Torres v. City Of New York
- John Cronan
- 1:20-cv-10210
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Torres v. City of New York, Judge Cronan ordered the parties to brief whether plaintiffs have standing to pursue their seizure claim.
The named plaintiffs, the proposed class, and the defendants were affected because the court required the parties to address whether the plaintiffs personally had standing to bring the unreasonable-seizure claim.
What happened
In Torres v. City of New York, the plaintiffs claimed that the defendants violated their constitutional right to be free from unreasonable seizures. They said the proposed class included people whose property had been or might be seized to collect allegedly duplicative parking tickets.
The plaintiffs clarified that they were not claiming the tickets themselves were unreasonable seizures. They described possible seizures including wage garnishment, liens on real property, and restrictions on bank accounts. The opinion states that both plaintiffs had paid their two tickets and had not had property seized for failing to pay them.
Judge John P. Cronan did not decide the motion to dismiss. He ordered each side to file a letter addressing whether the plaintiffs personally suffered the concrete harm required to have standing to bring the claim.
The detailed version
- Torres v. City Of New York · No. 1:20-cv-10210
- John Cronan
- Jan. 14, 2022
Background
The defendants moved to dismiss the plaintiffs’ First Amended Complaint. The plaintiffs alleged that the defendants deprived them of their constitutional right to be free from unreasonable seizures. They clarified that they were not arguing that the allegedly duplicative parking tickets themselves were unreasonable seizures.
Instead, the plaintiffs described a proposed class of people whose property had allegedly been seized, or was scheduled to be seized, because they failed to pay the allegedly duplicative tickets. The opinion identifies possible seizures as garnished wages, liens on real property, and restrictions on bank accounts.
Standing Question
The court noted that both named plaintiffs had paid their two parking tickets and had never had property seized for failing to pay them. The court therefore directed the parties to address whether the plaintiffs had standing—the legal requirement that a plaintiff personally show a concrete, particularized, actual or imminent injury that was caused by the defendants and could likely be remedied by a court.
Order
By January 21, 2022, each side had to file a letter of no more than five pages explaining how the plaintiffs were concretely harmed as alleged in the unreasonable-seizure claim. The opinion did not decide whether the plaintiffs had standing and did not state a disposition of the defendants’ motion to dismiss.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.