San Leandro, San Francisco Hit with Class Actions Over Chalk Marks Used to Show Parking Violations

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The City of San Leandro and the City and County of San Francisco, California have been hit with proposed class action lawsuits over their allegedly unconstitutional practice of physically marking lawfully parked vehicles, typically with a chalk mark on a tire, for the purpose of obtaining evidence of parking violations. 

The lawsuits allege San Leandro and San Francisco have run afoul of the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution, which prohibits unreasonable seizures and searches. The cases contend that in the absence of a valid warrant, consent or exigent circumstances, the cities’ surreptitious placement of chalk marks on private vehicles amounts to an unlawful physical intrusion on property for the purpose of obtaining information for law enforcement. 

“For many years, the City has benefitted economically from its unlawful practice, raising substantial revenues by violating citizens’ constitutional rights daily,” both complaints allege. 

According to the lawsuits, San Leandro and San Francisco parking enforcement officers have marked citizens’ tires with chalk as a means to deduce whether a parked vehicle has been moved within the applicable time limit. These chalk marks are placed on one of a vehicle’s tires without the owner’s consent, the cases say, arguing that a legally parked car poses no imminent threat to public health, safety, security or resources. 

Moreover, the “mere passage of time” between when a car is parked legally and when its parking zone time limit expires does not create any threat to public health, safety, security or resources, the suits add:

“For another example, a motorist parks his vehicle in a two-hour time zone at 1:00 p.m., but the City’s parking enforcement officer does not chalk the vehicle’s tire until 2:00 p.m., allowing the vehicle to remain in its spot until 4:00 p.m., for a total of three hours, without any concern for the vehicle’s creation of a threat to public health, safety, security, or resources by its presence in the two-hour zone for up to three hours.”

The cases argue the cities could utilize other parking enforcement methods, such as meters, photography and even chalking the ground behind or near a parked vehicle, instead of chalk-marking an individual’s tire without consent.

The suits look to represent all individuals whose vehicles were cited for parking violations or cited, towed and impounded based on the physical placement of a mark on the vehicle’s tires for the purpose of obtaining information to support a parking citation. 

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