Supreme Court for ticket fight

Outspoken Dunedin councillor Lee Vandervis is taking his fight over a $12 parking ticket to the Supreme Court.

The court confirmed that Vandervis’ legal team had filed application to apply for leave to appeal. It comes after the sitting councillor, who is running again for the city council and mayoralty, lost his case with the Court of Appeal last month.

The Supreme Court would grant leave to appeal if it was satisfied that it was in the interest of justice to hear it. When asked if there were any public importance to the matter, University of Otago senior law lecturer Marcelo Rodriguez Ferrere said no.

‘‘This is a really straightforward case involving two very wellsettled areas of law. I would almost put money on the Supreme Court denying him leave.’’

It was remarkable the case had gone to the Court of the Appeal, Rodriguez Ferrere said, adding he was preparing to teach the case to his second-year students. If Vandervis was denied leave, ‘‘it is the end of the road’’, he said.

A council spokesperson said Vandervis had 20 working days to file written evidence, after which the council had 15 working days to respond. ‘‘We intend to exercise that right. It will then be up to the Supreme Court to decide whether to grant leave to hear the substantive matter.’’

The stoush began after Vandervis was issued with a $12 parking ticket on September 13, 2019. He later argued that the meter had incorrect signage.

On the day of the incident he fed $4.20 into the meter, which listed parking as $2 per 30 minutes, but did not see a sign restricting parking to 30 minutes. That resulted in Vandervis being issued with a $12 ticket, which he discovered when he returned about an hour later.

‘‘That relatively innocuous event was the catalyst for what followed,’’ an earlier High Court judgment said. It included Vandervis getting in a verbal argument with a council customer service representative after he complained about poor signage. Vandervis was described as ‘‘aggressive, loud and intimidating’’ in a code of conduct complaint following the incident.

The Dunedin City Council has now spent $101,682.85 on the case – the equivalent of 8473 parking tickets at $12 each.