A state appeals panel has agreed a group of plaintiffs can’t force Chicago to refund millions of dollars in red light camera tickets because judges said the city didn’t violate its own rules for notifying offenders.
The legal action dates to September 2017 when four named plaintiffs filed a class action lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court. The plaintiffs said their citations didn’t comply with state law or city code, and the city had unjustly forced them to pay the fines.
They sought to prevent the city from issuing further camera-generated tickets and recover all fines and penalties issued through more than 2 million violation notices in the preceding five years.
Cook County Circuit Court Judge Eve Reilly granted the city’s motion to dismiss the complaint.
The plaintiffs then challenged the decision before the Illinois First District Appellate Court.
Justice Cynthia Cobbs wrote the panel’s opinion, issued Dec. 20; Justices James Fitzgerald Smith and David Ellis concurred.
On appeal, Cobbs wrote, the plaintiffs maintained their original argument: The violation notices were void from the moment the city issued them because they lacked a specific clause as stipulated in the Illinois Vehicle Code, namely: “A statement that recorded images are evidence of a violation” and “a warning that failure to pay the civil penalty or to contest liability in a timely manner is an admission of liability and may result in a suspension of the driving privileges of the registered owner of the vehicle.”
The plaintiffs had argued they couldn’t be expected to challenge the legality of such notices during municipal administrative hearings.
Cobbs said Judge Reilly's April 2021 opinion dismissing the lawsuit marked Reilly’s time analyzing Chicago Municipal Code language to determine “use of the word ‘shall’ suggested that the allegedly missing information was mandatory, rather than directory.”
Reilly held the city substantially complied with its own ordinance because the notices fulfilled the general purposes of notifying offenders. The Cook County judge said the plaintiffs neither alleged nor established a prejudice by the city’s failure to comply with the code in alignment with plaintiffs’ preferred strict application.
The appellate panel reviewed the entirety of the circuit court record and agreed the plaintiffs’ weren’t barred from suing based on a failure to pursue an administrative remedy. But it went further than Reilly on the remaining question: “Whether the relevant ordinances are mandatory or discretionary.”
According to Cobbs, plaintiffs said city code states red light camera violation notices “shall” include information the state law requires, and elsewhere the city code indicates the word “shall” means mandatory unless explicitly stated otherwise, and no such exemption is made concerning traffic cameras.
Reilly agreed with that point.
Basing its ruling on a 2005 Illinois Supreme Court opinion, People v. Robinson, the panel said: “Although ‘shall’ generally indicates a mandatory obligation in the mandatory-permissive dichotomy, the same is not true of the mandatory-directory dichotomy.” Based on a broad review of city and state law, the panel said Chicago officials are directed to act rather than given mandatory obligations.
“Neither the Municipal Code nor the portions of the Illinois Vehicle Code referenced therein provide for any negative consequences for the city’s failure to comply,” Cobbs wrote. “It is also evident that the rights of (violation notice) recipients would not be generally injured under a directory construction.”
Furthermore, the panel said, there are cases where substantial compliance with a mandatory provision is satisfactory. Aligning with Judge Reilly, the panel said the city cleared this bar because the violation notices adequately tell drivers the charge they face and explains their options for resolution.
The notices, Cobbs wrote, “list the vehicle information; the type of violation; the date, time and place of the violation; and photographic evidence of the violation. The (notices) also include the deadline by which the recipient must either pay the fine or challenge it in court, by mail, or by administrative hearing. Thus, a person receiving (a citation) is apprised of all the information necessary to resolve the violation.”
The panel rejected the plaintiffs’ contention the notices fall short of statutory obligation, saying a reasonable person would understand the picture included would be used as evidence and the potential consequences of ignoring the notice. Furthermore, the plaintiffs conceded they weren’t prejudiced by notice defects and the panel rejected the argument “prejudice might occur in some hypothetical scenarios.”
The plaintiffs have been represented by Mark Roth, of Roth Fioretti, Chicago.
Representing the city are Corporation Counsel Celia Meza and assistants Myriam Zreczny Kasper and Ellen McLaughlin.