Case: Eldridge v. City of St. John

On February 9, 2015, the plaintiffs filed this class action in the 21st Circuit Court of Missouri on behalf of all citizens of the City of St. John who were charged a warrant fee and/or failure to appear fee by the city between February 9, 2010 and September 10, 2018. The suit was brought against the city under a Missouri law forbidding any city in the state from charging a surcharge on various court documents. Represented by Arch City Defenders, Saint Louis University Legal Clinic, and private counsel, the plaintiffs sought damages and an injunction that would prevent this fees from being charged on behalf of the two subclasses, which encompassed 3,365 people during the class period. The case was assigned to Judge Colleen Dolan. This suit was one of a dozen brought in the wake of the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO, alleging that various cities around Missouri were attaching arbitrary fees to court procedures and documents that disproportionately affected poor citizens and citizens of color.

The City filed a motion to dismiss on May 22, 2015, which was denied at a hearing later that year in October 2015. The City's motion to reconsider was subsequently denied as well.

In June 2016, the case was reassigned to Judge Joseph S. Dueker. On March 6, 2017, the plaintiffs filed a request for class certification. Two months later, the defendants filed for summary judgment. The court scheduled arguments for the summary judgment motion on July 27, 2017, but the plaintiffs successfully asked the court to hear the motion for class certification first. But the defendants successfully continued the hearing on the motion for class cert for another six months.

Instead, the parties agreed in late August 2018 on a class action settlement. While the City of St. John denied all factual allegations, the court granted preliminary approval on September 9, 2018. As part of the settlement, the City of St. John agreed to forgive any outstanding Warrant Fees and Failure to Appear Fees and to not charge Warrant Fees and Failure to Appear Fees in the future, unless the underlying law changed. Both parties agreed that the estimated total value of this injunctive relief was approximately $272,375, from the time this suit was filed. Along with these changes in practice, the City also agreed to create a common fund of $217,900 to pay Class Member claims, an incentive award of $2500 to the Class Representative, and attorney fees of $95,000 to Class Counsel. By November, the court finally approved the settlement and the case is now closed.