Logically Challenged Bureaucracy Parks Spirit of Law

I could have told Art Caprio not to bother. But, no, he had this notion that logic and principle were on his side and that, therefore, he could win a dispute with the bureaucracy. You’ve got to admire his pluck.

I know I’ve spoiled the ending, but sometimes it’s instructive just to recite the particulars. If nothing else, the next time you think the system is out to get you, think of Mr. Caprio and be comforted in knowing it’s after everybody.

Caprio is 63 and the general manager of HiChem Diagnostics, a Brea company whose customers include hospitals and independent medical laboratories. Caprio has been in California only since the first of the year, having worked most recently in Houston. On Jan. 18, he and colleague Patricia Woods drove to downtown Los Angeles to call on a client.

The only parking spot was in a handicapped zone and Caprio suggested to Woods, who was driving, that she pull into it. Caprio has a circulation problem in his legs that makes walking difficult and that qualifies him for handicapped parking. The only reason he didn’t have the proper placard, he says, was that he was new to the state and that he hadn’t taken care of things between his new doctor and the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Applying Murphy’s Law, however, he and Woods figured they might get a ticket. So Woods kept an eye on the parking lot while she and Caprio conducted their business. Sure enough, a police officer arrived and began writing out a ticket for parking illegally in the handicapped space.

Woods rushed outside and explained Caprio’s situation, but the officer continued writing the ticket. It was for $330.

“It’s the same as hardening of the arteries,” Caprio says of his condition. “When I walk, I get severe cramps and pain in my leg. Unfortunately, I still travel [for work] and I need a wheelchair to get from the [airport] gate to the security area. It’s a really embarrassing thing and it’s progressively getting worse.”

Caprio concedes that the officer wasn’t obliged to believe the story. He didn’t, but Woods says the officer told her that a small decal from DMV, sent in with the ticket, could get it erased.

Within two days, Caprio secured his doctor’s authorization that his leg problem entitled him to “permanent disability.” Using that, Caprio secured his handicapped-parking placard but said DMV had no small decal with which to accompany the parking ticket.

Instead, Caprio paid the fine for Woods [it was her car] but requested an appeal with a hearing officer, assuming it would be a formality because he now had the placard.

The hearing took about three minutes, he says. In denying the appeal, the hearing examiner wrote, in part: “While respondent’s passenger [Caprio] was entitled to receive a placard, the fact is that such a placard was not displayed when issued the citation, as is required.”

“It’s not the money,” Caprio told me this week, still simmering over the incident. “I just think the city handled this in a very inappropriate manner. It’s not only the bureaucracy, but it’s just the lack of sensitivity and intelligence. To have that placard, it’s not any fun to be labeled as disabled, and when you get to that point you don’t want to be reminded of it. . . . It’s hard enough for me to call for a wheelchair in an airport. I’ve only done that in the last few months. But once you have to do that and they come back and say, ‘I think you’re lying’ or, as in their last letter, ‘We agree you should have been there but you didn’t have your placard . . . ‘ “

He doesn’t finish his sentence, his disgust obvious.

“I’m sure a lot of people probably park in those zones who shouldn’t, and they must hear lots of stories,” he says. “Some stories are more real than others. Unfortunately for me, it’s a real story and I’ve given them everything to prove that, yes, Virginia, we should have parked there and we did.”

I imagined myself as the examiner who heard Caprio’s appeal. After reviewing the case, I would have stroked my chin and told Caprio the cop was right in writing out the ticket. I would have reminded him of the necessity of displaying the proper placard in the car.

Then, I would have reasoned the parking spaces are for the truly disabled and that violations should be limited to those who deprive the needy of the spaces.

I would have noted Caprio’s legitimate right to the space. I would have taken into account his newness in California and recognized that only that fact accounted for him not having the placard with him.

And then, in a moment rich with theatricality, I would have torn up the ticket right in front of him and written him a check for $330, wished him well with his health problems and apologized that he had been forced to make another trip to L.A. and waste a day of work.

Was it really all that tough a decision?

Dana Parsons’ columns appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at the Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.