Appellate Court Upholds $14,500 Fine for Building Code Violations
An Illinois Appellate Court upheld an administrative hearing officer's decision to issue a $14,500 fine for ongoing and unresolved building code violations in Thakkar v. City of Aurora.
After a city inspector conducted an inspection of a home, the city's code hearing officer issued a citation relating to 26 code violations. The city scheduled a reinspection of the home, which found that 14 violations had been resolved but 12 violations remained. The hearing officer issued a fine of $500 per day until the 12 violations were cured. After further inspections, the hearing officer ultimately fined the homeowner $14,500. The homeowner filed a lawsuit appealing the hearing officer's decision.
The trial court upheld the hearing officer's decision and the homeowner appealed to the Illinois Appellate Court, which also affirmed the hearing officer's decision. The Court found that the homeowner conceded there were code violations, and that the evidence submitted into the record showed several violations had not yet been cured. The Appellate Court rejected the homeowner's arguments that the written and oral rulings were inconsistent, and that the case should be "DWP'd" because a written order had not hadn't been issued within three days of the hearing. In sum, the Court held that the hearing officer's decision finding violations and issuing a fine was not clearly erroneous.
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