Press Release
Press Release
Press Contacts: Erik Cummins, Matt Hyams, Olivia Thomas
06.04.20
The California Court of Appeal ruled that the California Department of Motor Vehicles cannot suspend the licenses of drivers who fail to appear in court unless the DMV receives a notification of a willful failure to appear. The court’s finding that the DMV’s practice was unlawful means that likely thousands of motorists have had their licenses improperly suspended.
The plaintiffs in this statewide lawsuit—Hernandez v. California Department of Motor Vehicles—are represented by Pillsbury pro bono and a coalition of legal aid and civil rights groups, including Bay Area Legal Aid, Western Center on Law & Poverty, The ACLU of Northern California, the USC Gould School of Law Access to Justice Practicum and The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area.
This ruling marks another important step in a series of reforms to traffic court procedures that harmed low-income drivers without improving public safety. These reforms include the elimination in 2017 of driver’s license suspensions based on a driver’s failure to pay their traffic ticket. In making that change to state law, then-Governor Brown noted there “does not appear to be a strong connection between suspending someone’s driver’s license and collecting their fine or penalty. Often, the primary consequence of a driver’s license suspension is the inability to legally drive to work or take one’s children to school.”
As many Californians know, losing a driver’s license is a serious consequence that has long-term ripple effects in their lives. The Court of Appeal ruling affirms that state law does not allow traffic courts and the DMV to impose this severe consequence unless the traffic court also sends a notification of a willful failure to appear.
Poverty affects drivers’ ability to show up to court in many ways. Some traffic defendants lack transportation or can’t take time off work. Those who are homeless or unstably housed may not receive a mailed notice to appear in court. In some cities, defendants can be turned away for bringing a child to court even if they have no childcare.
A recent analysis of data from the San Francisco Superior Court shows no negative impacts on collection of debt after eliminating license suspensions for unpaid traffic citations. San Francisco then went further and stopped suspending driver’s licenses for missing a traffic court date, too, clearing more than 88,000 failure-to-appear notifications that had been sent to the DMV.
The case will now continue in the trial court to ensure the DMV implements policies consistent with this ruling. As a result of the Court of Appeal’s ruling, thousands of Californians may get their driver’s licenses back.