer would probably be very helpful if the wearer wants to take that route. The wearer would be wise to remain polite and appear calm, not yelling or using epithets.
My guess is the answer to this question is going to be in your lease. You likely signed a lease that agreed that you would pay accept this practice and spelled out what ever rights you have to challenge the billings. My guess is they are as limited as the courts will allow in Florida. And the only way to ensure access to those records would be to get the court to compel they provide you with the records. Perusal of the Water codes in Florida does not appear to directly engage this practice(I could have missed it). However it appears that there is code regulating the management of electrical limits the billing to no more than the actual costs to the customer of record(probably your real estate management company.) According the the NCSL (This refers to electrical service. I am assuming there is similar language used elsewhere for plumbing, or that the intent of the law is uniformity of these codes in all utility billings. Where individual metering is not required and master metering is used in lieu thereof, reasonable apportionment methods, including submetering may be used by the customer of record or the owner of such facility solely for the purpose of allocating the cost of the electricity billed by the utility. The term “cost” as used herein means only those charges specifically authorized by the electric utility's tariff, including but not limited to the customer, energy, demand, fuel, conservation, capacity and environmental charges made by the electric utility plus applicable taxes and fees to the customer of record responsible for the master meter payments. The term does not include late payment charges, returned check charges, the cost of the customer-owned distribution system behind the master meter, the customer of record's cost of billing the individual units, and other such costs. Any fees or charges collected by a customer of record for electricity billed to the customer's account by the utility, whether based on the use of submetering or any other allocation method, shall be determined in a manner which reimburses the customer of record for no more than the customer's actual cost of electricity. Each utility shall develop a standard policy governing the provisions of submetering as provided for herein. Such policy shall be filed by each utility as part of its tariffs. The policy shall have uniform application and shall be nondiscriminatory (Fla. Administrative Code §25-6.049). Now here is where the 3rd party comes in. The 3rd party is the one levying fees for the management on your landlord. Granted if you follow the strings ill bet you find that the billing company is owned by the same company that owns your rental management firm. So your landlord can collect no more than what it costs to provide you with the service, but part of providing the service is employing this 3rd party utility management firm.
The potential problem is if there is a form which you had to sign which says "I am a US citizen", and you signed the form (who reads the fine print, anyhow?). Unfortunately, that statement is false, and there are consequences for making a false statement. However, that law penalizes false statements with the intent to deceive, not mistaken statements. Nevertheless, this is a matter that a professional really needs to deal with. If there was no form and they didn't verbally ask you to assert that you are a citizen, then there is less of a problem (for you), but still one needs to be extremely cautious in dealing with the court. [Addendum] It is highly likely that the form contained wording like "swear" or "certify" and mentions "perjury", so the error would be in the ballpark of perjury. Perjury is making "a false statement under oath or swears to the truth of a false statement previously made and the statement is required or authorized by law to be made under oath". Aggravated perjury is perjury which "is made during or in connection with an official proceeding and is material". The term "material" means "matters; is not inconsequential". The consequence of a non-citizen improperly serving on a jury is that a mistrial has occurred, which is not inconsequential. Aggravated felony is a third degree felony. The penal code says that An individual adjudged guilty of a felony of the third degree shall be punished by imprisonment in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice for any term of not more than 10 years or less than 2 years. (b) In addition to imprisonment, an individual adjudged guilty of a felony of the third degree may be punished by a fine not to exceed $10,000. I must emphasize that an essential element is "intent to deceive and with knowledge of the statement's meaning", an element that cannot be present if there is no awareness of such a statement. Thus an innocent mistake could be legally excused. When you become aware that a statement made under oath was false (assuming such a statement was made), then in maintaining the falsehood, that would be intentional deceit. This is why it is necessary to consult with a lawyer. On the Houston form, you would have to check the "are a US citizen" box. The Fort Bend county form has you certify and sign on the front page: it does not require you to certify that you are a US citizen, only to certify (and sign) if you are not – so if you failed to read the back side, that isn't a literally false statement. I can't locate an online form for Tarrant county, so dunno if that out is available.
There is a saying that you can't sue city hall: that is applicable here. Governments enjoy sovereign immunity, and cannot be sued for their errors of judgment unless they specifically allow it. Safety regulations are an example of a situation where the government hold all of the power and shoulders none of the responsibility. If a government forbids sale or use of a substance on some grounds (could be safety, could be economic impact, could be something about preventing the moral decay of society), and the grounds later turns to be false, you cannot sue the government because of lost business opportunities. Generally speaking, that which is not prohibited is allowed, so there would have to be an affirmative duty for the government to prevent all forms of harm. If there were such a legal duty, there is a miniscule legal foundation for suing the government for shirking its duty. That is not a completely hypothetical possibility, in that the state of Washington imposes a constitutional duty on the legislature to provide public education, and the Supreme Court has done things to enforce this duty (the contempt of court fines are up in the realm of $80 million). Since there is no jurisdiction that imposes a duty on the government to absolutely prevent all harm, you won't be able to sue the government if they fail to outlaw a thing that is eventually proven to harm someone.