Complainant

Respondent

Parties

Rimantas  Paskauskas

RFC Car Park Management Ltd.

Act

Complaint Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under Section 21 Equal Status Act, 2000

CA-00042002-001

15/01/2021

The complainant has a disability and has made a complaint under the Act that he has been subjected to discrimination on the basis of his disability.

This complaint arises from the fact that his car was clamped while parked in a private parking bay at his dwelling.  He has used the parking space for eleven years and it is specifically assigned to him.

This resulted in considerable inconvenience to him and caused him to miss a medical appointment. He says that the clamp was fixed to his vehicle illegally and that he was properly parked in his own parking place.

RFC Security operates a private residential car parking security service.

On the day in question the complainant, Mr Paskauskas was clamped by the respondent for parking in an area other than a car parking space and for not having a parking permit.  This area is clearly sign posted.

Following this incident, he called to the respondent‘s office but no-one was available to speak to him.  He returned the following day.

The respondent representative at the hearing met him and explained what had occurred.  He also explained the next steps that he needed to take. 

Specifically, he explained that when a vehicle is clamped the owner of the vehicle is responsible for the fine. Following payment, under NTA legislation the appellant has sixty days from the time of payment to appeal.  

If unsuccessful then the appellant would then be able to go through the NTA’s second stage appeals. 

The complainant came to the office a third time with more complaints and was again advised that he needed to pay and would then be able to make an appeal. 

On this occasion the witness noticed that he had been driving the vehicle that had been immobilised, meaning that he had removed the clamp himself.   He has not paid any fees or fines to RFC, if anything he had damaged its property. 

The complainant sent in several appeals following these conversations but as there were no payments made for the fine they could not be processed. 

A complaint was made to the NTA by the respondent and NTA was advised that no fine was paid, and they ruled that the complaint was not upheld. 

Regarding his complaint that the respondent has discriminated against him due to his disability, this was not the case; the clamping occurred as Mr Paskauskas was parked contrary to the rules in that area.

The respondent is contracted by the property agents for the accommodation in question and was authorised to patrol the area. It was only after this clamping event that Fingal Co Council requested removal of signage from poles in the area, which was complied with.

The key facts are as set out above and were not in dispute.

Importantly, it is the case that the respondent is lawfully appointed by the agents of the property to manage the parking spaces associated with the dwelling.  Residents are required to display a permit and the complainant agreed that he had failed to do so.

As a result, his vehicle was immobilised.  This resulted in him being unable to attend for a medical appointment and, not surprisingly caused him great annoyance, and no doubt, inconvenience.

His handling of the situation thereafter left room for improvement, although that is of limited relevance to the complaint, but he exacerbated his situation by not paying the fine and then following up with an appeal.

The handling of the incident by the respondent in respect left even more room for improvement.

The complainant’s car displayed the approved EU disability badge and the respondent confirmed that this had been visible when it was clamped.

It does not take much imagination to calculate the potentially disproportionate inconvenience to a person with a disability of immobilising their vehicle compared to an able-bodied person who has greater options in the event of finding their vehicle clamped.

In particular, there was no evidence that the vehicle was causing an obstruction.

However, such insight was apparently beyond the respondent’s agent in acting as they did, although in fairness to the respondent some embarrassment was obvious on that account at the hearing.

It is to be hoped that some greater sensitivity and discretion might be shown in the future in respect of disabled drivers.

However, in order to establish a breach of the Act a complainant must show that they have been less favourably treated on the ground of the protected characteristic.

The complainant has failed to make out a case that he was treated less favourably on the facts of the case and his complaint does not succeed.

For the reasons set out above I do not uphold complaint CA-00042002-001 and it is dismissed.

Disability, parking.