A Cook County judge will allow a class action lawsuit to pull forward against the village of Crestwood, accusing the suburban municipality of making millions of dollars issuing red light tickets at an intersection that didn’t have a signal for certain drivers to violate.
Rose Jones, Debra Dembry and Janet Wittenmyer filed a complaint in October 2017 in Cook County Circuit Court, saying they and “tens of thousands of other individuals” got citations for failure to make a stop before turning right on a red light at the intersection of Cicero Avenue and Cal Sag Road. However, according to the complaint, there is no traffic light for the right-turn lanes from Cicero onto Cal Sag. The signals for through-traffic on Cicero do not control the turn lanes.
The 2017 lawsuit alleged the village improperly issued 56,000 red light tickets and owed more than $3 million in restitution. That complaint was consolidated with a filing in which retired Circuit Court Judge Daniel Lynch sought administrative review for a ticket at the intersection, arguing placement of a traffic signal violated the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices.
Those cases ultimately were consolidated with a January 2021 lawsuit from Timothy Bailey, Shan Shobowale, Tom Levis and Robert Taylor Jr., who sought the same relief as the complaint from Jones, Dembry and Wittenmyer. In December 2021, Cook County Judge Pamela Meyerson denied a motion for summary judgment on the consolidated action, leading to a second amended motion for class certification in January.
After further proceedings, Myerson issued her opinion on that motion on Aug. 23.
Myerson first rejected the village’s argument the plaintiffs failed to state a claim, saying it was no different than a motion to dismiss the Jones’ plaintiffs complaint, which failed more than four years ago. She said plaintiffs need not have exhausted all administrative remedies before pursuing litigation, for reasons including the fact the complaint includes allegations about the validity of the village’s administrative process.
She also rejected the village's contention a class action is improper before a court decides if the intersection itself violates the MUTCD and state Vehicle Code.
“This is the ultimate issue in the case, and it is a mixed question of law and fact,” Myerson wrote. “The court has already decided, not once but twice, that this question raises a genuine issue of material fact. The cases defendant cites are distinguishable, as they raised purely legal issues. The next logical step in this litigation, now that the motion to dismiss and the motions for summary judgment have been denied, is class certification.”
Crestwood said it now has issued more than 80,000 tickets for right-on-red turns at the intersection in question, meaning the plaintiffs easily satisfied class numerosity requirements. Myerson agreed the commonality requirement is met because the standard for determining if a citation is valid is objective.
“The questions is not whether each potential class member could see the traffic signal when they were ticketed,” Myerson wrote, “but whether the signal was properly placed according to MUTCD guidelines and was ‘sufficiently legible to be seen by an ordinarily observant person.’ That issue is common to the class.”
Although potential damages are different because some likely class members already paid their tickets, Myerson said the proposed subclass recognizes that distinction and doesn’t mean there is a lack of commonality.
Myerson appointed the Bailey plaintiffs as class representatives as well as Lynch, though she noted another subclass could be created if there is a need to “distinguish between members who have exhausted their administrative remedies and those who have not.”
The judge appointed the Zimmerman Law Offices and the firm of Roth Firoetti, both of Chicago, as class counsel. A status hearing is set for Oct. 6.