A decade of illegal parking fines just caught up with Chicago — $163M worth, says judge

Judge says Chicago broke state law

A Cook County judge ruled that Chicago spent a decade overcharging drivers on parking and city sticker tickets.

Judge William B. Sullivan issued the decision on Feb. 19, finding the city broke an Illinois law that capped fines at $250 per violation. The ruling covers about 1 million tickets issued between 2012 and 2022.

Chicago routinely doubled fines through late fees, sometimes pushing a single ticket past $500.

The city now owes millions in refunds

Chicago faces a hefty bill. The city owes about $70 million in overcharges plus $34 million in interest, bringing refunds to roughly $104 million.

On top of that, the judge wiped out about $94 million in fines the city had not yet collected. All told, the total in illegally assessed fines and penalties adds up to about $163 million.

No refund process exists yet, and any appeals could delay payouts further.

Late fees pushed tickets way past the cap

Most of the affected tickets involved city sticker violations. City stickers are required vehicle registrations that fund road repairs.

In 2012, Chicago raised the fine for an expired sticker from $100 to $200. Then a $200 late fee kicked in if drivers did not pay on time, pushing a single ticket to $400.

Collection fees piled on after that. All of it blew past the $250 cap set by state law.

One lawyer kept fighting the city

Attorney Jacie Zolna and his firm filed the class-action lawsuit in 2018, during Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s last year in office. A judge granted class action status on June 29, 2023.

Zolna was no stranger to taking on Chicago’s ticketing system.

His firm had already won a $38.75 million settlement against the city in 2017 over late fees on red-light and speed camera tickets.

Drivers lost jobs and racked up thousands

The human cost hit hard. Kyle Garchar, one of the named plaintiffs, got four city sticker tickets within weeks in 2017 and 2018 while parked outside his Bucktown home.

His debt hit $1,600, and the city notified Uber and Lyft, which locked him out of his rideshare job.

Another plaintiff, Rodney Shelton, racked up $20,000 in ticket debt after buying a car that failed an emissions test and could not get a city sticker.

Chicago says it may appeal the ruling

The city is not backing down just yet. Chicago’s Law Department said it may appeal the decision.

A spokesperson said the city plans to keep defending its residents’ interests. But Zolna said he tried to settle for far less than $163 million and the city turned him down every time.

Over eight years of litigation, Chicago never once tried to settle or compromise, according to the plaintiffs’ attorney.

The city quietly changed its own rules

Here is the part that stands out. In 2022, Chicago changed its local law to get rid of the penalties that exceeded the $250 state cap.

City attorney Mark Siegel even admitted at a November 2022 City Council meeting that issuing those fines would be illegal under the court’s reading of state law.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys noted Chicago stopped overcharging around 2023, right after the lawsuit gained class action status.

Chicago leaned hard on ticket revenue

Starting around 2010, Chicago began raising fines and aggressively enforcing code violations to bring in money.

Fines and fees make up about 7% of the city’s operating budget, far above the roughly 1% most large U.S. cities rely on.

The city also runs its own administrative court system, where city employees serve as judges. The state legislature gave Chicago that power in the 1990s to ease the burden on regular courts.

Ticket debt trapped low-income drivers for years

A 2018 investigation found that city sticker ticket debt was pushing low-income drivers into bankruptcy.

Unpaid tickets could lead to license suspensions, car impoundments, and wage garnishments. Illinois has no statute of limitations for unpaid tickets.

As of 2018, Chicago drivers owed about $1.45 billion in ticket debt going back to 1990. People who could not afford stickers kept getting ticketed, trapping them in a cycle of debt.

Reforms helped some but missed most drivers

In 2019, Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration cut late fees for city sticker tickets and brought back a 15-day grace period.

The city also stopped suspending licenses for unpaid parking tickets and banned same-day ticketing for the same violation.

A sticker amnesty program that year gave about $11.5 million in debt relief to roughly 11,400 drivers. But about 500,000 were eligible, so only a small fraction got help.

Chicago has lost ticketing lawsuits before

This is not the first time the city has lost big over its ticketing practices.

Beyond the 2017 camera ticket settlement, a 2018 investigation found Chicago had issued about 23,000 duplicate city sticker tickets dating back to 1992. The city threw those tickets out.

Chicago also approved a $5 million settlement in a separate case alleging it encouraged lenders to repossess impounded cars.

What affected drivers should know now

If you paid more than $250 in total fines on a single parking or city sticker ticket between 2012 and 2022, you may qualify for a refund. Attorneys say you should hold onto any ticket records and payment receipts.

A Cook County judge still needs to set up a refund process after any appeals wrap up. The city’s appeal could delay payouts, but the plaintiffs’ attorney said he believes the ruling will hold up.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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