Florissant to pay 85,000 drivers in almost $3 million settlement; lawsuit claims city schemed and jailed people over traffic tickets
By Melanie Johnson
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ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Missouri (KMOV) — Florissant became the sixth Missouri city to agree to pay people for what attorneys are calling a “modern debtors’ prison scheme, earning it millions of dollars over the past several years.”
According to Arch City Defenders, the city has settled a $2.89 million class action lawsuit that will be paid out to 85,000 people who were put in jail or paid fines due to traffic tickets.
“Part of the legal system set up in Florissant mirrors what we see in most municipalities here,” Nathaniel Carroll of Arch City Defenders said. “What we alleged is that police departments are used as a sort of debt collector to arrest people who can’t come to court or who can’t afford to pay.”
Anyone who received or paid a traffic violation from October 2011 to February 2023 is eligible for compensation.
Carroll told First Alert 4 people were targeted and put in jail for being poor, and the city generated millions of dollars as a result. He added that 20,000 people were put in a Florissant city jail cell as a result.
“We hope that this will result in fewer people ending up in jail,” Carroll said. “They moved people through their jail quickly but arrested a lot more people.”
The 52-page federal lawsuit states those jailed because of traffic tickets were kept in “overcrowded cells, they were denied toothbrushes, toothpaste and soap.”
Allison Nelson, 24, was put in jail twice.
“For me, it was a life-changing experience,” Nelson, one of the suit’s lead plaintiffs, said. “To hold money over someone’s head like that, especially with me being as young as I was that was crazy to me. So that’s why I was glad to be a part of this, to stick up for everybody.”
Florissant is also required to make changes to their system moving forward, which includes forgiving all unpaid fees, court costs and providing an alternative for people who can’t afford to pay fines or for an attorney.
“Florissant court and the police department have to provide them forms to prove poverty essentially, Carroll says. Prove their indigence and say I’m entitled to a lawyer and then Florissant has to appoint one or release them.”
Similar class action lawsuits have collected $16 million in damages against Jennings, Normandy, Edmundson, Maplewood and St. Ann.
Another lawsuit is still pending against Ferguson.
Postcards will be sent out to those impacted in Florissant.
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