Last week, a federal court dismissed a case against a municipality filed by a driver that her due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment were violated when she received a parking ticket for leaving her vehicle on a secondary snow route. The driver claims she was not provided “fair and proper notice” of the parking restrictions because there were no signs posted in the Village indicating where parking was prohibited.
In Lewis v. Village of Alsip, the court held that the driver’s claim that she was entitled to signage announcing the parking ordinance had no merit. First, the Court found that the parking ordinance did not regulate passive behavior, and so the act of parking was fairly punishable by the ticketing procedure established in the Village. Second, the Court reasoned that an average member of the community would likely have some awareness of restrictive parking rules given the prevalence of similar regulations in the Chicagoland area. Based on both factors, the Court held that the driver’s interpretation of the due process clause was too expansive and was not consistent with previous cases.
While the driver can file an amended complaint, the Court made clear that her former theory that she was deprived of procedural due process when her car was ticketed and she was fined for prohibited parking without any signage indicating the prohibited snow route would not succeed.
Post Authored by Erin Monforti and Julie Tappendorf, Ancel Glink