Latest news with #SandyMartinez
New York Post
2 days ago
- Automotive
- New York Post
Florida woman taking case over ‘outrageous' fines to state Supreme Court after wracking up nearly $200,000 in penalties
A fed-up Florida homeowner battling a whopping $165,000 in fines for nitpicky property violations — including a cracked driveway and a toppled fence — is dragging her case to the state's Supreme Court. Officials in the city of Latana, about 20 minutes south of Palm Beach, even fined Sandy Martinez for how she parked in her driveway. That alone set the single mom back a hefty $100,000 as daily penalties piled up. Martinez's parking fines started accumulating in May 2019. When all four family members' cars were home at her household, sometimes one would end up with two tires on the lawn. Advertisement 3 Martinez filed a lawsuit against Lantana, a town of roughly 12,000 residents, in 2021. Institute for Justice The penalty for that? A whopping $250 a day. After the first citation, Martinez tried to arrange a visit with a code-enforcement officer to show she had corrected the violation. But those efforts proved 'fruitless' and the daily fines accumulated, she said in a lawsuit she filed in 2021 against the city of Latana and local code enforcement. Advertisement 'Six-figure fines for parking on your own property are outrageous,' Institute for Justice Attorney Mike Greenberg, the lawyer representing Martinez, said in a news release about the case. 3 The town's main beef with Martinez is how her family parked their cars on their own driveway. Institute for Justice The city also fined Martinez for 'minor and purely cosmetic' cracks in her driveway, according to court papers. Martinez didn't have enough cash to fix the driveway right away. She was then hit with $75 fines every day for 215 days, for a total of $16,125 — 'far greater than the cost of an entirely new driveway,' she said in the litigation. Advertisement Then there was the fence. 3 Martinez and the Institute for Justice are taking the case to Florida's Supreme Court. Google A major storm downed it, but resolving the insurance claim to fix it took a while. During that time, Martinez was hit with $125 daily fines for 379 days, totaling $47,375. Martinez lost when she took her case to court in 2021, with the lower courts ruling against her. Advertisement Now she thinks it's time for Florida's highest court to weigh in on a constitutional basis — the right to be free from excessive fines and government abuse, protected by the Florida Constitution's Excessive Fines Clause. The case epitomizes 'taxation by citation,' something small towns, more prone to economic hardship, can sometimes rely on for part of their budgets, according to the Institute. The Institute says municipal code enforcement has become a 'cash cow' in Florida, with some towns generating millions of dollars annually. Local officials did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Yahoo
Florida Woman Fined $165,000 for Trivial Code Violations Takes Her Case to the Florida Supreme Court
Sandy Martinez, a homeowner in Lantana, Florida, has been battling over $165,000 in fines for three minor code violations for years. She's now asking the Florida Supreme Court to consider her case and put a stop to what she says are unconstitutionally excessive fines. Martinez's accumulated six-figure fine amounts to nearly four times her annual income, financially crippling the single mother over infractions that have since been corrected and never threatened health or safety. What atrocities warranted such devastating debt? Cracks in her driveway, a storm-blown fence, and cars parked on her own grass. First, Martinez faced daily $75 fines while saving up to replace her cracked driveway in 2013, ultimately owing $16,125 in total, "far greater than the cost of an entirely new driveway," as noted in the initial lawsuit. Then, the city began fining her $125 per day in 2015 for a fence knocked down after a storm. While Martinez waited for her insurance claim to pay for the repair, she accrued another $47,375 in fees—again, "several times the cost of the repair and substantially more than the cost of a completely new fence," according to her complaint. Finally, while living with her three children, mother, and sister in 2019, Martinez was cited for parking cars slightly beyond her driveway. Although she promptly fixed the issue and left a voicemail with code enforcement requesting a compliance check, no inspector came by. Martinez was being fined $250 per day. By the time the city recognized that the parking violation had been corrected, the total fine for the infraction had ballooned to $101,750. Unable to cover this debt—even if she sold her home—Martinez took her case to court in 2021, arguing that the city's fines are grossly disproportionate for her offenses and excessive under the Florida Constitution. So far, the lower courts have ruled against Martinez, reasoning that "substantial deference should be given to the legislature's determination of an appropriate fine." But she and her lawyers at the Institute for Justice believe it is time the Florida Supreme Court, which has not considered a case on the state constitution's excessive fines clause in over a century, revived the right to be free from excessive fines as a meaningful bulwark against government abuse. "Six-figure fines for parking on your own property are outrageous," said I.J. Attorney Mike Greenberg. "The Florida Constitution's Excessive Fines Clause was designed to stop precisely this sort of abuse—to prevent people from being fined into poverty for trivial violations." Martinez's circumstance is not an isolated incident. Florida homeowners across the state have endured massive, unjust fines without recourse, including a woman fined $103,559 for a dirty pool and overgrown grass, a family facing $250,000 in fines for invasive trees, and an elderly couple facing $366,000 in fines for duplex code violations. "Municipal code enforcement has become a major and recurring source of government abuse in the form of catastrophic fines," said I.J. Senior Attorney Ari Bargil. "The time has come for the Florida Supreme Court to once again interpret this important constitutional protection and finally put a stop to this injustice." The post Florida Woman Fined $165,000 for Trivial Code Violations Takes Her Case to the Florida Supreme Court appeared first on
