Chicago illegally collected tens of millions of dollars from cell phone tickets, lawsuit claims

CHICAGO (WLS) -- A lawsuit alleging that the City of Chicago illegally assessed tens of millions of dollars in ticket fines was granted class action status by a Cook County Circuit Court judge Monday.

The lawsuit claimed the city violated state law by prosecuting tickets issued for using a cell phone while driving in its administrative court in order to keep all the fines, instead of remitting them with the state and county.

"Our lawsuit, at the end of the day, hopes to get a final determination that what they were doing was illegal," said attorney Jacie Zolna.

Zolna first filed the lawsuit in 2017. He said the class action status enables 90,000 motorists to possibly get their money back; a total of $20 million.

Zolna said the city knew as early as 2015 that it was illegally enforcing the tickets, but continued to collect on the invalid fines for two years, only stopping before the lawsuit was filed.

"The second they started sending these to circuit court where they didn't get to keep the fine anymore, they stopped enforcing the law altogether," Zolna said.

When asked about the lawsuit, a representative said the city does not comment on ongoing litigation. A status hearing is scheduled for May.