Friday, November 13, 2009

Marching Orders part 3

Mine Host had received a ticket. It arrived in the mail.
Penalty: Several Hundred Dollars.
Offence: Refusing an inspection of the Premises.
Regulatory Authority writing the ticket: Fire Brigade (in a city hundreds of miles away).

Being as the Fire Brigade had not, via any of the following methods, indicated they wished to inspect the Wayside Tavern:
Fax,
Telephone Call,
Letter, posted,
Letter, couriered,
Messenger Boy,
Attending the Premises in person,
Carrier Pigeon,
Smoke Signal,
(in this day & age, to this list one would add "email"),
Any other method one can think of,
Mine Host made the assumption that being as the ticket was on the unreasonable side of unjust, it would be easily contested.

Mine Host met with his solicitor-of-the-moment and laid the facts before him.
Mine Host instructed his lawyer (the firm's senior partner) that he considered the ticket to be unjust, unreasonable, vexatious, lowdown, cheating, disgusting, insulting, a mongrel act, etc etc etc, and that he wished to challenge it in court.
The law firm in question did quite a lot of this sort of work, though mostly with tickets written by the police.
The legal advice provided on the spot to Mine Host was to make no response, and the matter would proceed to court.
On the spot Mine Host raised the question that this advice was in diametric contrast to the "How to Respond" instructions on the back of the ticket.
The solicitor (experienced in these matters) repeated his advice.

Mine Host complied with the advice. By failing meet the deadline for response to the ticket the matter became an automatic judgement against Mine Host, was not able to be defended and Mine Host was a de facto defaulter and had to pay the fine plus an extra penalty.

Consequently Mine Host never again contacted that law firm, who at least had the good grace to never send a bill, for that or any other work. The senior partner in a remarkable display of self-preservation - or perhaps in a display of shame uncharasteric for his profession - has ever since managed to keep out of Mine Host's sight.

Since that date relations between Mine Host and the Queensland Fire Brigade have been of a most frigid nature.

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