Adjudication No. 696 (January 1994; reissued May 1994) [1994] APC 5

ADJUDICATION No 696 (January 1994; reissued May 1994)

This adjudication was originally issued on 20 January 1994. It was not published by the Gold Coast Bulletin on legal advice. After separate legal advice, the Press Council withheld publication as well.

After further consideration of the legal advice, and after further submissions from the newspaper and the complainant, the Press Council has re-issued this adjudication with some minor deletions which do not effect the thrust of the Council's decision.

The Australian Press Council has upheld a complaint by VIP Car Park Management over an article in the Gold Coast Bulletin entitled "Court rejects wheel-clamp firm's claim".

The complainant claimed that the article misrepresented facts and was misleading.

Cormea Pty Ltd, trading as VIP Car Park Management Services Pty Ltd, sued Mr Alan Bird, of Benowa, and his mother, Mrs Phyllis Bird.

The facts disclosed to a magistrate at Southport at the July 1993 hearing were that, on 22 December 1992, Mr Bird left a car owned by his mother in Monterey Plaza car park. The space in which he parked was exclusively for the use of one of the Plaza tenants, who had engaged VIP to monitor unauthorised parking.

Mr Bird returned some two and a half hours later to find the vehicle wheel-clamped. Later still he had a friend use bolt-cutters to free the car, taking the clamp with him when he left.

In what it described as a test case VIP claimed for the wheel clamp loss plus $50 for every day since 22 December 1992 that the clamp was held by Mr Bird.

In an alternative claim lodged on the first day of the hearing, VIP sought damages for wrongful conversion of the clamp, plus $60 for the vehicle's parking on the day in question.

Mr Bird counter-claimed $20,000 over an injury he claimed he sustained tripping over the clamp on return to his car.

In his decision handed down on 11 October 1993 the Magistrate awarded VIP damages of $250 for a new clamp and the $60 parking fee. He also ordered the defendant to pay $6,209.75 in legal costs.

The Magistrate dismissed the claim for $50 for every day the clamp was in the defendant's possession, saying the $10,000 or more involved was out of all proportion to VIP's costs.

He dismissed Mr Bird's counter-claim, which he described as a red herring.

The introduction to the 12 October front page Gold Coast Bulletin report on the judgment said:

"A magistrate has dismissed a claim by a wheel-clamping company which sought $14,510 from a man who used boltcutters to remove a wheel clamp from his car.

"After spending almost three months deliberating, Southport magistrate Mr Peter Webber yesterday delivered what he described as a moral victory for the defendant."

It would have been at least as accurate for the headline and opening paragraph to have said the wheel-clamp company had won its case -- but with damages dramatically cut.

The judgment's tone indicates the magistrate had some disquiet about his decisions being seen as a "moral victory for the defendant" but his disquiet was not evident from the paper's report.

The Council notes that on 20 October 1993, following representations by VIP, the paper carried a small page 6 story headed "COURT AWARDS CLAMP CLAIM" in which it recorded that VIP had pointed out the original claim had been "amended" and the alternative upheld by the magistrate. Not surprisingly this went nowhere to appeasing the complainant.