Falkner v. City of Chicago

150 F. Supp. 3d 973, 2015 WL 8330392, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 164636
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Illinois
DecidedDecember 9, 2015
DocketCase No. 14-cv-5459
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 150 F. Supp. 3d 973 (Falkner v. City of Chicago) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Falkner v. City of Chicago, 150 F. Supp. 3d 973, 2015 WL 8330392, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 164636 (N.D. Ill. 2015).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

AMY J. ST. EVE, United States District Court Judge

Defendants Redflex Traffic Systems, Inc. and Redflex Holdings, Ltd. (collectively, “Redflex”), the City of Chicago (“City”), Xerox State and' Local Solutions, Inc. (“Xerox”), and International'Business Machines, Corp. (“IBM;” collectively, “Defendants”) have filed motions to dismiss Plain[976]*976tiff Matthew Falkner’s (“Plaintiff’) Second Amended Complaint (“Complaint”).' The Court grants Defendants’ motions and dis-. misses the Complaint with prejudice.- : ;

STATEMENT :

'On May 1, 2015, Plaintiff filed a three-count Complaint alleging- that (1) the City’s red light camera system under 625 ILCS 5/ll-208.3(b)(3) (“Act”)- Constitutes an unconstitutional delegation of “Police Power” under the' Illinois’ Constitution; (2) Defendants were unjustly énriched as a result of the unconstitutional Act’s invalid citations; and (3) the City violated 42 U.S.C. § 1983 by depriving Plaintiff of his property without due process of law in violation of the Fourteenth. Amendment to the United States Constitution as a result of the unconstitutional Act’s invalid citations.1 (R. 48 at 7-8.) For the following reasons, the Court grants Defendants’ motions and dismisses the Complaint with prejudice.

BACKGROUND

The following facts are taken from Plaintiffs Second Amended Complaint. (R. 48.) In evaluating the motions to dismiss, the Court accepts as true the Complaint’s well-pleaded factual allegations and draws all reasonable inferences in favor of Plaintiff. Stayart v. Yahoo!, Inc., 623 F.3d 436, 438 (7th Cir.2010).

At around 11:00 a.m. on January 19, 2013, the City’s red light camera system caught Plaintiff allegedly running a red light on the 7600 block of South, Stony Island Avenue, Chicago, IL. (Id., Ex. A.) On February. 10, 2013, the City issued Plaintiff a ticket and a one-hundred dollar fíne. (Id. at ¶ 6; Id. Ex. A.) The ticket provided Plaintiff with three options: he could (1) pay the fine without contesting the ticket, (2) contest the ticket by mail, or (3) contest the ticket via an in-person hearing. (Id. Ex, A.) Plaintiff paid the fine without contesting the ticket. (Id. at. ¶ 6; Id. Ex..A..),' .. .

Between April 2003 and at least May 2015, .the City-contracted with the other defendants to install and operate red light . camera systems throughout Chicago, (iId. at ¶1.) In that timé, the City’s camera systems produced over five million red light violation citations and amassed over $520,000,000 in fines. (Id. at 111.) Specifically,-the camera systems issue citations via a “Digital Image .Verification” process where vendors examine the cameras’ photographic and video .evidence to determine whether a driver ran a red light, violating the City’s Municipal Code:. (Id. at 11112, 17.) First, a primary vendor installs and operates the red light camera systems and conducts an “initial review” of the evidence to determine whether a driver committed a prospective, violation by running a red light. (Id. at ¶¶16-17.) Next, if the primary vendors identify a prospective violation, they forward the relevant evidence to a second vendor for “further review.” (Id. at 111118-20.) If the second vendor concurs with the primary vendor’s violation assessment, the second vendor (1) uploads the camera evidence to the City’s Department of Finance, 2) sends a request to the Illinois Secretary of State for the registered yehicle owner’s name and address using [977]*977the license plate number found in the camera evidence, and (3) sends the relevant information to a printing vendor that issues the final citation. (Id. at ¶22.)

Redflex served as the City’s primary vendor from April 2003 through' February 2014. (Id. at ¶7.) Redflex’s service agreement required at least eighty-five percent of its prospective violation submissions to the second vendor to ultimately show an enforceable ordinance violation. (Id. at ¶18.) The City then hired Xerox to replace Redflex as the City’s primary vendor around October 2013 and completed the transition by February 2014. (Id. at ¶9.) Xerox’s service agreement required at least ninety percent of its prospective violation submissions to the second vendor to ultimately show an enforceable ordinance violation. (Id. at ¶19.) From April 2003 to at least May 2015, IBM served as the City’s second vendor. (Id. at ¶10.) During that time, IBM reviewed approximately 500,000 prospective violations per year for the City. (Id. at ¶21.) None of the vendor Defendants — Redflex, Xerox, and IBM— or any of their employees are sworn members of any law enforcement agency. (Id. at ¶24.)

In Count One, Plaintiff now asserts that the Act constitutes an “unconstitutional delegation of Police Power” under the Illinois Constitution, as it “permit[s] private parties to determine that a violation of law has occurred without the' involvement of any member of a law enforcement agency[.]” (R. 48 at ¶¶37-38.) Defendants counter that Plaintiff has no standing, that his claim is procedurally deficient under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 5.1, and that the Act allows a constitutional' delegation of executive power. The Court agrees. In light’ of the Act’s constitutionality, the Court does not address Counts Two and Three, aS they directly hinge on the Act being unconstitutional.2

ANALYSIS

I. Rule 12(b)(6) Legal Standard

“A motion to dismiss pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) challenges the viability of .a complaint by arguing that it fails to state a claim upon which relief may be granted.” Camasta v. Jos. A. Bank Clothiers, Inc., 761 F.3d 732, 736 (7th Cir.2014). Under Rule 8(a)(2), a complaint must include “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” Fed.' R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2). The short and plain statement under Rulé 8(a)(2) must “give the defendant fair notice of what the claim is and the grounds upon which it rests.” Bell Atlantic v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007) (citation omitted). Under the federal notice pleading standards, a plaintiffs “factual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level.” Id. Put differently, a “complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, [978]*978to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’ ” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009), quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955.

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Bluebook (online)
150 F. Supp. 3d 973, 2015 WL 8330392, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 164636, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/falkner-v-city-of-chicago-ilnd-2015.