HOUSTON - A Texas appeals court panel has upheld dismissal of a lawsuit challenging a city’s red-light camera ordinance.
Plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit filed suit against the city of Sugar Land after receiving tickets for running red lights. They claimed the city’s ordinance was unconstitutional under article 1, section 17 of the Texas constitution which prohibits the government from “taking” property without adequate compensation to the owner.
In this case, the alleged “taking” were the $75 fines the plaintiffs paid for the tickets generated by the red-light cameras.
But the Sugar Land ordinance allows citizens to challenge a ticket in an administrative hearing and from there to further appeal the fine in municipal court. Two of the plaintiffs, James W. Dalton and Anis Hussain, never appealed.
“Dalton and Hussain paid the red-light camera violation penalties without seeking administrative relief,” a panel of the Texas Court of Appeals, First District ruled May 7. “Had they done so, they could have obtained a determination that they did not have to pay the penalties at all, which would have mooted their takings claims.”
A third plaintiff, Helwig Vander Grinten, never paid the penalty for his ticket and therefore also lacked standing for the "taking" claims, the appeals court panel said.
Meanwhile, while the appeal was pending, the Texas legislature repealed the red-light camera enforcement provisions in chapters 707 of the Texas transportation code and replaced it with a law prohibiting red-light camera enforcement systems.
In their lawsuit, the plaintiffs asked the court to declare Sugar Land’s red-light ordinance unconstitutional and to issue an injunction barring the city from enforcing the law.
The appeals court rejected those requests, citing in part the legislature's repealing of the red-light camera law.
“The appellants lack standing to raise these claims because their pleadings concern only prior assessments for red-light camera violations and because former chapter 707 has been repealed and replaced by a statute prohibiting red-light camera enforcement systems,” the appeals court said.
Vander Grinten v. City of Sugar Land, Texas Court of Appeals, First District, 01-17-00626-CV