ST. LOUIS — Residents of a small municipality in north ºüÀêÊÓƵ County missed work, skipped important family events and had to pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars after authorities illegally towed their vehicles from their homes, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court.
Three residents say Calverton Park, a town of roughly 1,200 people just north of Ferguson, violated residents’ property rights, unfairly taxed them and imposed excessive fines when the city ordered a towing company to show up without adequate notice and take their vehicles from their homes. The city alleged those residents had violated city nuisance laws because the vehicles weren’t properly registered with the state.
The residents are seeking class-action status for dozens of people who have been subject to the same treatment since 2018.
It’s the latest controversy for a city that in 2022 fined residents at a higher rate than any of ºüÀêÊÓƵ County’s 88 municipalities, according to a Post-Dispatch analysis. Residents said over the summer they were constantly dinged for tall grass, trash and parking in front of their homes.
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“This deprivation does not result in a mere inconvenience,†says the lawsuit, filed by local nonprofit ArchCity Defenders. “Without reliable means of travel, impacted individuals could not work, bring their children to school or medical appointments and carry out other necessary tasks such as food shopping.â€
City officials did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
One of the plaintiffs in the suit, Christina Reise, rented a home and moved to Calverton Park in the spring of 2020 with her 5-year-old and 15-year-old sons. She owned an unregistered Town and Country van that she parked in the driveway.
The lawsuit says Reise didn’t have the money to pay taxes on the van, so she couldn’t get the plates updated.
Roughly three months later, Reise looked outside and saw the van missing from her driveway. A notice was attached to her front door listing the owner of her rental home, Manna Partners LLC, demanding that she fix nuisance conditions at the home regarding “any partly dismantled, wrecked, dilapidated, abandoned or non-operative automobile,†the suit says.
The lawsuit argues that Reise’s van was not, in fact, a nuisance under city code, and she never had an opportunity to argue her case before it was towed away.
But to get the vehicle back, she had to pay $800 to the private towing company that removed the van, plus an additional release fee of $25 from the city. She also had to pay a special tax bill of $225 issued to the property owner.
It took 11 days for her to get her van back, forcing her to miss appointments with her job as a house cleaner, the suit says.
Roughly two years later, Reise had again failed to pay the state taxes and registration on a Volkswagen Jetta she had purchased.
On March 22, 2023, she received a letter from the city regarding a “derelict, unlicensed and/or inoperable vehicle†addressed to her landlord. It said she could attend an “informational†hearing on April 4. She did not realize that it was her only opportunity to oppose the seizure, the lawsuit states.
Her car was towed in late May. It took her nearly a month to get it back, preventing her from attending her son’s high school graduation and costing her a job and more than $3,500. She struggled financially, and her landlord filed for eviction, though she was able to avoid it with a payment plan, the suit says.
Reise and two other Calverton Park residents, along with the class-action group, are seeking an unspecified amount of damages.
A hearing has not yet been set in the case.