Court Dismisses Class Action Challenging Red-Light Camera Tickets
An Illinois Appellate Court recently dismissed a class action lawsuit challenging automated red-light tickets given at an intersection in a municipality. Tock v. Village of Stone Park
Under the Illinois Vehicle Code, municipalities can write automated tickets for drivers who stop after road markings and enter an intersection through the use of red-light traffic cameras. The law provides recipients of these automated tickets with an opportunity to challenge xthe tickets. In this case, three drivers received automated tickets from the village’s red-light camera at the same intersection for stopping after road markings. One driver appealed the ticket at an in-person hearing and got it dismissed. Another challenged the ticket at an in-person hearing and lost. The third driver had an opportunity to appeal their ticket at the circuit court but did not. All three drivers filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of themselves and hundreds of other drivers who received automated tickets at that intersection arguing the camera angle was improper and they were systemically and unfairly ticketed as a result. The circuit court dismissed the lawsuit, and the drivers appealed.
The Appellate Court also upheld the dismissal of the lawsuit for several reasons. First, because the first driver had the ticket dismissed, there was no injury to sue over. Second, relying on Pinkston v. Chicago (that we recently reported on) the court reiterated parties must exhaust their administrative remedies to file lawsuits over administrative actions such as parking and red-light tickets. Since the second driver had a appeal denied did not excuse a failure to appeal their ticket at the circuit court, and the third driver did not appeal the ticket at all.
Post Authored by Daniel Lev, Ancel Glink
0 comments:
Post a Comment