Lawsuits may finish parking ticket tire chalking in San Francisco
Chalk marking car tires to issue parking permits could be declared unconstitutional in parts of the Bay Area if two new lawsuits succeed.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, plaintiff Maria Infante recently filed a $ 50 million lawsuit after receiving a $ 95 ticket from an SF park official who smeared chalk on her tires. On the same day, plaintiff Akeel Nasser filed a $ 5 million lawsuit in San Leandro after receiving four parking tickets valued at $ 180 from the city. (SFGATE and the San Francisco Chronicle are both owned by Hearst, but operate independently.)
These lawsuits, both filed by San Francisco attorney Eduardo Roy, allege the chalking violates the Fourth Amendment, which guarantees the right to protection from improper searches and seizures.
But these suits didn’t come out of nowhere.
In 2019, a federal appeals court ruled that chalking violated the Fourth Amendment after a Michigan woman with a series of parking tickets alled her frustration in a lawsuit. This 6th District Appeals Court ruling affects Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee.
“Entering a private vehicle parked on a public street to put a chalk mark to begin gathering information and ultimately impose a state sanction is unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment,” the woman’s attorney wrote , Philip Ellison, in a court record.
Following that ruling, a similar lawsuit was filed in San Diego in 2019 – although that decision ruled that Kreiden was not unconstitutional.
As the lawsuits keep coming, this could mean the end of the chalk once and for all. But the practice is likely to be replaced by new technologies, such as GPS-enabled license plate scanners – an alternative that Chronicle says is potentially even more invasive to motorists.
