The Wisconsin Court of Appeals last week held that a $20,000 municipal forfeiture for parking commercial trucks in a residential driveway was unconstitutionally excessive.
District 2 Judge Mark Gundrum issued the one-judge decision, overturning the sanction imposed by Lakeside Municipal Court on a city of Fond du Lac citation.
Dennis Murray appealed from the judgment finding him guilty of violating an ordinance prohibiting parking a commercial walk-in truck in a residential area.
Murray had argued at trial in municipal court that his two vehicles met exceptions in the ordinance for tow trucks or vehicles servicing a property. The municipal court found the exceptions did not apply and imposed a $20,549.50 forfeiture for the violation: $281.50 per day for the more than 70 days elapsing between issuance of the citation and trial.
Gundrum affirmed the municipal court’s finding that Murray violated the ordinance. However, he agreed with Murray that the total forfeiture violated federal and state constitutional provisions prohibiting excessive fines.
Gundrum stated that the federal excessive fines clause in the Eighth Amendment and state law limit a government’s power to extract payments as punishment.
Fond du Lac argued that the forfeiture amount was really about nuisance abatement rather than punishment. Gundrum rejected the argument, as the city did not bring a nuisance abatement civil lawsuit but instead issued a citation resulting in a punitive forfeiture.
Gundrum applied a proportionality test pursuant to state case law. He found that the city failed to rebut Murray’s argument that the amount imposed was grossly disproportionate to the gravity of his offense.
Gundrum remanded the case to the municipal court to impose “an appropriate forfeiture.”