Upset with the parking situation on campus, student Steve Rinehart decided to sue parking services in early September. In his second year of law school, he planned to represent himself, but he has recently enlisted the help of a local lawyer.
Lester Perry, with the Salt Lake law firm of Hoole & King, will represent Rinehart and two other students, Drew Yeates and Aubrey Broome (Perry’s daughter), in a class-action lawsuit the three plan to file against the U.
“He will be able to represent the entire student body and former students victimized by parking [services] since 1993,” Rinehart said.
Rinehart wants to sue the U for $25 million in damages to students over the last eight years to be put toward construction of a central campus parking structure.
Because the U is a government agency, it is entitled to a 90-day notice period before anyone can sue it. Rinehart filed the lawsuit after the period in December, at which time an article about the lawsuit appeared in The Salt Lake Tribune.
Shortly thereafter, Perry contacted Rinehart. He’d been looking at the case since September at the request of his three children who are students at the U.
“You have a lot of students who’ve paid for some expensive passes. They were sold something that doesn’t exist. You’re already selling something you don’t have. I really think they need to start refunding some of the money that students paid for parking passes,” Perry said.
Transportation and Parking Services collects money from tickets, parking fees and charging visitors to park. Profits from parking are put into a bond system which covers expenses for student housing, University Bookstore and other on-campus agencies.
Perry said it’s illegal for parking services to charge as much as it does and put the money into the bond system.
“I don’t think that’s really kosher,” Perry said. “They should put [the money] back into parking?build [the students] a parking structure.”
Perry wants the U to take the parking services’ profits and the $8.3 million the U charged the Olympics to rent parking lots?both of which are “contrary to state law,” he said?to create an on-campus parking structure.
Director of parking services Alma Allred declined comment.
John Morris, attorney in the U General Counsel, said it’s generally easier for a plaintiff to engage in litigation with an experienced, competent lawyer than to represent him or herself, but he is not worried about the case’s legal merits.
“I think the fact that Mr. Rinehart has elected to retain counsel is irrelevant to the university’s legal position?There are no claims that have any merit on the university,” Morris said.
Perry thinks parking at the U is an important issue to address, and he thinks they’ll win. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have taken the case, he said.
“Steve is very courageous” to take on the U as a student, Perry said.