Four Illinois Supreme Court justices said Chicago acted within state law when making car owners pay administrative penalties when the city impounded their vehicles.
The decision upheld similar rulings from the Illinois First District Appellate Court and Cook County Judge Anna Loftus, who granted the city’s motion to dismiss a complaint from five named plaintiffs, owners of vehicles impounded between August 2016 and April 2017.
The drivers argued the city’s impoundment ordinance is unenforceable, which should nullify penalties assessed against them. But Loftus agreed with the city’s position the plaintiffs lacked standing because the Illinois Vehicle Code doesn’t pre-empt the city's impound ordinance.
Illinois Supreme Court Chief Justice Mary Jane Theis
| Illinoiscourts.gov
In her opinion dismissing the complaint, Judge Loftus had held the relevant Vehicle Code passage governs only fees “and therefore did not interact with the impoundment ordinance’s penalty provisions.”
The appellate court had ruled the Vehicle Code expressly lets a county or municipality regulate the impoundment and release of vehicles, including by imposing administrative fees. The appellate panel rejected the plaintiffs’ assertion the law explicitly limits home rule governments’ power to charge administrative penalties or fines for whatever violation led to the impoundment.
That view was backed by the Illinois Supreme Court.
Chief Justice Mary Jane Theis wrote the opinion, issued Jan. 20. Justices P. Scott Neville, David Overstreet and Lisa Holder White concurred. Three justices new to the court took no part in the decision: Joy Cunningham, Elizabeth Rochford and Mary O’Brien.
“Although the constitutional power of home rule units is deliberately broad, the General Assembly may preempt the exercise of a home rule unit’s powers by expressly limiting that authority,” Theis wrote. “If there is no express limitation or denial of home rule authority, a municipal ordinance and a state statute may operate concurrently.”
While the Vehicle Code does contain express limits on home rule authority, Theis continued, it also allows such governing bodies to enact their own ordinances in certain subject areas so long as they are consistent with the state law and don’t inhibit uniform enforcement.
Although the plaintiffs challenged administrative penalties connected to impoundments occurring between August 2016 and April 2017, the city’s impounded ordinance dates to 1998.
“Prior to 2012, there were no regulations in chapter 11 relating to the impoundment of vehicles and none directed at the owners of impounded vehicles,” Theis wrote. “Therefore, between 1998 and 2012 there could be no inconsistency or lack of uniformity between the impoundment ordinance and chapter 11 of the Vehicle Code.”
But the plaintiffs maintained their position rested on a 2012 Vehicle Code amendment, which they said established remedial costs are inconsistent with punitive penalties. Theis pointed to a 2016 General Assembly amendment stating fee limitations in the relevant subsection “do not apply to home rule units that tow a vehicle on a public way if a circumstance requires the towing or if the vehicle is towed due to a violation of a statute or local ordinance and the home rule unit owns and operates a towing facility and owns or operates tow trucks.”
So long as the fees are reasonable and related to administrative and processing costs, Theis added, they comply with the Vehicle Code.
The plaintiffs also argued the city’s impoundment ordinance violates the state constitution because it doesn’t pertain to local government and affairs. But the Supreme Court agreed with the city’s position the plaintiffs forfeited the right to make that contention by not raising it before their final appeal.
Although the Supreme Court said the plaintiffs also were too late to raise the issue of double jeopardy, having not done so before the circuit court or appeals panel, Theis said the justices still considered it on its merits and found the city’s penalty isn’t problematic.
In order to prevail on this argument, Theis explained, the plaintiffs would have to show the city was imposing multiple criminal penalties for a singular offense. But they failed to offer evidence “the administrative penalty imposed under the ordinance is so punitive in purpose or effect to transform it into a criminal penalty,” Theis wrote, and therefore cannot win.
Plaintiffs have been represented by attorneys Charles F. Morrissey, Rene´ A. Torrado Jr. and Kaitlyn M. Frey, of the firm of Morrissey & Donahue, of Chicago.
The city has been represented by attorney Stephen G. Collins and other corporation counsel from the city's Department of Law.