Charles Oliver: Toll takers don’t want your stinkin’ cash

Published 9:00 am Wednesday, September 26, 2012

A federal appeals court has ruled that motorists can be detained indefinitely if they try to pay road tolls with cash. The decision came in a lawsuit brought by Joel, Deborah and Robert Chandler. They tried to pay cash at a toll booth on a Florida toll road. But under Florida Department of Transportation rules then in place, motorists who paid with bills as small as a $5 bill could not be allowed to proceed until the toll taker filled out a “Bill Detection Report” with the vehicle’s tag number and the driver’s license information. “The fact that a person is not free to leave on his own terms at a given moment, however, does not, by itself, mean that the person has been ‘seized’ within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment,” the court wrote in an unsigned opinion.

Firefighters responded to a burst pipe at a flat in central Scotland and noticed a foot sticking out from underneath a bed. Police found that the corpse was John Brown, who’d died of natural causes more than three years earlier. They also found that Brown’s brother Alistair had hidden his death so that he could remain in the flat and pocket his brother’s welfare payments. A court ordered Alistair Brown to complete 240 hours of community service.

Johnny McGirr had just boarded a Virgin Australia flight from Brisbane to Sydney when an attendant demanded that he change seats. They’d just figured out that he was seated next to two unaccompanied minors. McGirr told the media that he felt like he was being treated like a pedophile. A Virgin spokesman said the company has a policy of not seating any man next to unaccompanied children. The spokesman said the policy does not bar women from sitting next to minors. “Our intention is certainly not to discriminate in any way,” the airline said in a statement.

A survey of British physicians found that they are more likely to recommend and patients are more likely to ask about for-pay private treatment because of rationing by the National Health Service (NHS). Doctors say that it is increasingly difficult to schedule cataract surgeries, hernia operations and joint replacements in NHS facilities.

Jacob Magruder, 12, was sitting in the lobby of the Jasper County, Ind., jail while his family visited with his 17-year-old brother who had just been arrested. That’s where an officer told him to put his hands on the wall and spread his legs. The officer frisked him, then placed him in a holding cell. Several minutes later, someone realized that they’d confused him with his brother, who was already in jail, and released him.

A Montgomery County, Md., woman called 911 to report that her husband couldn’t breathe and was turning blue. The dispatcher responded with snores. A second dispatcher eventually got on the line and tried to help the woman, but the snoring in the background made it hard for the two to communicate. About six minutes into the call, the first dispatcher woke up. The woman’s husband was eventually taken to a local hospital, and the sleeping dispatcher was reportedly placed on paid leave pending an investigation.

Charles Oliver is a staff writer for The Daily Citizen. Got a suggestion for It Couldn’t Happen Here? Email it to him at charlesoliver@daltoncitizen.com.