Lawsuit over ‘excessive’ LA parking fines is revived by federal appeals court

A federal appeals panel reversed a lower court’s ruling in a lawsuit alleging that Los Angeles’ $63 late-payment penalty for failure to pay a fine for a parking meter violation, set at the same amount as the initial fine itself, is excessive, according to court papers obtained Tuesday.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena on Monday sent the case back to Los Angeles federal court to decide whether the $63 late-payment fee is unconstitutional and a violation of the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits excessive fines.

In his opinion, Judge Kenneth K. Lee wrote that trying to find a parking spot in Los Angeles “can sometimes feel like traipsing through Dante’s nine circles of hell.”

The class-action suit brought in 2015 by local residents Jesus Pimentel and David R. Welch challenged the fine and the penalty after the plaintiffs received a $63 ticket and the subsequent late fee after parking at meters downtown. The $63 late-payment fee is imposed if a driver does not pay the initial parking fine within 21 days.

In 2018, U.S. District Judge Fernando M. Olguin granted summary judgment to the city on all claims, setting the stage for the first appeal.

Two years later, the appellate panel held that the initial fine of $63 did not violate the excessive fines clause because it was not grossly disproportionate to the offense of overstaying time at a metered parking space. The panel reversed, however, the district court’s summary judgment in favor of the city as to the late-payment penalty of $63.

Olguin again granted the defendant’s motion for summary judgment as to the late-payment fee. The plaintiffs appealed to the 9th Circuit for a second time.

The appellate court Monday again remanded the late-payment issue back to the lower court to determine whether the city’s late penalty runs afoul of the excessive fines clause.