A driver whose truck was leaking gas had no choice but to pull over on the side of the road, and he should not have to pay the parking ticket he was issued, a Saskatoon judge ruled.

The case came before Justice Shawn Smith at Court of King’s Bench after a justice of the peace — “having evinced some sympathy” for the driver — initially imposed an absolute discharge on the ticket, which means no penalty.

The City of Saskatoon appealed that decision, saying the $60 fine ($35 if paid within 14 days) is not optional.

When the city’s appeal came before Smith, he asked the prosecutor to look into the defence of necessity, and she “gladly attended to it,” Smith wrote.

According to the prosecutor’s brief, as quoted in Smith’s decision, that defence applies in cases where someone takes an action “to avoid a direct and immediate peril” that makes compliance with the law impossible.

In his decision dated Jan. 5, Smith ruled that was the case here.

What happened?

Smith described the circumstances that led to the parking ticket being issued.

On an unspecified date, a man was driving his older-model truck when he smelled gas.

“At the same time someone behind him honked and came alongside and pointed downwards,” Smith wrote. The driver looked out the window and “saw a trail of gas ‘leaving behind the truck.’ He immediately pulled over and noticed that gas was ‘guzzling out of the gas tank, like, the top of it, the gas pump.'”

The driver parked beside the sidewalk, phoned a relative to tow the vehicle, and the relative arrived within about seven or eight minutes. 

During that time, though, a parking commissionaire issued a ticket. There was some discrepancy between the testimony of the commissionaire, who said he put the ticket under the windshield wiper, and the driver, who said the commissionaire handed him the ticket.

“But what is not in debate is whether the vehicle had to be stopped as it was leaking gas and thus would be an imminent danger to [the driver] and any others near the vehicle,” the judge wrote.

“The heat generated from an operating vehicle along with leaking gas created a palpable danger of fire and explosion.”

The driver’s intention was never to park, but to remove the danger and get his vehicle towed. This was appropriate, Smith said.

He agreed the justice of the peace erred by not imposing the fine, but wrote there should not have been a guilty verdict to start with.

He declared the driver not guilty.