$38.75 Million Settlement Forces Chicago to Refund 1.2 Million Red Light and Speed Camera Fines
Won by Romanucci & Blandin.
A class of more than 1.2 million Chicago motorists received a $38.75 million settlement after plaintiffs proved the city collected red light and speed camera fines without giving drivers the second violation notice they were owed under the city's own municipal code.
What happened
Between 2010 and 2015, the City of Chicago operated its automated red light and speed camera enforcement program in a way that shortchanged the due process rights of well over a million drivers. Under the city's own municipal code, a motorist who did not pay a ticket and did not request a hearing by the due date was entitled to a second notice of violation before the city could issue a formal liability determination. The city routinely skipped that step. It also imposed $100 late fees after only 21 days, four days earlier than the 25-day window the code required.
Plaintiffs Themasha Simpson, Delyn McKenzie-Lopez, and Erica Lieschke filed the first of two coordinated class action lawsuits in March 2015 in the Circuit Court of Cook County (Case No. 15 CH 4802). Their attorneys, including Antonio Romanucci of Romanucci and Blandin alongside co-counsel Myron M. Cherry and Jacie Zolna of Myron M. Cherry and Associates, argued that the city's procedural shortcuts stripped drivers of a meaningful chance to contest citations before liability locked in.
Cook County Judge Kathleen G. Kennedy rejected the city's motion to dismiss, ruling that the city had violated 'fundamental principles of justice.' Kennedy then certified the lawsuit as a class action. The city appealed the certification ruling to the Illinois Appellate Court, which declined to hear the appeal and allowed the class to stand.
By July 2017, the two class actions consolidated into a single settlement. The city agreed to pay $38.75 million: $26.75 million in cash refunds to drivers who had already paid disputed fines (representing a 50 percent rebate on those penalties), and $12 million in debt forgiveness for the roughly 300,000 motorists who had never paid. The city also agreed to void the 1.5 million tickets at issue and to bar those voided citations from being used to justify booting a vehicle or suspending a driver's license.
Attorney fees of approximately $11 million, roughly one-third of the cash fund, were requested from the court and approved alongside final settlement approval. The City Council voted to approve the deal on July 26, 2017. Checks and debt-forgiveness notices began going out to class members after the claims process opened in October 2017.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.WTTW Chicago News: City Settles Red Light Camera Lawsuit for $38.75 Million (Jul. 20, 2017)·Archived copy
- 2.Chicago Sun-Times: Settlement of red-light camera snafu to send refunds to 1.2M motorists (Jul. 20, 2017)·Archived copy
- 3.Chicago Sun-Times: City Council approves speed, red-light camera settlement (Jul. 26, 2017)·Archived copy
- 4.Chicago Sun-Times: Court won't hear city's appeal in red-light camera lawsuit (Feb. 11, 2017)·Archived copy
- 5.Cook County Record (via LegalNewsLine): Court asked to sign off on red light camera settlement; lawyers defend $11M fee request·Archived copy
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