Hearing to dismiss defendant in parking meter suit continued

Defense counsel successfully reset a hearing for dismissal in Orleans Parish Civil District Court until Dec. 10 in a lawsuit against the city of New Orleans and several parking meter companies.

Standard Parking Joint Venture II, named as a defendant in a suit filed by New Orleans residents Stuart Smith, Rodney Stephens, Guadalupe Gomez, Neal Laney and Beauregard Parish resident David Veazey, are suing the city over a series of parking tickets they received in front of Smith's house on St. Philip Street in the French Quarter.

New Orleans attorney Barry Cooper filed the suit in April 2005. The original petition claimed that New Orleans, under former mayor Ray Nagin, illegally installed new Parkeon Pay Stations to replace the older parking meters without proper city ordinances in place to regulate them. As a result, the plaintiffs were wrongfully ticketed for parking in Smith's driveway, they claim.

Orleans Parish Judge Rosemary Ledet is overseeing this case.

In August, Ledet dismissed Parking Solutions LLC, Standard Parking Joint Venture and Standard Parking Corp. as defendants via summary judgment. Ledet's ruling stated that "there is no factual support that Standard implemented the Parkeon System which forms the basis of the palintiff's claims." Joint Venture II's motion for summary judgment was denied.

Plaintiffs appealed Ledet's ruling.

Joint Venture II put in another motion for summary judgment seeking dismissal. It claims its original motion was denied because "a question was raised as to the proper identification of this entity" but that "technically proper naming of this litigant does not change the court's prior analysis."

Plaintiff counsel claims that Joint Venture II is asking for the plaintiffs to prove their claims through summary judgment without the aid of written discovery.

The city of New Orleans, the New Orleans City Planning Commission, Parking Solutions LLC, Standard Parking Corp., Standard Parking Joint Venture ACS State Local Solutions Inc. and the Vieux Carre Commission are also named as defendants in the suit.

Orleans Parish Case 2005-05453