Van Harken v. City of Chicago

In 1990, the City of Chicago (defendant) adopted a new administrative system for adjudicating parking violations. Under this system, a ticket recipient could either pay the civil penalty (capped at $100) or challenge the ticket in writing or in person. Challenges were adjudicated by part-time hearing officers—private lawyers hired and removable at will by the city’s director of revenue. The officer who wrote the ticket generally did not appear or testify; instead, the ticket served as an affidavit. Hearing officers were instructed to conduct a searching cross-examination of the ticket recipient and could subpoena witnesses and consider documentary evidence. If a violation was found and a fine imposed, the recipient could seek judicial review in the Cook County Circuit Court by paying a $200 filing fee. Ada Van Harken and others who had received parking tickets (the drivers) (plaintiffs) filed a class-action lawsuit against the city, arguing that the city’s new procedures for adjudicating parking violations were inadequate under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. Specifically, the drivers challenged the absence of the ticketing officer at hearings, the instruction for hearing officers to conduct a searching cross-examination of ticket recipients, the lack of independence and neutrality of the hearing officers, and the high cost of judicial review. The district court dismissed the case for failure to state a claim. The drivers appealed.