Drawing the line on searches, seizures

A federal judge in Bay City, Michigan, this month drew the line over a woman’s lawsuit that claimed that chalking tires for parking enforcement violates constitutional rights: It doesn’t, the Saginaw and Bay City News reported.

Alison P. Taylor filed her suit in April 2017, alleging that since 2014, the City of Saginaw and its parking official had issued her 14 parking tickets for exceeding the 2-hour limit on a parking spot in Old Town Saginaw and that they knew of her offenses by marking her tires with chalk — a violation of the Fourth Amendment’s clause banning unreasonable searches and seizures, according to the newspaper.

The suit had been dismissed before, then reversed on appeal, according to the newspaper.

Ms. Taylor sought class-action certification on behalf of several people who had paid several thousand tickets. Attorneys for Saginaw later filed a motion for summary judgment, which was awarded on June 9 when a federal judge rendered “moot” Taylor’s motion for class-action certification.