Fant et al. v. City of Ferguson

Case No. 4-15-CV-00253-AGF| Settled February 27, 2024

Claims at Issue: In a class action complaint filed on February 8, 2015, the plaintiffs, nine class representatives who had been issued traffic fines and fees or had to pay cash bonds for minor offenses, accused the City of Ferguson, Missouri of federal civil rights violations. Specifically, they alleged that:  

1. the City failed to conduct an inquiry into whether the plaintiffs were able to pay their fines before jailing them, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses; 
2. the City failed to provide the plaintiffs with legal counsel during the proceedings leading to their incarceration, in violation of the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments; 
3. the City jailed the plaintiffs indefinitely and without an adequate legal process through which they could challenge their detention, in violation of the Due Process Clause; 
4. the squalid and unhealthy conditions of Ferguson’s jail constituted cruel and unusual punishment, in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments; 
5. the City used jail time and the threat of jail time to deny the plaintiffs the substantive and procedural protections that Missouri debtors would have against private creditors, in violation of the Equal Protection Clause; 
6. the City issued arrest warrants against impoverished persons for failure to pay traffic fines without any finding of probable cause, in violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments; and 
7. the City violated the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments by detaining the plaintiffs for extended periods without a valid warrant or government interest. 

Settlement: On February 27, 2024, after nine years of protracted litigation, the parties announced a settlement agreement had been finalized and authorized by the court totaling 4.5 million dollars. According to the attorneys for the plaintiffs, the settlement amount will be paid out to more than 15,000 people who were jailed by the city of Ferguson between 8 February 2010 and 30 December 2022 over unpaid fees. The amount a person receives will be proportional to the number of hours spent in the city’s jail. Despite agreeing to the settlement, the City of Ferguson remains able to avoid any legal accountability for the actions of their Criminal Justice department. 

Background:  According to the initial complaint, the City of Ferguson had a history of jailing people when they could not afford to pay their traffic debt and cash bonds for other minor offenses. No inquiry was made into the person’s ability to pay, no alternatives to payment were offered to the individuals, and no counsel was provided. Jail officers arbitrarily set an amount for relatives to pay in order for the individuals to be released. “In 2014, the City of Ferguson issued an average of more than 3.6 arrest warrants per household and almost 2.2 arrest warrants for every adult, most in cases involving unpaid debt for tickets.” This latest payout comes nearly 10 years after the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown by a Ferguson police officer, Darren Wilson. The killing of Brown ignited nationwide demonstrations over the treatment of Black people by police and prompted a US Department of Justice investigation into the city’s police department.