Chicago could owe $100M+ in refunds for excessive city tickets

By Jonathan Bilyk | Legal Newsline
The Center Square

The city of Chicago could be on the hook for more than $160 million in refunds to thousands of vehicle owners slammed with illegally excessive fines over unpaid parking tickets, missing city stickers and other car-related city ordinance violations, a Cook County judge has ruled.

On Feb. 19, Cook County Circuit Court Judge William B. Sullivan sided with plaintiffs in the longrunning class action challenging the city’s practices of using its in-house administrative hearings department to assess fines and fees worth hundreds or even thousands of dollars to people issued citations under city ordinances, even though state law capped those fines at $250.

“The court’s ruling is going to help a lot of people,” said attorney Jacie Zolna, one of the attorneys who led the action. “The city for too long has tried to balance its budget on the backs of its most vulnerable citizens. This decision sends a loud and clear message to the city that it needs to stop.”

The case dates back to 2018, when Zolna and other attorneys, then with the firm of Myron M. Cherry & Associates, of Chicago, filed suit in Cook County Circuit Court to challenge the city’s administrative hearing and fine assessment practices.

Zolna and attorney Benjamin Swetland, who also had worked for Cherry firm, later formed a new firm, Zolna Swetland, of Chicago, and have continued to represent plaintiffs in the case.

The complaint was lodged on behalf of named plaintiff Mike Blaha and potentially thousands of other people. The lawsuit demanded the city be made to repay people who allegedly routinely faced “hundreds of dollars in fines and penalties … all of which are funneled into the city’s own system of administrative adjudication where the typical rules of evidence and civil procedure are disregarded.”

Specifically, the class action asserted the city used the administrative hearing process to bypass provisions in state law and slam vehicle owners with fines and penalties sometimes far in excess of the $250 cap placed by the Illinois Vehicle Code on municipal ordinance violations.

In court, the city initially secured a win, as Cook County Judge Anna Loftus agreed with the city that the $250 cap was a “drafting error,” and finding the larger context showed the General Assembly intended to allow municipalities to impose fines of up to $500 per violation.

However, that decision was overturned on appeal in 2022. In that ruling, the Illinois First District Appellate Court said a true reading of the law indicates lawmakers intended to allow the $500 fines only for violations of state traffic law, not for city ordinance violations.

The court then sent the case back to Cook County Circuit Court, where Judge Sullivan came to preside over the case in place of Loftus.

Four years later, Sullivan delivered a summary judgment in favor of the plaintiffs, saying the 2022 appellate decision makes the case a relatively easy win for plaintiffs.

Sullivan rejected the city’s claims that, despite the appeals court’s ruling, City Hall should still win. The city argued the lawsuit amounted to an impermissible attack upon its legal authority to handle ordinance violations through the Department of Administrative Hearings (DOAH.)

Sullivan agreed it was an attack on the system, but said the legal authorization upholding the DOAH proceedings, either under state law or under its state constitutional home rule authority, did not provide the city a legal “escape hatch” to sidestep the limits imposed by the Illinois Vehicle Code.

The judge noted, for instance, that any payment demands issued through the DOAH only become collectible under a court order. Thus, he said, the DOAH lacked the authority to issue fines in excess of the $250 limit.

Sullivan further rejected the city’s claims that its liability should be limited because it acted under the presumption that the larger $500 cap should apply. At a minimum, the judge said, the lawsuit and the appellate ruling should have put the city on notice that it was likely violating the law.

“The irony of this argument is not lost on the Court,” Sullivan wrote. “… Defendant (the city) … does not extend this charitability to the Plaintiffs, who are charged with knowledge of the illegality of the statute and a lack of diligence for not realizing their debts were illegal as in excess of the $250 statutory cap.”

In comments following the ruling, Zolna noted members of the city’s Finance Committee, in conversations with city attorneys, in 2022 acknowledged the legal implications of the appellate ruling. At that hearing, city alderpersons asked a city attorney if the city’s practices were “already illegal.” And the city attorney answered: “Yes.”

In his ruling, Sullivan affirmed that the city was in violation of state law.

However, the judge stopped short of granting the plaintiffs a full victory. Zolna and those representing the plaintiffs had asked for the judge to essentially wipe out all of the judgments entered by the DOAH over the ordinance tickets.

The judge, however, sided partially with the city, instead ordering the city to erase any fines or penalties exceeding $250. And for people who had already paid the fines and penalties, the judge ordered the city to refund any amount paid in excess of $250, plus $55 in fees.

“… To find that the class members were systematically overcharged for vehicle parking, stand, and compliance violations, while depriving them of relief, would be a manifestly unjust result,” Sullivan wrote.

It is estimated the refunds could cost the city $160 million or more.

The city has not yet indicated if it will again seek to appeal.