Case: 4:16-cv-01693 Doc. #: 1 Filed: 10/31/16 Page: 1 of 51 PageID #: 1

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI
EASTERN DIVISION

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THOMAS BAKER, SEAN BAILEY,

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NICOLE BOLDEN, ALLISON

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NELSON, MEREDITH WALKER,

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individually and on behalf of all others )

similarly situated,

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Plaintiffs,

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v.

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THE CITY OF FLORISSANT

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Defendant.

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___________________________________ )

No. 4:16-cv-1693 (Jury Trial Demanded)

CLASS ACTION COMPLAINT

Introduction

1. The Plaintiffs in this case are all impoverished Missourians who were jailed by

the City of Florissant because they were unable to make a monetary payment to the City arising

from traffic tickets or other minor municipal offenses. In each instance, the City kept a human

being in its jail solely because the person could not afford to pay for their release. Each was held

in jail indefinitely without either the legal representation or the inquiry into their ability to pay

guaranteed by the United States Constitution. Instead, they were threatened, abused, and left to

languish in confinement until their frightened family members produced enough cash to buy

their freedom, or until City jail officials decided, days or weeks later, to release them free of

charge—after it had become clear the City would not be able to extract any money from them.

2. The City’s modern debtors’ prison scheme has been increasingly profitable to the

City of Florissant, earning it millions of dollars over the past several years. It has devastated the

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poor in the City and surrounding area, trapping people for years in a cycle of increased fees, debt, extortion, and cruel jailings. Thousands of people like the Plaintiffs take from their disability checks or sacrifice money that is desperately needed by their families for food, diapers, clothing, rent, and utilities to pay ever-increasing court fines, fees, costs, and surcharges arising from minor offenses. They are told by City officials that if they do not pay, they will be thrown in jail. The cycle repeats itself, month after month, for years.
3. The treatment of Thomas Baker, Sean Bailey, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, and Meredith Walker reveals systemic illegality perpetrated by the City of Florissant against some of its poorest people. The City has engaged in the same conduct, as a matter of policy and practice, against many other impoverished human beings on a daily basis for years, unlawfully jailing people if they are too poor to pay. The result is an abusive system that flagrantly violates the basic constitutional and human rights of our community’s most vulnerable people.
4. Once locked in the Florissant jail, impoverished people who cannot afford to pay the City endure grotesque treatment. They are kept in overcrowded cells; they are denied toothbrushes, toothpaste, and soap; they are subjected to the constant stench of excrement and refuse in their congested cells; they are kept in the same clothes for days and weeks without access to laundry or shoes or underwear; they step on top of other inmates, whose bodies cover nearly the entire uncleaned cell floor, in order to access a single shared toilet that the City does not clean; illnesses and even infected wounds go untreated and uncovered; they endure days and weeks without being allowed to use the moldy shower; they are housed in short-sleeve jump suits; shoes and flip-flops are not permitted, so those who are not arrested in socks go barefoot on the dirty cement floor; they huddle in cells kept intentionally cold in order to quiet detainees, forced to retreat under a single thin blanket as they beg guards for warmer coverings; they are
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not given adequate hygiene products for menstruation; they are routinely denied vital medical care and prescription medication, even when their families beg to be allowed to bring medication to the jail; they are provided food so insufficient and lacking in nutrition that inmates lose significant amounts of weight; they suffer from dehydration out of fear of drinking foul smelling water dispensed from an apparatus covered in blood and mucus on top of the toilet, without sufficient pressure to drink from without pressing their lips to the contaminated apparatus; and they must listen to the screams of other inmates languishing from unattended medical issues as they sit in their cells without access to books, or legal materials. Perhaps worst of all, they do not know when they will be allowed to leave their disorienting and timeless cage, deprived of windows and perpetually flooded in florescent light.
5. These physical abuses and deprivations are accompanied by other pervasive humiliations. Jail guards primarily ignore, but also routinely taunt impoverished people when they are unable to pay for their release.
6. The City applies its scheme broadly, making jail or payment virtually unavoidable for the area’s poor. Florissant is the largest municipality in St. Louis County by population, and the eighth largest by area. Florissant has a population of 51,812 according to the 2010 U.S. Census. In 2015 alone, the City of Florissant issued 28,436 arrest warrants, equaling an average of 1.3 arrest warrants per household and almost 0.79 arrest warrants for every adult, mostly involving unpaid debt for municipal violations. Between 2011 and 2015, the City of Florissant filed 151,026 new cases. During that same period Florissant generated between 13.2 and 14.5 million dollars in revenue through its municipal court, thus averaging of 2.65 – 2.9 million dollars per year, accounting for over 12 percent of the City’s net revenue.
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7. City officials and employees—through their conduct, decisions, training and lack
of training, rules, policies, and practices—have built a municipal scheme designed to brutalize,
to punish, and to profit from low-income, predominantly minority drivers. Until 2015, the
prosecutor in the City of Florissant was the judge in the City of Ferguson, whose municipal court
practices and policies were highlighted in ArchCity Defenders’ 2014 report as well as the Department of Justice’s 2015 report.1 Additionally, the architecture of this illegal scheme has been in place for nearly 50 years.2
8. By and through their attorneys and on behalf of a class of similarly situated
individuals, the Plaintiffs seek in this civil action the vindication of their fundamental rights,
compensation for the violations that they suffered and for payments wrongly extracted,
injunctive relief assuring that their rights will not be violated again, and a declaration that the City’s conduct is unlawful. In the year 2016, these practices have no place in our society.3
Nature of the Action
9. It is and has been the policy and practice of the City of Florissant to jail people
who cannot afford to pay cash bonds and debts owed to the City resulting from traffic tickets and
1 See, Municipal Courts White Paper, ArchCity Defenders, Thomas Harvey et al (November 23, 2014) (available at http://www.archcitydefenders.org/archcity-defenders-municipal-courtswhitepaper-2/); Investigation of the Ferguson Police Department, United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division (March 4, 2015). 2 See, e.g., T.E. Lauer, Prolegomenon to Municipal Court Reform in Missouri, 31 Mo. L. Rev. 69, 93 (1966) (“Our municipal jails are, in almost every case, nothing but calabooses suited at best for temporary detention. The worst of them are comparable with medieval dungeons of the average class; they are the shame of our cities.”); id. at 88 (“[I]t seems that many citizens of the state are being confined needlessly in our city jails…..”); id. at 85 (“[I]t is disgraceful that we do not appoint counsel in our municipal courts to represent indigent persons accused of ordinance violations.”); id. at 90 (“It is clear that many municipalities have at times conceived of their municipal courts in terms of their revenue-raising ability….”). 3 The Plaintiffs make the allegations in this Complaint based on personal knowledge as to matters in which they have had personal involvement and on information and belief as to all other matters.
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other minor offenses, without conducting any inquiry into each individual’s ability to pay and without considering alternatives to imprisonment as required by federal and Missouri law.
10. It is and has been the policy and practice of the City to jail indigent people for failure to pay debts owed to the City, without informing them of their right to counsel and without otherwise providing adequate counsel.
11. It is and has been the policy and practice of the City to hold indigent inmates in the City jail indefinitely, unless and until the inmates’ families or friends make monetary payments sufficient to satisfy the City. It is and has been the policy and practice of the City to bargain with inmates and their families on an amount of money that the City will accept in exchange for the inmate’s release.
12. It is and has been the policy and practice of the City to arbitrarily and incrementally reduce the amount of money required for release throughout a person’s indefinite detention, eventually releasing the person for free if the City determines it is unlikely to profit from further detention.
13. It is and has been the policy and practice of the City to issue and enforce invalid arrest warrants; to threaten debtors that they will be jailed if they do not appear in court or at the jail with money in hand; to hold jail arrestees for days without appearing before a judge; and to set and subsequently modify monetary payments required to secure release arbitrarily and without any formal process.
14. It is and has been the policy and practice of the City to confine impoverished people who cannot afford to pay their fines and/or bond in grotesque, dangerous, inhumane conditions.
15. The Plaintiffs seek declaratory, injunctive, and compensatory relief.
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Jurisdiction and Venue

16. This is a civil rights action arising under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, 28 U.S.C. § 2201, et

seq., and the Fourth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States

Constitution. This Court therefore has jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331 & 1343.

17. Venue in this District is proper pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1391 because the

Defendant resides here, and a substantial portion of the events giving rise to Plaintiffs’ claims

occurred in this District.

Parties

18. Plaintiff Thomas Baker is a 41-year-old man. Plaintiff Sean Bailey is a 37-year-

old man. Plaintiff Nicole Bolden is a 34-year-old woman. Plaintiff Allison Nelson is a 24-year-

old woman. Plaintiff Meredith Walker is a 47-year-old woman. All of the named Plaintiffs are

residents of Saint Louis County, and the individual facts and circumstances giving rise to their

claims are described below.

19. Defendant City of Florissant is a municipal corporation organized under the laws

of the State of Missouri. The Defendant operates the Florissant City Jail and the Florissant

Municipal Court.

Factual Background

A.

The Plaintiffs’ Imprisonment

i. Thomas Baker

20. Thomas Baker is a 41-year-old African-American male, a former army reservist, a

father of three children—ages eleven years, five years, and three months—and a resident of the

City of Florissant.

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21. Mr. Baker estimates that he has been jailed approximately fifteen times in the City
of Florissant in the past five years, each time for failure to pay fines on minor municipal
ordinance violations and for failure-to-appear charges. Mr. Baker has been jailed for as long as three to four days following such arrests.4 Each time Mr. Baker has been jailed by the City of
Florissant, the city has assessed a “bond” between $600 and $1,200 to secure his release.
Notably, many of the bonds and arrests arise from alleged minor traffic violations punishable by
a fine of not more than $300 dollars and no term of imprisonment, even upon conviction.
22. Mr. Baker has never been brought before a judge while in custody.
23. Based on records produced by Florissant, Mr. Baker has been arrested, charged,
assessed bonds and fines, and imprisoned multiple times based on minor traffic offenses, on at
least the following occasions:
a. A warrant issued on September 12, 2012, for an alleged traffic violation for which Mr. Baker was charged with cutting through a parking lot to avoid an intersection, in violation of Florissant Municipal Code § 340.160, which carries a maximum penalty of a $300.00 fine, and for failure to appear at a court date related to it, assigning a $200.00 bond, plus $125.00 in fees and costs. On January 17, 2013, Mr. Baker was taken into custody by Florissant police at the police station in Creve Coeur, Missouri, on the September 12, 2012 warrant.
b. On September 5, 2013, Florissant issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Baker for operating a vehicle with a defective muffler in violation of Florissant Municipal Code § 380.140, which carries a maximum penalty of a $300.00 fine and no jail time, and for failure to appear at a related court date. The warrant carried a $700.00 bond, and noted four charges for failures to appear, and an outstanding debt to the city of $625.50.
c. Florissant police again arrested Mr. Baker on December 19, 2013, when he was stopped for allegedly speeding and driving without a seatbelt fastened.
4 Counsel for Plaintiffs requested, in writing, that the City of Florissant provide information regarding the length of stay for each period of detention, pursuant to Missouri Sunshine Law, Mo. Rev. Stat. 610.100. In almost every case the City of Florissant neglected to provide information regarding either the period of detention, or the release dates of Plaintiffs.
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Police arrested him on the September 5, 2013 warrant, and for warrants outstanding in Berkley, Missouri, and Ferguson, Missouri.
d. On April 16, 2014, Florissant issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Baker based on the alleged speeding violation from December 19, 2013 and another failure to appear charge. That warrant carried a new $200.00 bond. On May 11, 2014, Florissant police took Mr. Baker into custody on the warrant. The narrative description of the arrest states Mr. Baker was held only on the failure to appear charge, and for charges in the Berkley and Ferguson jurisdictions. A new court date issued for September 3, 2014.
e. On July 17, 2014, Florissant issued yet another arrest warrant for Mr. Baker for allegedly improper vehicle registration tags in violation of Florissant Municipal Code § 390.050, which carries a maximum penalty of a $300.00 fine and no jail time, and for two alleged failures to appear. The warrant carried a $400.00 bond. Florissant police arrested Mr. Baker on February 20, 2015 when he was pulled over for allegedly speeding and possessing improper vehicle registration. He was held for the speeding charge, the improper registration charge, and the four outstanding failure to appear warrants, issued by Florissant, St. Louis County, and the City of St. Louis.
24. Following the above-referenced arrests, Florissant has repeatedly given Mr. Baker
court dates which conflict with court dates in other jurisdictions and/or conflict with work shifts
he is assigned at his job, often without sufficient notice to schedule time off. This has made it
especially difficult for Mr. Baker to appear at his court dates in the Florissant Municipal Court,
with a missed appearance carrying the threat of an additional $100 fine, a new failure to appear
warrant, and a corresponding bond required to secure his release from confinement.
25. Mr. Baker has never been given credit for time served in the Florissant City Jail,
leaving him in a perpetual state of debt to the City of Florissant.
26. In 2015, Mr. Baker lost his job at Specified Credit Association while he was in
the City’s custody. Mr. Baker told the jail staff that he needed to call in to work, but was not
permitted to call. His car was repossessed because he had no income after losing his job and was
forced to pay what money he had toward his fines in the City of Florissant to avoid further
jailing. He was thus unable to make his car payments.
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27. During his stays in Florissant’s jail, Mr. Baker was denied access to medical care by Florissant jail officers who would not permit him to access his medication for depression and anxiety. The officers at the jail told him that they did not believe he needed his medication or he would have carried it with him. Mr. Baker had no need to carry his medication with him because he takes it once nightly before bed. Mr. Baker’s medications, Ativan, Desyrel, and Lexapro, cannot be stopped suddenly without harmful side effects.
28. Mr. Baker experienced the disorienting effects of perpetual florescent light, which lit the Florissant jail 24 hours per day. With no clocks inside of, or visible from, the jail cells and no access to natural light, Mr. Baker sometimes had little sense of what time it was or how long he had been detained in the jail.
29. The City of Florissant did not provide cups to its inmates. The only source of water was a spout connected to the toilet. The spout did not produce adequate water pressure to dispense water past the lip of the basin where the water is caught and drains. The toilets were not cleaned regularly. Thus, the only way to drink water was to press one’s lips against the dirty toilet basin. Fearing for his health if he drank from such an unsanitary water source, Mr. Baker did not drink water at any time that he was held by the City of Florissant and was denied clean water entirely.
30. Nearly every time that Mr. Baker was jailed by the City of Florissant, he witnessed overcrowded cells where three to four men or women were held in a two-person cell. On one occasion, Mr. Baker was housed in a two-man cell, with only two mats on two steel bunks. During that stay, four men were eventually stuffed into the small cell at the same time. No additional mats were provided for the additional men, and Mr. Baker was forced to sleep on the hard steel slab that he had claimed for himself, so that one of the men, sleeping on the ground
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next to the toilet, could use a sleeping mat. On occasions when Mr. Baker was the third or fourth man, he stood throughout the night while the others slept.
31. On one occasion, Mr. Baker was housed in a cell adjacent to a large man suffering from a Staph infection who had sores covering his body. The jail made no effort to cover the sores, and provided no treatment to the man. During that same stay, Mr. Baker observed another man enter another jail cell, who was visibly injured and bloody from some physical altercation. Mr. Baker was horrified to observe that the sleeping mats and blankets used by these inmates were not cleaned or disinfected but merely thrown into a pile where they contaminated other mats and blankets before they were used again.
32. At no time did Florissant perform an inquiry into Mr. Baker’s indigence or ability to pay.
ii. Sean Bailey 33. Mr. Bailey is a 37-seven-year-old single father of one. He has experienced extended periods of homelessness since October 2014. He currently lives in St. Louis City. 34. In February 2006, Mr. Bailey was pulled over, ticketed and arrested in Florissant for allegedly speeding and driving with a suspended driver’s license. 35. At his initial court date for the traffic violations, Mr. Bailey appeared in court, where the Florissant municipal judge announced that everyone was expected to make a payment against their traffic fines that evening, and that anyone who was unable to make a payment should prepare themselves to go to jail that evening. Mr. Bailey could not afford to make a payment, but secured his release by entering a guilty plea and agreeing to a payment plan even though he could not afford to keep up with it.
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36. When his next court date arrived, he did not have enough money to make the required payment. Fearing the Florissant Municipal Judge’s threat of imprisonment if he was unable to pay, Mr. Bailey did not return to court. As a result, a warrant issued automatically for his arrest.
37. Mr. Bailey estimates that he has been jailed five or six times by the City of Florissant based on warrants stemming from the original 2006 violations, sometimes for as long as 72 hours.
38. In November 2012, the City of Florissant took Mr. Bailey into custody from the St. Louis City Justice Center. He had spent two months in the “Workhouse” (the St. Louis City Medium Security Institution) as a pre-trial detainee because he had been unable to pay a bond issued by St. Louis City until it was reduced to $100, which he borrowed money to pay.
39. The temperature outside was twenty-eight degrees when Florissant took Mr. Bailey into custody. When he arrived at the Florissant jail, the air conditioner was running. Florissant jail officers gave Mr. Bailey an orange jumpsuit, a sheer blanket as thin as a golf shirt, and a dirty sleeping mat to take to his cell. The officers took his underpants and shoes. He and fellow inmates complained about the frigid temperatures, but the jailers told the inmates that the place would become a cesspool if they did not keep it cold. The jailers also stated that they wanted the jail to be uncomfortable so that inmates would not want be there and would be motivated to pay their bonds and fines.
40. Mr. Bailey was given a $500 bond, which he was not able to pay. Florissant officers released him the following morning on a recognizance bond.
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41. Documents produced by Florissant show that Mr. Bailey has been arrested on failure to appear charges stemming from that same 2006 arrest on at least the following occasions:
a. On April 16, 2013, Florissant police arrested Mr. Bailey on a failure to appear charge stemming from the same traffic arrest issued seven years earlier in 2006, and on an outstanding warrant from the City of Ferguson. The Florissant warrant carried a $500 bond. At the time he was unemployed. Florissant police held him at the city jail for thirty-six hours, then transferred him to the custody of the Ferguson police department with a Florissant court date 120 days later on August 15, 2013.
b. On August 15, 2013, a warrant issued for Mr. Bailey’s arrest for failure to appear. The warrant carried another $500 bond. On November 15, 2013, Florissant police executed the warrant and arrested Mr. Bailey on the failure to appear charge while he was in custody of the St. Louis City police department.
42. Bonds requested of Mr. Bailey stemming from his 2006 traffic arrest ran as high as $1,000, and fines reached nearly $1,500, accruing from “Failure to Appear” Charges and warrant fees. During some stays in Florissant jail, his jailers and their Sergeants would attempt to negotiate with him to pay various amounts of bonds, decreasing the amounts requested the longer he was held, until he was finally released either after payment or on his own recognizance if he was unable to pay any amount. Mr. Bailey never saw or appeared before a judge while he was in custody.
43. While Mr. Bailey was being held in the Florissant jail, drinking water came only from the top of the toilet, via a spout and reservoir that were generally covered with spit, blood, and urine, in their perch roughly one and a half feet from the toilet seat. Cups were never provided to detainees, and the water pressure was insufficient, requiring thirsty detainees suffering from the dry, air-conditioned air, to press their lips against the contaminated surface to
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drink. The water temperature varied unpredictably from hot to cold, and always tasted and smelled rank. Mr. Bailey felt that the water was not fit to give to a dog.
44. Mr. Bailey never saw Florissant jailers clean any cells. The only time he saw the jailers clean was when an inmate vomited in the hallway that guards regularly walked. Otherwise, the cells remained dirty.
45. Used, dirty sleeping mats and blankets were stacked in a laundry cart, but were not cleaned between uses. They were visibly stained, smelled of other people’s body odor, and were uniformly contaminated with sweat, puss, blood, vomit, and other bodily fluids of countless inmates, along with dirt and other contaminants.
46. Phone use was severely limited in Florissant jail. Mr. Bailey observed that only one call could be made at booking. If no one answered, the inmate was “out of luck.” Otherwise, calls could be made within the jail only one at a time, and he and other inmates often went a day or more without being permitted to make any telephone calls, including to lawyers and family. Generally, only one collect call was permitted per detainee per stay, and then only to individuals in possession of a credit card who were willing to accept the charges and able to receive calls.
47. Mr. Bailey observed that cells were overcrowded at the Florissant jail. Three-bed cells were often stuffed with a fourth detainee, who would then be forced to sleep on the floor.
48. Mr. Bailey and other inmates were routinely denied access to their medications. 49. All of Mr. Bailey’s experiences with the Ferguson Municipal Court and Jail stem from his arrest by Florissant police for municipal traffic violations in February 2006, now more than ten and a half years ago. 50. At no time did Florissant perform an inquiry into Mr. Bailey’s indigence or ability to pay.
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iii. Nicole Bolden 51. Nicole Bolden is a 34-year-old single mother of four children. 52. Ms. Bolden was arrested in the City of Florissant on or about March 19, 2014 after she was involved in a traffic accident. Police arrived on the scene of the accident at approximately 8:30 a.m. Ms. Bolden had just dropped off two of her children at school and was driving with her two other children, a two-and-a-half-year-old daughter and a fourteen-monthold son. Ms. Bolden was not at fault, but a responding officer conducted a warrant check and discovered that Ms. Bolden had outstanding arrest warrants in three jurisdictions: the cities of Dellwood and Hazelwood in St. Louis County, and Foristell in St. Charles County. All of Ms. Bolden’s warrants were for unpaid traffic tickets. 53. The arresting Florissant officer instructed Ms. Bolden to contact someone to come pick up her children. Fortunately, Ms. Bolden was near her mother’s house and able to reach her sister. Ms. Bolden was permitted to wait with her children while her sister took a taxi to the location of the accident. Once her sister arrived, the officer handcuffed Ms. Bolden and placed her in a police car in the presence of her children. The officer then transported her to the Florissant jail. 54. After arriving at the Florissant jail, Ms. Bolden requested that she be taken to the hospital so that she could be examined for possible injuries suffered during the accident. The arresting officer refused, and instead offered Ms. Bolden pills that she stated were ibuprofen. Ms. Bolden was not sure that the pills contained ibuprofen and refused to take them. This angered the officer, who placed a warning by Ms. Bolden’s name on the dry-erase inmate information board. The officer then told her that she would have to stay in jail until she could pay her bond.
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55. Ms. Bolden was assigned a $400 bond on traffic charges issued after Florissant officers responded to the accident. The charges were for driving with a suspended driver’s license and driving a vehicle with expired registration, both Florissant Municipal Code violations.
56. Ms. Bolden told the jail officers that she could not afford the bond and asked why she had a bond on charges for which she had not yet been assigned a court date. The guard did not answer her question except to state that Ms. Bolden would be released to Hazelwood sooner if she paid the bond.
57. Florissant jailers placed Ms. Bolden in a cell with four other women. The cell and floors were dirty. One of her cellmates stated that she saw a roach, but Ms. Bolden closed her eyes and tried to sleep. The sleeping mats and blankets provided by the jailers were also dirty.
58. The jail was cold, and without any natural light. Jail officers gave Ms. Bolden a short-sleeved jumpsuit to wear, and permitted her to keep her underwear. Ms. Bolden did not have socks, so she went barefoot throughout her stay.
59. Because the jumpsuits were one piece, the women had to strip to their knees to use the toilet. They warned each other when they were using the toilet to give one another privacy. Those without bras exposed their breasts as they used their hands to keep their jumpsuits off of the floor and away from the toilet water. These predominantly black women hoped that the predominantly white and male guards did not watch them on the video surveillance cameras while they relieved themselves, but had no way to avoid it.
60. One of Ms. Bolden’s cellmates was going through withdrawal from a substance dependence, for which she received no treatment. Another was menstruating. That woman asked for sanitary supplies, but was not provided with tampons, pads, toilette paper, a shower, soap to
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clean herself, or even a clean jumpsuit. Menstrual blood soaked through her jump suit and onto her sleeping mat and blanket. The only hygiene product available to her were tissues.
61. In addition to the hygiene products listed above, Ms. Bolden and her fellow detainees were also denied access to toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodorant, and combs. They ate microwaveable pot pies for lunch and dinner and doughnuts for breakfast. Water was only available from a spout connected to the dirty toilets they shared, with insufficient water pressure to drink without pressing their lips against the toilet.
62. At no point did any guards inquire about Ms. Bolden’s ability to pay her bond. She was never taken before a judge.
63. Ms. Bolden was held in Florissant for over 48 hours before she was taken into custody by the City of Hazelwood on March 21, 2014. From the City of Hazelwood she was taken into custody by St. Louis County on a warrant arising from a traffic ticket in the City of Dellwood. From St. Louis County, she was then transported to St. Charles County and held there on behalf of the City of Foristell, also for a warrant stemming from a traffic ticket. In total, she was jailed for 15 straight days solely due to her inability to pay fines for municipal court violations.
64. Florissant arrested and jailed Ms. Bolden again on April 27, 2015. This arrest stemmed from a failure to appear warrant. Ms. Bolden was again assessed two $200 bonds that she could pay to secure her release. The conditions in the jail were substantially the same as during her incarceration in March, 2014. At this time, however, Ms. Bolden was in her third trimester of pregnancy, and her mother had recently died. Ms. Bolden received a small sum of money from her mother’s life insurance policy. She used part of that money to pay her bond and go home.
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65. At no time did Florissant perform an inquiry into Ms. Bolden’s indigence or ability to pay.
iv. Allison Nelson 66. Allison Nelson is a 24-year-old woman living in Jennings, Missouri. 67. Ms. Nelson worked at a clothing store making near minimum wage from June 2012 to June 2014. She was recently hired by Sears, working on commission and making $4.63 per hour. 68. Ms. Nelson has been jailed on two occasions by Florissant because she could not pay fines and costs from traffic tickets. On each occasion, Ms. Nelson was held in jail—even though she was indigent—because she could not afford a sum of money demanded by the City. 69. On June 26, 2012, Florissant issued a warrant for Ms. Nelson’s arrest for failure to appear, stemming from a citation for allegedly driving a vehicle with expired registration in violation of Florissant Municipal Code § 390.050. A violation of Section 390.050 is a “minor traffic violation,” carrying a penalty of not more than a $300 fine and no jail time. The arrest warrant carried a $200 bond. 70. On January 22, 2013, Florissant police took Ms. Nelson into custody from the Ferguson police department. Florissant officers released Ms. Nelson after her mother, who lives on a fixed income, paid her bond. 71. In November 2013, Ms. Nelson was arrested in Chesterfield on a Florissant warrant for failure to make a monetary payment stemming from traffic tickets. She remained in Chesterfield for several hours awaiting pickup by Florissant. While she was in Chesterfield, her mother contacted the City of Florissant to see how much it would cost to bond her out. Florissant
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officials told her that it would cost $700 to bond Ms. Nelson out, but that the bond would be reduced once Ms. Nelson could be picked up by Florissant and booked.
72. Florissant police collected Ms. Nelson sometime after midnight and took her to the Florissant City Jail. At some point thereafter, Ms. Nelson’s bond was reduced to $300. Ms. Nelson’s mother still could not afford to bond her out. Ms. Nelson remained in jail for approximately two days until her mother was able to borrow the bond money on her behalf.
73. During this period in the Florissant jail, Ms. Nelson was housed with a sick, coughing older woman and a pregnant heroin addict who was experiencing severe symptoms of withdrawal, foaming at the mouth and urinating on herself and on the floor. The guards did nothing to clean up the woman or the mess, other than to push the urine around on the floor with a wet mop and release the woman from jail.
74. Even after Ms. Nelson’s mother was able to secure enough money to bond her out of the Florissant jail, Ms. Nelson was taken to the Jennings jail. There, jail staff told Ms. Nelson that she would not be released unless she paid approximately $1,000. She informed the jail staff that she could not afford to pay. After four days, the jail staff informed her that her release amount would be lowered to $100. Her parents came to the jail and paid $100, and she was released immediately in the early morning hours of Thanksgiving Day. Ms. Nelson was then transported to the Ferguson jail. Ferguson jail staff told her that she would be held indefinitely and miss Thanksgiving with her family unless she paid several hundred dollars. That same morning, after shift change, a new guard arrived and told her that, since it was Thanksgiving, he would agree to let her out if she could find someone to pay $100. Ms. Nelson’s family borrowed money and came as fast as they could to Ferguson in order to bring her home for Thanksgiving.
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75. While in the Florissant jail, Ms. Nelson was surrounded by other women who were there because they could not afford to pay the amount that Florissant required for their release.
76. Ms. Nelson endured materially the same deplorable jail conditions as the other Plaintiffs. She was kept in a cell and denied access to a toothbrush, toothpaste, and soap. The walls were moldy and covered in gum, paint chips, blood, mucus, and feces.
77. The jail did not provide clean mats, and also passed dirty blankets from previous inmates to new inmates without cleaning them.
78. If the inmates wanted water, she and the other women were forced to drink warm water from a mechanism above the toilet, which smelled like a sewer. The water pressure was insufficient so that the water did not break contact with the toilet. Ms. Nelson was unable to drink water under such conditions and went without water each time she was held in Florissant.
79. Ms. Nelson and other inmates ate only a honey bun or a doughnut in the morning and a microwaveable pot pie for lunch and dinner.
80. The threat of jail and cycle of increasing debts to the City of Florissant has been a constant fact of daily life for Ms. Nelson for several years, causing her fear of leaving her own home or even getting into a car as a passenger.
81. Ms. Nelson’s dream for years has been to join the Navy. After she passed the relevant tests as a teenager, a Navy recruiter told her that she could not join until she fixed all of her unpaid traffic warrants and tickets. She was never able to afford to do so.
82. In addition to being jailed by Florissant, Ms. Nelson has also suffered through arrests and jailings by the City of Chesterfield, the City of Ferguson, the City of Jennings, the City of Pagedale, the City of Country Club Hills, and the City of Bellefontaine Neighbors. In
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every instance, she has been jailed simply because she could not afford to pay fines, fees and/or bonds related to traffic tickets.
83. At no time did Florissant perform an inquiry into Ms. Nelson’s indigence or ability to pay.
v. Meredith Walker 84. Meredith Walker is a 47-year-old mother of two in Florissant, Missouri. 85. In the past five years, Ms. Walker has been jailed on at least ten occasions by municipalities in the St. Louis region for unpaid fines from traffic tickets and other minor municipal violations. She has paid over $15,000 in fees, court costs, and bond forfeitures, rendering her unable to provide for herself and her children. She has lost her driver’s license— and in turn her ability to seek and retain employment—because of her inability to pay the fines. 86. Ms. Walker’s traffic citations from the City of Florissant continue to plague her to this day, even though she has not been cited for a moving violation in over fifteen years. 87. In the past five years, Ms. Walker has been jailed in Florissant two or three times in addition to being jailed in St. Ann (on behalf of Normandy and Velda City), Bel Nor, Moline Acres, Ferguson, St. Louis County, St. Louis City, and Pine Lawn. At one point, Ms. Walker had outstanding warrants for her arrest in eleven different St. Louis area municipalities, all of which stemmed from unpaid traffic tickets and charges for “Failure to Pay” or “Failure to Appear” in connection with those alleged traffic infractions. 88. On almost all of these occasions, Ms. Walker experienced the so-called “munishuffle”: she was transferred from one municipal jail to another, paying bonds at each to secure her “release” to the next, or, if she could not afford to pay bond, remaining in jail until jail
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officials (or the municipality on whose behalf she was held) decided to release her into the hands of the next set of jailers.
89. Ms. Walker has appeared in Florissant’s municipal court on multiple occasions. Not once has a Florissant municipal court judge informed her of her right to an attorney, afforded her an attorney, or proposed alternatives to payment of a fine (such as community service).
90. Ms. Walker has tried to pay off her debts, but simply cannot afford to do so. It is well known in Ms. Walker’s community and among her friends and family that showing up at court without full payment will lead to incarceration. As a result, Ms. Walker has on many occasions feared that appearing in court without the money to pay a fine would immediately land her in jail.
91. Ms. Walker has been unsuccessfully trying to pay off approximately $3,000 of fines to the City of Florissant over the past four years.
92. Ms. Walker’s inability to extricate herself from this cycle of debt and jailing imposed by the City has virtually destroyed her life.
93. Ms. Walker does not have a valid driver’s license because she cannot afford to pay off all of her fines, costs, surcharges, and interest. She is forced to rely on family and friends to drive her to the store or to her son’s basketball games, placing strain on cherished relationships. Ms. Walker is unemployed and has been unable to find a new job in large part because of her traffic record and because she does not have a valid license. Many of the positions for which she is otherwise qualified require a valid driver’s license to transport clients.
94. Ms. Walker has been forced to change her appearance because she discovered that she was stopped by police officers more often when she had dreadlocks in her hair and appeared more masculine.
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95. Ms. Walker has spent many holidays in jail for unpaid traffic tickets, missing time with family and friends.
96. Ms. Walker is unable to travel around the St. Louis area, in part because bus service in North County (where she lives) is unreliable, and in part because she is now terrified of the police.
97. Ms. Walker has had a trying experience when she has attempted to address charges which have been unfairly brought against her. When she has contested these new charges both the Municipal Court Clerk and Judge have threatened to renege on prior agreements to reduce her fines if she continued to contest the fines added on.
98. When Ms. Walker has been unable to make payments to the City of Florissant, additional fines have been assessed against her, even when she has appeared in court.
99. Most recently, on March 26, 2016, Ms. Walker appeared in the Florissant Municipal Court and stated that she could not make a payment because she was unable to work and earn income while recovering from a torn ACL. The court only gave Ms. Walker a onemonth continuance even though she would be unable to work for ten weeks. When she appeared in court on April 21, 2016, still unable to make a payment, the court assessed additional fines against Ms. Walker.
100. On one occasion, Florissant jailed Ms. Walker overnight and would not permit her to call in to work, resulting in disciplinary action at her job.
101. At no time did Florissant perform an inquiry into Ms. Walker’s indigence or ability to pay.
B. The City’s Policies and Practices
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102. The City of Florissant is the largest municipality in St. Louis County and the twelfth largest city in Missouri, with 52,000 residents. Approximately 8% of the City’s residents live in poverty according to the United States Census Bureau.
103. The City of Florissant issued 28,436 arrest warrants in 2015, more than three times the average of 8,842 from 2011 to 2014. More than 20,000 of these warrants were for traffic citations—averaging more than one warrant issued for every 1.8 residents. Even with this increase in warrants, there was a 33% decrease from 2014 to 2015 in total new traffic cases filed in Florissant Municipal Court. New traffic cases remained relatively constant between 2011 and 2014, with an average of 28,799 new traffic cases filed each year.
104. The vast numbers of warrants and fines issued by the City also make up a substantial portion of the City’s revenue. In 2015, the City collected more than $2,300,000 in court fines and fees and forfeited bond payments, down from more than $2,500,000 in 2014, $2,670,000 in 2013, $2,620,000 in 2012, and $3,100,000 in 2011. The cost to operate the City’s Municipal Court, by contrast, was budgeted at roughly $700,000 per year between 2011 and 2015. The City thus netted as much as $2,200,000 in 2011 and still netted $1,600,000 even in its least profitable year. The City’s only sources of greater revenue are sales and utility taxes.
105. It is the policy and practice of the City of Florissant to use its municipal court and its jail as significant sources of revenue generation for the City. The City of Florissant projects the amount of revenue to be raised through ticketing and fines during its budgeting process.5 As a result, the entire municipal government apparatus, including municipal court officials and City
5 The City uses the money collected through these procedures to help fund the City jail, to pay Municipal Court judicial salaries, to pay City Attorney’s Office salaries, and to fund other portions of the City budget.
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jailors, has a significant and corrupting incentive to operate the court and the jail in a way that maximizes revenues, not justice.
106. Over the past five years, the City of Florissant has, according to its public records, earned more than $12,000,000 from its municipal court fines, fees, costs, and surcharges. A proportional per capita budgetary revenue stream from municipal court fees for the entire Saint Louis metropolitan region would be more than $644,000,000
107. The impact of the City’s ticketing and warrant-issuance practices falls disproportionately on black residents and black motorists. Black drivers have been significantly more likely to be stopped, searched, and arrested than white drivers, even though whites are more likely to possess illegal contraband when searched. Although whites make up more than 71% of Florissant’s population, they constituted only just over a quarter of vehicle stops in 2014. Conversely, while black residents are only 26.8% of the City’s population, 71.2% of vehicle stops conducted in Florissant in 2014 involved a black motorist. The same financial pressures and corrupting influences thus infect City police decisions, including decisions about conducting traffic stops, issuing tickets, and making arrests.
108. The treatment Plaintiffs received was caused by, and is representative of, the City’s policies and practices concerning collecting unpaid fines, fees, costs, and surcharges arising from traffic tickets and other minor offenses over at least the past five years.
109. Decisions regarding the operation of the court and the jail—including but not limited to the assessment of fines, fees, costs,6 and surcharges; the availability and conditions of payment plans; the setting and re-setting of amounts required for release from jail; the issuance and withdrawal of arrest warrants; and the non-appointment of an attorney—are significantly
6 Missouri Law requires costs to be waived for the indigent, see Mo. Code § 479.260, but the City ignores that law.
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influenced by and based on maximizing revenues collected rather than on legitimate penological
considerations.
i. Arbitrary and Indefinite Detention of the Indigent
110. As each of the Plaintiffs’ cases illustrates, the City of Florissant has adopted a
policy and practice of arresting people when they owe unpaid debt from old and even new traffic
tickets and other minor offenses. When those arrestees are booked at the Florissant jail, they are
told by jail staff that they can be released immediately, but only if they pay cash to the City of Florissant. If they cannot pay the City, they are told that they will be held indefinitely.7
111. The amount of cash that Florissant requires for release is based on the debt owed
by the person from their old traffic or other misdemeanor cases.
112. It is and has been the policy and practice of the City of Florissant to hold people
in jail unless and until they or their families pay the City—regardless of indigence.
113. It is and has been the policy and practice of the City of Florissant to gradually and
incrementally reduce the amount of money required to buy a person’s release. The reason for this
policy is to generate as much money as possible. Some people’s families are able to borrow and
7 The City’s policies and practices—and the terminology that it uses—are at times difficult to navigate. For example, many of the monetary debts that the City claims are owed are actually additional fees and surcharges automatically assessed for the issuance of warrants or the recalling of warrants. These are “assessed” and declared owed entirely independent of any conviction and without any finding of guilt. Moreover, many of the release amounts (which City employees call “bond” amounts) are purportedly classified as pretrial money bail for new charges, typically the charge of “failure to appear.” Each of the named Plaintiffs was, according to the City, kept in its jail pursuant to cash “bond” relating to new “failure to appear” charges. In any event, the City applies materially the same money-based post-arrest detention policies to arrestees charged with new offenses as it does to arrestees who owe old debts. All are kept in jail indefinitely unless and until they make arbitrary monetary payments or unless and until City employees negotiate lower release amounts or ultimately decide to release them for free. None are held pending any court appearance. Thus, those arrested for new ordinance violations and those arrested for non-payment (which is typically accomplished through a new charge) are all treated the same and are all subjected to the same post-arrest money-based policies and practices.
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raise significant money up front to buy the release of their loved one within hours or days. The longer a person stays in the Florissant jail, however, the more it costs the City and the clearer it is that the person’s family cannot raise enough money. Thus, the City’s policy and practice is to lower the amount periodically on the assumption that the person can raise at least some money to buy his or her release.
114. As a matter of policy and practice, City jail staff and supervisors, including Sergeants of the police department, attempt to negotiate or bargain with the person or the person’s family concerning the amount of money that they are able to pay. This bargaining takes place both inside the jail with the inmate and over the phone or in person at the clerk’s office with the inmate’s family.
115. In many cases, after significant jail time, the City will release the person for free if it is clear that the City cannot extract any money from the person during that jail stay.
116. Upon information and belief, inmates find out about these incremental reductions by asking jail staff every morning what their new required payment is. Some days they are told that it has remained the same, and other days they are told that it has been reduced. Inmates are then usually given an opportunity to use the telephone to call family or friends who might be able to come up with enough money to pay for their release. The reductions do not happen as the result of any formal adversarial process.
117. The City’s incremental reductions of the amount required for release are designed also to punish debtors for non-payment on the theory that time in jail will encourage impoverished people to pay in the future if they know that they will be jailed for non-payment. These threats result in people and families borrowing money at high rates of interest to release a loved one or taking money otherwise needed for food, diapers, rent, clothing, and utilities and
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giving it to the City of Florissant instead. The result has been widespread hardship for the impoverished people of Florissant and the surrounding area, whose local governments have decided to make families choose between feeding hungry children and letting a loved one languish in jail.
118. These policies and practices have created a culture of fear among the City’s poorest residents, who are afraid even to go to the City police department or the City court to explain their indigence because they know they will be jailed by the City without any meaningful process. The same fear motivates many very poor City residents to sacrifice food, clothing, utilities, sanitary home repairs, and other basic necessities of life in order to scrape together money to pay traffic debts to the City.
119. From the perspective of City officials, these coercive threats are successful. They are successful because the threats and jailings have been crucial to pressuring family members— who have no legal obligation to pay any money to the City on behalf of indigent relatives or friends who owe money from old civil judgments—to come up with money in order to get their loved ones released from jail. They have also been crucial in getting low-income people to forgo basic necessities of life in order to pay the City in an attempt to avoid jail. It is only through this illegal confinement and threat of confinement that the City is able to collect that additional money that any normal creditor could not.
120. The basic scheme of the City of Florissant is to extort—through the threat of physical confinement—money from debtors who are otherwise unable to afford to pay both the basic necessities of life and their debts to the City. The City’s policies and practices have resulted in the community knowing, and fearing, that impoverished debtors will be arrested and held by the City for days or weeks unless and until they pay enough cash to the City.
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121. When providing information to inmates, the City refers to the amount of cash
required for release as the inmate’s “bond,” even though the amount is set by reference to the
amount of outstanding debt. Moreover, the money is applied automatically toward old unpaid
debts and is set, reset, and modified without any judicial process and without making any of the
lawful considerations required by Missouri’s statutory bail system and the United States
Constitution.8 Nor is the “bond” amount set in relation to any particular pending charge for
which legal proceedings are imminent. Indeed, inmates are held indefinitely without being
brought before a judge. If a person subsequently misses any future payment after being released,
the City, without any legal process, confiscates previous amounts paid by the person to secure
their release from jail, and resets the person’s debts. The City also adds a “warrant” fee9 for the
person’s missed payment without any legal process.10 Trapped by this cycle of recurring debt,
arrest, payment, and new debt many impoverished people pay thousands of dollars to the City
8 In the case of new warrantless arrests who owe no debts from prior cases, the City uses these release amounts to ensure collection of future not-yet-imposed money judgments from people who will likely be too poor to pay those judgments after conviction absent the threat of jail. Because it releases people for free after indeterminate periods of time but routinely prior to any court date, the City uses these “cash bond” amounts to ensure that it collects money for ultimate violations in advance rather than for any legitimate pretrial government objective. The City uses a cash “bail schedule” based on the charge of arrest as determined by City police as the starting point for police and jail officials to negotiate and lower with arrestees and their families the longer a person remains in jail after an arrest. 9 From 2009 through 2016, Defendant City of Florissant raised more than $1,800,000 by charging illegal “warrant cancellation” fees, requiring individuals to pay money not only to have their warrants recalled, but to be given a court date to appear in court and the chance to contest the underlying charges, as well. In addition to violating state law due to profit generating purpose, “warrant cancellation” fees violate due process, insofar as they require that a person pay an illegal fee in order to obtain access to the courts and hopefully to justice. They also violate equal protection insofar as such fees deny access to the courts on the basis of an individual’s inability to pay a fee. 10 For example, the person is not arraigned on any new charge for failure to appear prior to the “warrant cancellation” fee being assessed against them, and the person is not given a meaningful opportunity to present a defense to the elements of a failure to appear charge. The fee is simply added to the person’s debts. See Watkins v. City of Florissant, 16SL-CC00165 (St. Louis Co. Cir. Ct., Jan. 2016).
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over a period of many years, arising solely from a small number of relatively inexpensive initial traffic citations.
122. At any time, a person indebted to the city can end this cycle by paying the balance of her debt. It is and has been the policy and practice of the City of Florissant to allow any inmate at any time to pay the full amount of the debt owed and to be released immediately, terminating all existing previously assessed “cases” for which debt is still being collected.11
123. Similarly, at any time, either before or after an arrest, the policy and practice of the City of Florissant is to allow all arrest warrants to be recalled if they pay the entire amount of their outstanding balance with the City. It is also the policy and practice of the City to allow individual warrants to be removed without eliminating the entire debt, if the person also pays an amount arbitrarily set by City employees—usually several hundred dollars in cash based on the arrestee’s total unpaid balance.
124. The City employs a materially different set of procedures for those arrestees and debtors who retain private defense counsel. It is and has been the policy and practice of the City of Florissant to immediately remove existing arrest warrants and schedule new court dates when an attorney makes an appearance on behalf of a debtor or arrestee. However, if the individual is in custody, they must pay their bond to secure their release. Furthermore, if the individual has already pled guilty, and has had a warrant issued for failure to make a payment or appear in court, Florissant’s court clerks will often decline to permit an attorney to appear on the case and will not recall the warrant. It is the City’s policy and practice, however, to tell unrepresented debtors and arrestees that there is no way to clear their warrants unless they pay their “bond” to the City.
11 The “cases” for which the City is collecting debts have, for the most part, been closed for years, with civil judgments entered requiring the payment of fines and costs.
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125. It is and has been the policy and practice of the City of Florissant to keep some debtors in jail for indefinite periods without bringing them to court. The City has often kept inmates unable to make monetary payments in its jail without bringing them to court for days or weeks.12
ii. Debt-Collection Proceedings in the Florissant Municipal Court 126. It is and has been the policy and practice of the City of Florissant to conduct court sessions approximately six to seven times per month, for a variety of different dockets, including traffic docket, trial docket, housing docket, and attorney docket. Traffic specific dockets are usually held twice per month in the evening. Inmates brought to the court from the jail (of which there are few) are told that they will remain in jail unless they make monetary payments, even though it is the policy and practice of the City of Florissant not to provide them with an attorney and not to conduct any meaningful inquiry into their ability to pay, as required by the United States Constitution.13 127. Inmates are not advised of their relevant rights under federal or Missouri law, including applicable constitutional rights and state-law defenses and procedures. 128. Those appearing in court from jail are told that they must pay a certain amount of money or be kept in jail. They are, as a matter of policy and practice, told to make phone calls to family members in an attempt to get family members to pay their debts. 129. Non-incarcerated people are provided future dates to appear before the court. People are told, as a matter of City policy and practice, that failure to bring money to pay old debts will result in their arrest. 12 The City also follows a policy and practice of holding inmates in jail for days on behalf of other municipalities until the other municipality decides whether it will pick them up or not. 13 Because no inquiry is made into ability to pay, no inquiry is likewise made into the reasons for non-payment or alternatives to incarceration.
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130. As with confined inmates, a non-incarcerated debtor can end this debt collection process at any time by paying what she owes to the City in full. If that debtor is too poor to end this process, her closed “case” can go on for years and years in perpetuity after a civil judgment assessing financial penalties, with the City imposing additional fees and surcharges for missed debt-collection payments.14
131. The City prosecutor and City judge do not conduct indigence or ability-to-pay hearings. Prior to this year, regular observers of the City court had never once seen an indigence or ability to pay hearing conducted in the preceding five years.
132. The City prosecutor and City judge conduct no meaningful individualized process prior to ordering people to make particular monthly payments. Payment plans are set entirely without any adversarial process and without any individualized inquiry into the circumstances of a debtor. City jail officials ordering payments upon release from jail similarly follow no formal adversarial process in determining the amount of required payments. Those jailed for unpaid debts from tickets and other offenses (e.g., for not making their ordered payments) are not appointed an attorney, even though the City is represented by an experienced prosecutor.
133. In addition to the difficulty of mounting constitutional and statutory arguments and defenses in the face of an experienced prosecutor, navigating the origin of the numerous fees and surcharges imposed by Florissant and determining whether they are even validly assessed by the City in any particular case is a complicated inquiry. This inquiry involves the application of
14 It is the policy and practice of the City of Florissant to inform debtors that, if they or their families pay their debt in full, they can be released from jail and have all proceedings terminated at any moment. At any time, the entire process can be ended by a monetary payment. If a person can afford to pay, the person will never have another court date set by the City of Florissant. The termination of these cases is determined solely by the wealth of individuals.
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state law and procedure; local law and practice; multiple court files, accounting documents, and receipts over a period of years; and constitutional law to a person’s lengthy case history.
134. The vast majority of those jailed for violating a payment plan condition imposed by the City court were not represented by an attorney at any time on the underlying traffic or minor charge, because of the City’s policy and practice not to appoint counsel for the indigent.
135. The Plaintiffs and many other witnesses have observed numerous impoverished people jailed by the City for non-payment of debts without a meaningful inquiry into their ability to pay, without the representation of counsel, and without the City taking any consideration of whether imprisonment serves legitimate state interests in light of available alternatives, as required by federal and Missouri law. The Plaintiffs and other witnesses have observed numerous people and families who have been told that either they themselves or members of their family would be held in jail by the City unless and until one of them could produce large sums of money to pay off debts supposedly owed for traffic citations and subsequent surcharges.
iii. The Deplorable Conditions in the Florissant Jail 136. As described above, inmates jailed for non-payment have, as a matter of City policy and practice, been kept in overcrowded cells with inmates strewn about the floors. The City has deliberately and callously ignored basic principles of hygiene, sanitation, medical and mental health care, and inmate safety. 137. Inmates are denied toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodorant, and soap; they are kept in cells that reek of visible excrement and surrounded by walls smeared with blood and mucus; they are forced out of their own clothes and ordered to wear the same stained and dirty orange jumpsuits for days and weeks without access to clean laundry or clean undergarments; women are deprived of their bras, and forced to expose their breasts in order to use the toilet; all inmates
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are deprived of socks and shoes; they huddle in cold temperatures with a single thin blanket even as they beg guards for warm blankets; their illnesses and infections, and open wounds and sores go uncovered and untreated, and disease, infection, puss, and blood cover mats and blankets which pass from inmate to inmate without being cleaned; they sleep next to an open uncleansed toilet; they endure days without being allowed to shower; women are not given hygiene products for menstruation; they are routinely denied vital medical care and prescription medication; inmates with serious mental health issues are not provided mental health treatment or prescription medication that they need; they are provided food so insufficient and uniform that inmates lose significant amounts of weight and lack essential nutrients; they suffer from dehydration because the City does not provide cups to its inmates and the only source of water is a spout connected to the toilet. The spout does not produce adequate water pressure to dispense water past the lip of the basin where the water is caught and drains. The toilets are not cleaned with any apparent regularity. Thus, the only way for one to drink water is to press one’s lips against the dirty toilet basin, which many inmates are unwilling to do; they are deprived of books, legal materials, exercise, or internet; and they do not know when they will be allowed to leave their disorienting and timeless cage, deprived of windows and perpetually flooded in florescent light.
138. These abuses and deprivations are accompanied by other pervasive humiliations. Jail guards primarily ignore inmates but also taunt impoverished people when they are unable to pay for their release, telling them that all they have to do in order to be released is to pay money that they do not have.
139. The totality of these conditions described by the Plaintiffs and by numerous witnesses amounts to unlawful punishment. The conditions at the Florissant jail are deliberately
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designed to be as degrading and humiliating as possible in order to punish debtors for not paying their debts and to discourage them from missing payments to the City. The purpose and effect is to coerce debtors to borrow money or use money otherwise needed for the basic necessities of life in order to pay the City to avoid being subjected to the dangerous and humiliating Florissant jail.
140. The jail conditions created and perpetuated by the City of Florissant would be unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment if individuals convicted and sentenced to prison were treated with such callous disregard for basic health and safety. The City forces these conditions on pretrial detainees and post-judgment debtors jailed long after monetary judgments and solely because of their inability to make monetary payments and not pursuant to any criminal sentence.
141. It is the City’s policy and practice to use its jail and the deplorable conditions there in discrete spurts of indefinite confinement to extract money from arrestees through arbitrary and incrementally decreasing “bond” debts until they finally prove unable to pay.
iv. The City’s Flawed and Unlawful Warrant Process 142. It is and has been the policy and practice of the City to issue invalid arrest warrants and to apply arbitrary and illegal policies for the issuance and recalling of warrants. 143. Among the policies and practices of the City of Florissant are the following:
a. The City informs people that they can remove outstanding warrants simply by paying a sum of money but does not offer a way for the indigent to remove arrest warrants.15
b. The City allows for the removal of existing warrants without paying the City only if the person retains a lawyer.
15 See Watkins v. City of Florissant, 16SL-CC00165 (St. Louis Co. Cir. Ct., Jan. 2016). 34

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c. The City issues arrest warrants for the failure to make a payment without probable cause to believe that the person had the ability to make a payment.
d. When impoverished people appear in the courtroom and City payment window, they are told by the judge, courtroom officers, City prosecutor, City clerk, and City judge without a finding of ability to pay that they will be jailed if they do not bring specific sums of money to the City on designated dates in the future.
e. The City issues arrest warrants for “failure to appear” when people do not pay by certain designated dates even though the person did not fail to appear at any court appearance.
f. The City issues arrest warrants for “failure to appear” at court dates for which the person had not been given adequate notice. For example, for a hearing to which the person had not been validly summoned or to a hearing whose date the City has moved without ensuring actual notice has been given to the person. The City does not adequately ensure actual notice of changes in court dates and routinely issues arrest warrants even when it has no probable cause to believe that the elements of a “failure to appear” charge have been met, such as that the person did not intentionally fail to appear because the person was in the custody of another jurisdiction or was in the hospital.
g. After arrest pursuant to a warrant, the City either does not bring the person to court at all or delays presentment unnecessarily and for no legitimate purpose for days or weeks.
h. In cases of warrantless arrest, the City routinely fails as a matter of policy and practice to make a neutral finding of probable cause and thus holds people in jail for longer than 48 hours without a neutral finding of probable cause based on sworn evidence. Moreover, because the City’s policy is to negotiate cash bond and then to release people for free eventually, it does not detain new arrestees for the purpose of any kind of court proceeding. Thus, the City’s initial detention period based on warrantless arrest is unrelated to any legitimate government interest and entirely unconnected from any need to prepare for any probable cause or preliminary hearing because the City does not hold probable cause hearings or preliminary hearings or make any formal probable cause findings.
C. The Cycle of Debt and Jailing in Other Municipalities
144. Like the other impoverished people stuck in this broken system, the Plaintiffs
have been overwhelmed by the combination of multiplying fines, fees, costs, and surcharges
from many different municipalities at once, as well as the cycle of repeated jailings and
subsequent transfers to several different jails during each jailing, lost jobs, increased fees, and
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the inability to renew driver’s licenses because of unpaid tickets. After scraping together cash from family and friends and borrowing money to pay Florissant, the Plaintiffs and other Class members would simply be jailed by another city.
145. The hopelessness of trying to navigate this system for years without financial resources and without the assistance of a lawyer who understands the process—never knowing when they left the house if they would be arrested and always confronted with the powerlessness of being kept in jail indefinitely because of their poverty—fundamentally altered the lives of the Plaintiffs and continues to tear at the core of the community.
146. The fear of having basic rights violated with no recourse is a daily fact of life for the Plaintiffs and thousands of others. It is this despair that the Saint Louis County debtors’ prison network cultivates that leads many impoverished people to avoid the system and some, sadly, to take their own lives while languishing in a jail cell.16
Class Action Allegations 147. The Plaintiffs bring this action on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated, for the purpose of asserting the claims alleged in this Complaint on a common basis. 148. A class action is a superior means, and the only practicable means, by which Plaintiffs and unknown Class members can challenge the City’s unlawful debt-collection scheme. 149. This action is brought and may properly be maintained as a Class action pursuant to Rule 23(a)(1)–(4), Rule 23(b)(2), and Rule 23(b)(3) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. 150. This action satisfies the numerosity, commonality, typicality, and adequacy requirements of those provisions.
16 At least four suicides and suicide attempts by people held because they were too poor to pay for their release have occurred in local municipal jails just in the past year.
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151. Plaintiffs propose three Classes: two Declaratory and Injunctive Classes, and two
Damages Classes.
a. The first Declaratory and Injunctive Class is defined as: All persons who currently owe or who will incur debts to the City of Florissant from fines, fees, costs, or surcharges arising from cases prosecuted by the City of Florissant.
b. The second Declaratory and Injunctive Class is all persons who, either because they owe debts to the City of Florissant or for any other reason, will become in the custody of the City of Florissant and thereby subjected to its post-arrest wealth-based detention procedures.
c. The first Damages Class is defined as: All persons, whether or not such person has ever been jailed, who have paid any amount to the City of Florissant to satisfy fines, fees, costs, or surcharges arising from cases in the City court and who have not been provided an opportunity to prove indigence (the “Paid Fines Class”).
d. The second Damages Class is defined as: All persons who have been jailed by the City of Florissant for non-payment fines, fees, costs, or surcharges arising from cases in the City court and who (1) were not provided an opportunity to prove indigence prior to jailing; (2) were not considered a danger to the community by notation in the City’s file; and (3) were not designated as a flight risk at the time of jailing (the “Jailed Class”).
A. Numerosity: Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(a)(1)
152. Over the past five years, thousands of people have owed and currently owe the
City of Florissant money from old traffic tickets and other minor municipal offenses. Pursuant to
City policy and practice, thousands of people who have indicated that they are too poor to pay
their debts in full have been placed on payment plans by the City. All of these people are
currently being threatened with arrest and jailing pursuant to the City’s illegal post-arrest money-
based detention policies if they do not make the payments in the amount or frequency
purportedly required by the City. Pursuant to City policy, thousands of additional arrestees have
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been and will be charged by the City with new ordinance violations and kept in jail pursuant to the City’s illegal post-arrest money-based detention policies.
153. The City has kept hundreds of people in its jail for non-payment of cash “bond” in each of the past five years. The City retains, and is required by law to retain, records of these instances.
154. The City followed and follows materially the same post-arrest procedures and debt-collection policies, practices, and procedures to accomplish the jailing of the Class members. For example, pursuant to the City’s policy and practice, those kept in jail by the City when they could not pay did not receive meaningful inquiries into their ability to pay as required by federal and Missouri law. Pursuant to City policy, no determinations of indigence or evaluations of alternatives to incarceration were made, and the City provided none of the relevant state and federal protections for debtors. Nor were those jailed by the City provided adequate counsel to represent them.
155. Those who still owe the City debt payments or who will incur such debts or be arrested for new charges will be subjected to the same ongoing policies and practices absent the relief sought in this Complaint.
B. Commonality: Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(a)(2). 156. The relief sought is common to all members of the Class, and common questions of law and fact exist as to all members of the Class. The Plaintiffs seek relief concerning whether the City’s policies, practices, and procedures violated their rights and relief mandating the City to change its policies, practices, and procedures so that the Plaintiffs’ rights will be protected in the future. 157. Among the most important, but not the only, common questions of fact are:
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• Whether the City has a policy and practice of placing and keeping people in its jail who owe money on old judgments unless and until they can pay a monetary sum;
• Whether the City has a policy and practice of keeping people in its jail after arrest unless and until they can pay a monetary sum;
• Whether the City has a policy and practice of incrementally lowering the amount required to buy a person’s release from custody as the person sits in jail;
• Whether the initial amount of money required by the City for release is predetermined and set by a fixed bail schedule without reference to a person’s ability to pay;
• Whether the City has a policy and practice of failing to conduct meaningful inquiries into the ability of a person to pay before keeping the person in jail for non-payment;
• Whether the City provides notice to debtors that their ability to pay will be a relevant issue at the proceedings at which they are jailed or kept in jail and whether the City makes findings concerning ability to pay and alternatives to incarceration;
• Whether the City provides adequate legal representation to those jailed for non-payment in proceedings that result in their incarceration;
• Whether the City jail conditions are and have been unsanitary, unsafe, and inhumane in the ways described in this Complaint;
• Whether City employees and agents have a policy and practice of threatening debtors and families of debtors with incarceration for unpaid debts without informing them of their rights;
• Whether the City has a policy of issuing and executing warrants for the arrest of debtors despite lacking probable cause that they have committed any offense and without any notice or opportunity to be heard concerning their ability to pay or the validity of the debt;
• Whether the City has a policy and practice of failing to make neutral probable cause findings based on sworn evidence for warrantless arrests.
27. Among the most important common question of law are:
• Whether keeping people in jail solely because they cannot afford to make a monetary payment is lawful;
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• Whether people are entitled to a meaningful inquiry into their ability to pay before being jailed by the City for non-payment;
• Whether people who cannot afford to pay the City are entitled to the consideration of alternatives to incarceration before being jailed for non-payment;
• Whether it is lawful for the City to keep arrestees in jail after arrest pursuant to a predetermined fixed cash bail schedule that does not take into account ability to pay before releasing arrestees after indeterminate periods of detention;
• Whether people are entitled to the appointment of and representation by a lawyer in proceedings initiated and litigated by City prosecutors that result in their incarceration if they cannot afford an attorney;
• Whether the City can employ jail, threats of jail, onerous generic “payment dockets,” and other harsh debt-collection measures (such as ordering payment of significant portions of a person’s public assistance benefits) against debtors who cannot afford immediately to pay the monetary judgment to the City in full;
• Whether the City can arrest people based solely on their non-payment without any probable cause that they have committed any willful conduct or other offense and without notice and an opportunity to be heard concerning legal predicates for a valid detention, such as their ability to pay and the validity of the debt;
• Whether and how long the City can lawfully hold people in custody on warrantless arrests without any neutral finding of probable cause and without any intention of bringing the arrested person before a neutral judicial officer for such a finding;
• Whether the jail conditions described in this Complaint violate federal law.
158. These common legal and factual questions arise from one central scheme and set
of policies and practices: the City’s enormously profitable traffic- and ordinance-related post-
arrest detention and debt-collection system. The City operates this scheme openly and in
materially the same manner every day, and all of the ancillary factual questions about how that
scheme operates are common to all members of the Class, as well as the resulting legal questions
about whether that scheme is unlawful. The material components of the scheme do not vary from
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Class member to Class member, and the resolution of these legal and factual issues will determine whether all of the members of the class are entitled to the constitutional relief that they seek.
C. Typicality: Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(a)(3). 159. The named Plaintiffs’ claims are typical of the claims of the members of the Classes, and they have the same interests as all other members of the Classes that they represent. Each of them suffered injuries from the failure of the City to comply with the basic constitutional provisions detailed below. The answer to whether the City’s scheme of policies and practices is unconstitutional will determine the claims of the named Plaintiffs and every other Class member. 160. If the named Plaintiffs succeed in their claims that the City’s policies and practices concerning post-arrest wealth-based detention and debt collection for fines, fees, costs, and surcharges violate the law in the ways alleged in each claim of the Complaint, then that ruling will likewise benefit every other member of the Injunctive and Damages Classes. D. Adequacy: Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(a)(4). 161. The named Plaintiffs are adequate representatives of the Classes because they are members of the Classes and because their interests coincide with, and are not antagonistic to, those of the Classes. There are no known conflicts of interest among Class members, all of whom have a similar interest in vindicating the constitutional rights to which they are entitled. 162. Plaintiffs are represented by attorneys from ArchCity Defenders,17 who have experience in litigating complex civil rights matters in federal court. They have both knowledge
17 ArchCity Defenders is a non-profit public interest law firm based in Saint Louis. It has represented the poor and homeless in cases involving the Municipal Defendants for the past five years and is an expert on the ways in which the Defendants’ illegal practices and policies make and keep people poor. ArchCity Defenders has recently brought class actions in the Eastern District of Missouri restricting the use of chemical munitions on peaceful protesters, is co-
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of the City’s scheme and relevant constitutional and statutory law and extensive knowledge of
the functioning of the municipal court system in the City of Florissant through their
representation of numerous impoverished people in the City of Florissant. Plaintiffs are also
represented by attorneys from Tycko & Zavareei, LLP, a national law firm based in Washington,
DC, specializing in class action litigation on behalf of plaintiffs. The attorneys at Tycko &
Zavareei, LLP have extensive experience litigating class action cases on behalf of plaintiffs in
state and federal courts, including civil rights actions and actions against government entities.
Both ArchCity Defenders and Tycko & Zavareei, LLP can and will dedicate the resources
necessary to prosecute this case and to represent the plaintiffs and the proposed classes.
163. The efforts of Plaintiffs’ counsel have so far included extensive investigation over
a period of months, including numerous interviews with witnesses, City employees, City jail
inmates, families, attorneys practicing in the Florissant Municipal Court, community members,
statewide experts in the functioning of Missouri municipal courts, and national experts in
constitutional law, debt collection, bankruptcy law, criminal law, and jails.
counsel on two federal class actions alleging the operation of debtors’ prisons in Ferguson and Jennings, Missouri, two additional class actions ending cash bail, and an additional series of state class action suits alleging the imposition of illegal fees and fines in various municipal courts in the St. Louis County region. ArchCity Defenders has most recently filed class action litigation against 13 cities in the St. Louis region alleging the operation of debtors’ prisons. See Thomas et al v. St. Ann, Missouri, City of et al, 4:16-cv-01302; Templeton v. Dotson, 4:14-cv-01019; Jenkins et al. v. City of Jennings, 15-cv-252-CEJ (E.D. Mo. 2015); Fant et al. v. City of Ferguson, 15-cv-253-AGF (E.D. Mo. 2015); Powell v. City of St. Ann 4:15-cv-840 (E.D. Mo. 2015); Pierce v. City of Velda City, 4:15-CV-570 (E.D. Mo. 2015); White v. City of Pine Lawn, 14SL-CC04194 (St. Louis Co. Cir. Ct., Dec. 2014); Pruitt v. City of Wellston, 14SL-CC04192 (St. Louis Co. Cir. Ct., Dec. 2014); Lampkin v. City of Jennings, 14SL-CC04207 (St. Louis Co. Cir. Ct., Dec. 2014); Wann v. City of St. Louis, 1422-CC10272 (St. Louis City Cir. Ct., Dec. 2014); Reed v. City of Ferguson, 14SL-CC04195 (St. Louis Co. Cir. Ct., Dec. 2014); Eldridge v. City of St. John, 15SL-00456 (St. Louis Co. Cir. Ct., Feb. 2015); Watkins v. City of Florissant, 16SL-CC00165 (St. Louis Co. Cir. Ct., Jan. 2016). ArchCity Defenders also published an extensive report detailing these practices and policies in the cities of Bel-Ridge, Ferguson, and Florissant in August of 2014. The report is available at www.archcitydefenders.org.
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164. Counsel and their colleagues have also observed numerous courtroom hearings in the City of Florissant and in municipalities across the region in order to compile a detailed understanding of state law and practices as they relate to federal constitutional requirements. Counsel have studied the way that these systems function in other cities in order to investigate the wide array of options in practice for municipalities.
165. As a result, counsel have devoted enormous time and resources to becoming intimately familiar with the City’s scheme and with all of the relevant state and federal laws and procedures that can and should govern it. Counsel has also developed relationships with many of the individuals and families most victimized by the City’s practices.
166. The interests of the members of the Class will be fairly and adequately protected by the Plaintiffs and their attorneys.
E. Rule 23(b)(2) 167. Class action status is appropriate because the City, through the policies, practices, and procedures that make up its post-arrest wealth-based detention and traffic and ordinance debt-collection scheme, has acted and refused to act on grounds generally applicable to the Declaratory and Injunctive Classes. Thus, a declaration that people in the City cannot be held in jail solely because they cannot afford to make a monetary payment will apply to each Class member. Similarly, a determination that Class members are entitled, as a matter of federal law, to a meaningful inquiry into their ability to pay and an evaluation of alternatives to incarceration before they are jailed by the City for non-payment will apply to each Class member. The same applies to rulings on the other claims, including: that Class members are entitled to representation by counsel at proceedings initiated and litigated by City prosecutors in connection with which they are jailed; that the City cannot collect debts from Class members in an onerous
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manner that violates and evades all of the relevant protections for other judgment debtors; that the jail conditions to which members of the class are exposed are inhumane and unconstitutional; and that the City cannot issue and execute arrest warrants for traffic debtors without probable cause that they have committed an offense and without notice or a hearing prior to the deprivation of their liberty.
168. Injunctive relief compelling the City to comply with these constitutional rights will similarly protect each member of the Class from being again subjected to the City’s unlawful policies and practices with respect to the debts that they still owe and protect those who will incur such debts or be subject to arrest by the City in the future from the same unconstitutional conduct. Therefore, declaratory and injunctive relief with respect to the Class as a whole is appropriate.
F: Rule 23(b)(3) 169. Class treatment under Rule 23(b)(3) is also appropriate because the common questions of law and fact overwhelmingly predominate. This case turns, for every Class member, on what the City’s policies and practices were and on whether those policies were lawful. 170. The common questions of law and fact listed above are dispositive questions in the case of every member of the Classes; the City of Florissant applies its policies and practices uniformly to all arrestees, and has applied them uniformly to all named plaintiffs and all members of the classes without any individualized assessments. The question of liability can therefore be determined on a class-wide basis. Class-wide treatment of liability is a far superior method of determining the content and legality of the City’s policies and practices than individual suits by hundreds or thousands of City residents.
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171. The question of damages will also be driven by class-wide determinations, such as the policies, practices, and conditions at the City jail. To the extent that individual damages will vary, they will vary depending in large part on the amount of time that a person was unlawfully jailed, and the objectively determinable amount each plaintiff and each member of the class paid out of pocket to the City to secure release from jail. Determining damages for individual Class members can thus typically be handled in a ministerial fashion, based on easily verifiable records of the length of unlawful incarceration and the City’s payment records for members of the Jailed Class, and the amounts of money actually paid to the City for members of the Paid Fines Class. If necessary, focused and limited individual hearings on individualized Class-member specific damages based on special circumstances can be held after Class-wide liability is determined—a method far more efficient than the wholesale litigation of hundreds or thousands of individual lawsuits.
172. The Plaintiffs seek the following relief and hereby demand a jury trial in this cause for all matters so appropriate.
Claims for Relief Count One: Defendant City of Florissant Violated the Plaintiffs’ Rights by Jailing Them for Their Inability to Pay the City, or by Forcing Them to Make Payments in Order to Avoid Jail, Without Providing an Indigence Analysis. 173. Plaintiffs incorporate by reference the allegations in the preceding paragraphs of this Complaint. 174. The Fourteenth Amendment’s due process and equal protection clauses have long prohibited imprisoning a person for the failure to pay money owed to the government if that person is indigent and unable to pay. Defendant violated Plaintiffs’ rights by jailing Plaintiffs when they could not afford to pay the debts allegedly owed from traffic and other minor
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offenses, and by forcing them to make payments in order to avoid jail, even where indigent. Defendant violated Plaintiffs’ rights by imprisoning them, and by threatening to imprison them, without conducting any inquiry into their ability to pay and without considering alternatives to imprisonment as required by the United States Constitution. At any moment, a wealthier person in the Plaintiffs’ position could have paid a sum of cash and been released from jail. Defendant’s policy and practice of keeping Plaintiffs in its jail unless and until they are able to pay arbitrarily determined and constantly-shifting sums of money violates the Fourteenth Amendment.
Count Two: Defendant City of Florissant Violated Plaintiffs’ Rights by Imprisoning Them Without Appointing Adequate Counsel.
175. Plaintiffs incorporate by reference the allegations in the preceding paragraphs of this Complaint.
176. Defendant violated Plaintiffs’ right to the effective assistance of counsel under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution by jailing Plaintiffs during or following proceedings initiated by City prosecutors at which Plaintiffs did not have the benefit of counsel and did not knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily waive counsel. The City’s policy of not providing adequate counsel in proceedings in which indigent people are ordered to be imprisoned in the City jail for non-payment, which are, in turn, based on payment plans arising from traffic and other violations at which the person was also unrepresented, violates the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.
Count Three: Defendant City of Florissant’s Use of Indefinite and Arbitrary Detention Violates Equal Protection and Due Process.
177. Plaintiffs incorporate by reference the allegations in the preceding paragraphs of this Complaint.
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178. The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits Defendant from jailing the Plaintiffs indefinitely and without any meaningful legal process through which they can challenge their detention by keeping them confined in the Defendant’s jail unless or until they could make arbitrarily determined cash payments, or until City employees decided to release them for free. The Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses prohibit the City’s arbitrary and indeterminate post-arrest detention as a result of the City’s use of a pre-fixed cash bail schedule whereby initial cash release amounts were arbitrarily set without any inquiry into a person’s ability to pay. As a result, those arrestees able to pay are released immediately while those who cannot pay are detained indefinitely without any meaningful legal process to inquire into their ability to pay the amounts demanded by the City.
Count Four: The Deplorable Conditions in the Florissant Jail Violate Due Process and Constitute Impermissible Punishment.
179. Plaintiffs incorporate by reference the allegations in the preceding paragraphs of this Complaint.
180. The unsafe, unsanitary, inhumane, and dangerous conditions of confinement in the Florissant jail constitute impermissible punishment unrelated to serving any criminal judgment. Even if imposed after valid conviction, the conditions would constitute cruel and unusual treatment. The deplorable and excessively harsh conditions in the Defendant’s jail are unnecessary to accomplish any legitimate government objective and shock the conscience of any reasonable person concerned with human dignity and liberty.
Count Five: Defendant City of Florissant’s Use of Jail and Threats of Jail to Collect Debts Owed to the City Violates Equal Protection Because It Imposes Unduly Harsh and Punitive Restrictions On Debtors Whose Creditor Is the Government Compared To Those Who Owe Money to Private Creditors.
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181. Plaintiffs incorporate by reference the allegations in the preceding paragraphs of this Complaint.
182. The United States Supreme Court has held that, when governments seek to recoup costs of prosecution from indigent defendants, they may not take advantage of their position to impose unduly harsh methods of collection solely because the debt is owed to the government and not to a private creditor. Not only does the City place indigent people on generic and overly onerous payment plans lasting years or decades when the cases of wealthier people would be terminated, but by imposing imprisonment, repeated threats of imprisonment, indeterminate “payment dockets” for many years, extra and invalid fees and surcharges, and other restrictions on Plaintiffs, the City takes advantage of its control over the machinery of the City jail and police systems to deny debtors the procedural and substantive statutory protections that every other Missouri debtor may invoke against a private creditor. Many people like the Plaintiffs owing money to the City of Florissant on old judgments have to borrow money and go further in debt in order to pay off the City of Florissant because other non-government creditors are not permitted to jail them for non-payment of debt. This coercive policy and practice constitutes invidious discrimination and violates the fundamental principles of equal protection of the laws.
Count Six: Defendant City of Florissant’s Policy and Practice of Issuing and Serving Invalid Warrants, Including Those Solely Based on Nonpayment of Monetary Debt, Violates the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments.
183. Plaintiffs incorporate by reference the allegations in the preceding paragraphs of this Complaint.
184. The City’s policy and practice is to issue and serve arrest warrants against those who have not paid their traffic debt. These warrants are sought, issued, and served without any inquiry into the person’s ability to pay even when the City has prior knowledge that the person is
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impoverished and unable to pay the debts and possesses other valid defenses. These warrants are regularly sought, issued, and served without any finding of probable cause that the person has committed the elements of any offense. The City chooses to pursue warrants instead of issuing summons even when it has spoken to people on the phone or in person and has the opportunity to notify them to appear in court. The City’s policy of allowing wealthy residents or residents who can afford to hire an attorney to remove their warrants but refusing to clear warrants for indigent people who cannot afford those options is unlawful. Moreover, the City’s policy and practice of not presenting arrestees in court or unreasonably delaying presentment for days or weeks for no legitimate reason is unlawful. These practices violate the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments and result in a deprivation of fundamental liberty without adequate due process.
Count Seven: Defendant City of Florissant’s Extended Detention of Warrantless Arrestees Without a Neutral Judicial Finding of Probable Cause Based On Sworn Evidence Violates the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments.
185. Plaintiffs incorporate by reference the allegations in the preceding paragraphs of this Complaint.
186. The Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments prohibit extended pretrial detention after a warrantless arrest without a finding of probable cause by a neutral judicial officer based on sworn evidence. The City routinely fails as a matter of policy and practice to make a neutral finding of probable cause and thus keeps people in jail for longer than 48 hours without a neutral finding of probable cause based on sworn evidence. Because City policy is to negotiate cash bond and then to release people for free eventually if they cannot pay, it does not detain new arrestees for the purpose of any legal proceeding. Thus, the City’s extended initial detention period for those who cannot afford to pay after warrantless arrest is unrelated to any legitimate government interest and entirely unconnected from any need to prepare for any probable cause or
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preliminary hearing because the City does not hold probable cause hearings or preliminary
hearings or make any formal probable cause findings.
Request for Relief
WHEREFORE, Plaintiffs request that this Court issue the following relief:
a. A declaratory judgment that Defendant violates Plaintiffs’ Fourteenth Amendment due process and equal protection rights by imprisoning them because they cannot afford to pay the City and by imprisoning them without conducting any meaningful inquiry into their ability to pay or into alternatives to incarceration;
b. A declaratory judgment that Defendant violates Plaintiffs’ rights under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments by imprisoning them without appointing adequate counsel at the proceedings that led to their incarceration;
c. A declaratory judgment that Defendant violates Plaintiffs’ rights by holding them indefinitely in jail independent of any formal legal process;
d. A declaratory judgment that Defendant violates Plaintiffs’ rights by subjecting them to unconstitutional jail conditions;
e. A declaratory judgment that Defendant violates Plaintiffs’ equal protection rights by imposing harsh debt collection measures not imposed on debtors whose creditors are private entities;
f. A declaratory judgment that Defendant violates Plaintiffs’ Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights by issuing and serving arrest warrants without probable cause to believe that the elements of an offense had been committed, with unreasonable delay prior to presentment, without requiring a neutral probable cause finding for warrantless arrestees, and without providing pre-deprivation of liberty process where such process is easily available to the City for judgment debtors;
g. An order and judgment permanently enjoining Defendant from enforcing the above-described unconstitutional policies and practices against Plaintiffs;
h. A judgment compensating members of the Jailed Class for damages they suffered as a result of the City’s unconstitutional and unlawful conduct in imprisoning them in violation of law;
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i. A judgment compensating members of the Paid Fines Class for damages they suffered and restitution for money paid to the City as the result of unlawful fines, fees, costs, or from cases in the City court and who have not been provided an opportunity to prove indigence;

j. An order and judgment granting reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1988 and any other relief this Court deems just and proper.

Dated: October 20, 2016

Respectfully submitted,

By: /s/ Thomas B. Harvey Thomas B. Harvey (MBE #61734MO) Michael-John Voss (MBE #61742MO) Edward J. Hall (MBE #0012692IA) Blake A. Strode (MBE #68422MO) Nathaniel Carroll (MBE #67988MO)
ARCHCITY DEFENDERS, INC. 1210 Locust Street Saint Louis, MO 63103 Tel: (855) 724-2489 Fax: (314) 925-1307 tharvey@archcitydefenders.org mjvoss@archcitydefenders.org bstrode@archcitydefenders.org ehall@archcitydefenders.org ncarroll@archcitydefenders.org
and
Jeffrey D. Kaliel (pro hac application pending) Martin D. Quiñones (pro hac application pending)
TYCKO & ZAVAREEI LLP 1828 L Street, NW – Suite 1000 Washington, D.C. 20036 Tel: (202) 973-0900 Fax: (202) 973-0950 jkaliel@tzlegal.com mquinones@tzlegal.com
Attorneys for Plaintiffs

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 Case: 4:16-cv-01693-NAB Doc. #: 159 Filed: 05/06/20 Page: 1 of 15 PageID #: 1319

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT EASTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI
EASTERN DIVISION

THOMAS BAKER, et al., Plaintiffs,
v. CITY OF FLORISSANT,
Defendant.

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Case No. 4:16-CV-1693 NAB

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MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

This motion is before the Court on Plaintiffs’ Motion for Leave to File a Second Amended

Complaint. [Doc. 142.] Defendant filed a Memorandum in Opposition. [Doc. 146.] Plaintiff

filed a Reply Memorandum. [Doc. 149.] The Court denied the parties’ request for additional

briefing and held a hearing on March 3, 2020. For the following reasons, the Court will grant in

part and deny in part, Plaintiffs’ Motion for Leave to File a Second Amended Complaint.

I. Background

Plaintiffs filed this “debtors’ prison” action as a purported class action under Rule 23,

alleging violations of Plaintiffs’ constitutional rights by the City of Florissant for (1) jailing them

for their inability to pay the City, or by forcing them to make payments in order to avoid jail;

without providing an indigence analysis (Fourteenth Amendment); (2) imprisoning them without

appointing adequate counsel (Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments); (3) using indefinite and

arbitrary detention (Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment); (4) maintaining

deplorable conditions in the Florissant Jail (violation of due process and constitutes impermissible

punishment); (5) using jail and threats of jail to collect debts owed to the City (Fourteenth

Amendment); (6) issuing and serving invalid warrants, including those based solely on

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nonpayment of monetary debt (Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments); and (7) extended detention of the warrantless arrestees without a neutral judicial finding of probable cause based on sworn evidence (Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments).
Plaintiffs’ original complaint was filed on October 31, 2016. The First Amended Complaint was filed on December 13, 2016. The Case Management Order in this case has been amended nine times. [Docs. 17, 60, 72, 78, 95, 98, 120, 131, 141, 153.] The deadline for amendment of pleadings was January 20, 2017. [Doc. 17.] The current deadline to file a motion for class certification is May 21, 2020 and the discovery deadline is July 1, 2020. The current trial date is March 8, 2021. II. Standard of Review
Plaintiffs’ motion for leave to amend implicates Rules 15(a) and 16(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. “Rule 15(a) governs the pretrial amendment of pleadings and states that where an amendment is not sought ‘as a matter of course’—as defined by the Rule— ‘a party may amend its pleading only with the opposing party’s written consent or the court’s leave.’” Hartis v. Chicago Title Ins. Co., 694 F.3d 935, 947-48 (8th Cir. 2012) (citing Fed.R.Civ.P. 15(a)(2)). The Court should freely give leave to amend a pleading when justice so requires. Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(2). Parties do not have an absolute right to amend their pleadings even under this liberal standard. Sherman v. Winco Fireworks, Inc., 532 F.3d 709, 715 (8th Cir. 2008). “A district court appropriately denies the movant leave to amend if there are compelling reasons such as undue delay, bad faith, or dilatory motive, repeated failure to cure deficiencies by amendments previously allowed, undue prejudice to the non-moving party, or futility of the amendment.” Id.
“Rule 16(b), on the other hand, guides the district court’s issuance and modification of pretrial scheduling orders and provides that ‘[e]xcept in categories of actions exempted by local
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rule, the district judge ... must issue a scheduling order,’ which ‘must limit the time to join other parties, amend the pleadings, complete discovery, and file motions.’” Hartis, 694 F.3d at 948 (citing Fed.R.Civ.P. 16(b)(1), (3)(A)). Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 16(b)(4) states that a case management order “may be modified only for good cause and with the judge’s consent.”
“The primary measure of good cause is the movant’s diligence in attempting to meet the scheduling order’s requirements.” Harris v. FedEx Nat. LTL, Inc., 760 F.3d 780, 786 (8th Cir. 2014). The good cause standard is not optional. Petrone v. Werner Enterprises, Inc., 940 F.3d 425, 434 (8th Cir. 2019) (citing Sherman, 532 F.3d at 714). “Good cause for a belated amendment under Rule 16(b) requires a showing that, despite the diligence of the movant, the belated amendment could not reasonably have been offered sooner.” Transamerica Life Ins. Co. v. Lincoln Nat’l Life Ins. Co., 590 F.Supp.2d 1093, 1100 (N.D. Iowa 2008) (citing Sherman, 532 F.3d at 71618). “A district court acts within its discretion in denying a motion to amend which made no attempt to show good cause.” Harris, 760 F.3d at 786 (citing Freeman v. Busch, 349 F.3d 582, 589 (8th Cir. 2003)). The Eight Circuit precedent strongly establishes that “Rule 16(b)’s goodcause standard governs when a party seeks leave to amend a pleading outside of the time period established by a scheduling order, not the more liberal standard of Rule 15(a).” Hartis, 694 F.3d at 948. Prejudice to the nonmovant is not considered if the movant has not been diligent in meeting the scheduling order’s deadlines. Id. Instead, the Court focuses on “in the first instance (and usually solely) on the diligence of the party who sought modification of the order.” Hartis, 694 F.3d at 948. “Where there has been no change in the law, no newly discovered facts, or any other changed circumstance … after the scheduling deadline for amending pleadings,” the Court may conclude that the moving party has failed to show good cause. Id. Finally, while the Court’s
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analysis considers that this is a putative class action where complaints are amended close to class certification, the Eighth Circuit precedent on amendment of pleadings still guides the discussion. III. Discussion
In this case, Plaintiffs are hard-pressed to demonstrate good cause for amending their complaint out of time. The deadline for amendment of pleadings was January 20, 2017. Plaintiffs filed their motion for leave to file a second amended complaint on January 15, 2020, almost three years after the original deadline. Plaintiffs assert that they are seeking leave to amend to “shore up” class definitions, clarify factual issues learned in discovery, and add a claim under a Missouri statute. Plaintiffs allege that they are trying to make sure class categories match allegations in the complaint. Plaintiffs further contend that the same set of class members are arranged in new buckets and an expert helped them to sort the information. Defendant states that Plaintiff has not met the good cause standard, because the Plaintiffs were not diligent in seeking amendment. In support, Defendants state that Plaintiffs’ amendments constitute a wholesale change of the complaint, specifically the additional class categories alleged in the proposed complaint.
Plaintiffs do not allege that there has been a change in the law that is relevant to their claims. Plaintiffs do allege that there are newly discovered facts uncovered during discovery that support the amendment of pleadings and that they have been diligent in prosecution of this case. The Court will now review the proposed changes to the complaint to determine whether these proposed changes were newly discovered and whether Plaintiffs have demonstrated diligence in amending the complaint regarding the same.
A. New Plaintiff and Reconfigured Potential Class Categories In the First Amended Complaint, there are five named plaintiffs: Thomas Baker, Sean Bailey, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, and Meredith Walker. Most of the changes in the proposed
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amended complaint regarding these plaintiffs involve changes in age or other demographic
information, revised arrest dates, revised incarceration length periods, and removal of the amount
of fines allegedly imposed against the Plaintiffs.
In the First Amended Complaint, there are four proposed classes:
a. The first Declaratory and Injunctive Class is defined as: All persons who currently owe or who will incur debts to the City of Florissant from fines, fees (excluding “warrant recall fees”, “letter fees”, and/or “failure to appear fees”, as defined in Watkins v. City of Florissant, No. 16SL-CC00165 (St. Louis Co. Cir. Ct. filed Jan. 2016)), costs, or surcharges arising from cases prosecuted by the City of Florissant.
b. The second Declaratory and Injunctive Class is all persons who, either because they owe debts to the City of Florissant or for any other reason, will become in the custody of the City of Florissant and thereby subjected to its post-arrest wealthbased detention procedures.
c. The first Damages Class is defined as: All persons, whether or not such person has ever been jailed, who have paid any amount to the City of Florissant to satisfy fines, fees (excluding “warrant recall fees”, “letter fees”, and/or “failure to appear fees”, as defined in Watkins v. City of Florissant, No. 16SL-CC00165 (St. Louis Co. Cir. Ct. filed Jan. 2016)), costs, or surcharges arising from cases in the City court and who have not been provided an opportunity to prove indigence (the “Paid Fines Class”).
d. The second Damages Class is defined as: All persons who have been jailed by the City of Florissant for non-payment fines, fees (excluding “warrant recall fees”, “letter fees”, and/or “failure to appear fees”, as defined in Watkins v. City of Florissant, No. 16SL-CC00165 (St. Louis Co. Cir. Ct. filed Jan. 2016)), costs, or surcharges arising from cases in the City court and who (1) were not provided an opportunity to prove indigence prior to jailing; (2) were not considered a danger to the community by notation in the City’s file; and (3) were not designated as a flight risk at the time of jailing (the “Jailed Class”).
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(First Am. Compl. ¶ 151). In the proposed second amended complaint, Plaintiffs amend the
definitions of the original four classes and propose three additional classes as follows:
Class 1: All persons held in the City of Florissant jail on behalf of the City of Florissant for failure to satisfy a bond, fine, fee, (excluding “warrant recall fees”, “letter fees”, and/or “failure to appear fees”, as defined in Watkins v. City of Florissant, No. 16SL-CC00165 (St. Louis Co. Cir. Ct. filed Jan. 2016)), surcharge, and/or costs without (1) an indigency hearing, (2) a finding that they were a flight risk, or (3) a finding that they were a danger to the community from October 31, 2011 to present (excluding individuals jailed pursuant to a domestic violence hold).
Class 2: All persons held in the City of Florissant jail on behalf of the City of Florissant between October 31, 2011 to present, without an inquiry by the Court regarding appointment of counsel (excluding individuals jailed pursuant to a domestic violence hold).
Class 3: All persons held in the City of Florissant jail, between October 31, 2011 to present, on a Failure to Appear warrant for the City of Florissant who were not brought before a judge for a first appearance or arraignment (excluding individuals jailed pursuant to a domestic violence hold).
Class 4: All persons who paid fines and/or fees to the City of Florissant (excluding “warrant recall fees”, “letter fees”, and/or “failure to appear fees”, as defined in Watkins v. City of Florissant, No. 16SL-CC00165 (St. Louis Co. Cir. Ct. filed Jan. 2016)) without an indigency hearing from October 31, 2011 to present.
Class 5: All persons held past booking and assignment of bail in the City of Florissant jail on behalf of the City of Florissant without a warrant from October 31, 2011 to present. (excluding individuals jailed pursuant to a domestic violence hold).
Class 6: All persons held in excess of 48 hours in the City of Florissant jail on behalf of the City of Florissant without a warrant from October 31, 2011 to present (excluding individuals jailed pursuant to a domestic violence hold).
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Class 7: All persons held in excess of 24 hours in the City of Florissant jail on behalf of the City of Florissant without a warrant from October 31, 2011 to present (excluding individuals jailed pursuant to a domestic violence hold). [Doc. 142-1]. The addition of classes 5, 6, and 7 requires a new named plaintiff/class representative. Plaintiffs assert that they seek to add Demetrius Davis as a new class representative to ensure that they have an appropriate class representative for each class and to forestall any procedural arguments regarding the sufficiency of the class representatives that would distract from the merits. Plaintiffs allege that they received the complete incarceration data and fine data in November 2019. Plaintiffs further state that they discovered an inconsistency between the data and the good faith recollection of Bolden’s incarceration time beyond 48 hours. Plaintiffs contend that they could not have discovered the inconsistency between Bolden’s recollection and the REJIS data earlier, because the records produced during discovery concerning the length of her incarceration were unclear. Plaintiffs cite Bolden’s booking sheet, which indicates she was arrested on March 19, 2014, but not booked for another 24 hours. Plaintiffs also state that the booking sheet lacks any information regarding the time of Bolden’s release. Plaintiffs contend that the complete REJIS1 data produced in November 2019 also failed to resolve the discrepancy; therefore they need to add an additional plaintiff. The Plaintiffs assert that they “promptly investigated the possibility of adding a new putative class representative who was jailed by Defendant and who was held in excess of 48 hours according to Defendant’s data.” If the Court denies Plaintiffs the ability to add Demetrius Davis,
1 “The Regional Justice Information System (REJIS) “provides data processing services and online information systems for police and sheriff’s departments, prosecutors, courts, correctional institutions, and probation and parole agencies at the Federal, State, county, and local levels.” S.F. Claggett, REJIS - A Computer Information Network, FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin Volume:52 Issue:3 Dated: special issue (March 1983) Pages:2-9 (abstract).
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Plaintiffs assert they will not have a class representative to represent members of the proposed new classes of 5, 6, and 7 and it “could prevent a hearing of the merits of Plaintiffs’ claims.” Plaintiffs contend that the complete REJIS data was provided in November 2019, after the Court granted a motion to compel. Plaintiffs assert that there was only a two month period of time between the production of final data and the notification to Defendant of a need for certain amendments.
Defendant asserts that Plaintiffs have long known about the facts in support of their request for an amendment of the complaint. First, regarding the Plaintiffs discovery that none of the class representatives were held over 48 hours, Defendant asserts that Plaintiffs have failed to cite to the records produced by the Defendant that “illuminated their mistaken recollections.” Defendant states that all Plaintiffs were deposed well over a year ago. Bolden, deposed in September 2018, testified that she was held by Defendant for approximately 24 hours. Defendant states it produced the named Plaintiffs’ arrest records on June 9, 2017. Defendant further argues that the REJIS data produced in November 2019 was not substantially different than the REJIS data produced in February 2019, primarily providing full rather than partial social security numbers. Therefore, Defendant states that neither REJIS data production was Plaintiffs’ first notice that Bolden was held for only 24 hours or that the other plaintiffs had “mistaken recollections.”
Next, Defendant states that the REJIS data also had no bearing on Plaintiffs’ class definitions. Plaintiffs’ expert, Arthur Olsen, submitted an expert report on December 10, 2018 and was deposed in February 2019. Mr. Olsen testified based on the assumptions of the seven classes now contained in Plaintiffs’ proposed second amended complaint. According to Defendant, Mr. Olsen was asked during his deposition how the seven putative class definitions were extracted from the REJIS data and he said they could not be extracted from the data. Plaintiffs did not refute these assertions made by Defendant at the hearing on the present motion. Plaintiffs
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respond that the questioning of the expert with the seven proposed classes shows that they were diligent. Plaintiffs argue that the complete REJIS data received in November 2019 was needed to “refine the class definitions to comport with that data.”
After a thorough review of the foregoing, the Court must find that Plaintiffs have not shown good cause. District courts enjoy wide discretion under Rule 16(b) and in matters of trial management in general. Schenk v. Chavis, 259 Fed. App’x 905, 907 (8th Cir. 2008). “Ultimately, a party must give a persuasive reason why the dates originally set by the scheduling order … could not reasonably be met despite the diligence of the party seeking amendment.” Rogers v. Medicraft, Inc., 4:12-CV-2277 CEJ, 2013 WL 4496278 at *2 (E.D. Mo. Aug. 21, 2013).
Plaintiffs have not met the primary and most essential factor- that they were diligent in seeking amendment. Plaintiffs’ argument focuses on judicial economy, lack of prejudice to the Defendant, and necessity of the amendments. The Court does not believe all of these factors strongly favor Plaintiffs either, but nevertheless, they are not the primary factors that Plaintiffs must meet. Plaintiffs have the burden to demonstrate diligence, before the Court considers any other factor. The Plaintiffs have failed to meet their burden.
First, the most prominent evidence of due diligence is the receipt and review of discovery that would alert Plaintiffs of the need to amend the complaint. Plaintiffs contend that they were focused on responding to Defendant’s motion to dismiss, preparing the expert reports, and filing a motion to compel, which was not granted until October 2019. Further, they contend that they did not receive the complete discovery until November 2019. Evidence, not disputed by Plaintiffs, is that Plaintiffs had information regarding Nicole Bolden’s status as an appropriate class representative for detention exceeding 24 hours at least in late 2018. Further, Plaintiffs’ expert’s testimony regarding the seven proposed classes over a year before the motion was filed and
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Plaintiffs’ failure to specifically identify how the December 2019 REJIS data provided evidentiary support for amendment indicates lack of diligence. See Gonzalez v. Sara, Inc., 4:12-CV-1586 CDP, 2013 WL 2420663 at *2 (E.D. Mo. June 3, 2013) (district court denied motion for leave to file second amended complaint in putative class action where plaintiff sought to add 8 new defendants, another class action claim, and an enlarged class definition while failing to explain why the class definition could not have been amended before pleading deadline).
Second, the original case management order in this action has been amended nine times. Plaintiffs have not sought an extension of time for the amendment of pleadings in the three years since the original deadline. The parties jointly requested the amendment of the case management order five times within the past year alone and the Court granted these motions. [Docs. 98, 120, 131, 141, and 153.] In support of the requests for amendment of the case management order, the Plaintiffs (who drafted the motions) asserted that the parties needed additional time to produce expert reports and receive additional data from REJIS. But, the information that Plaintiffs contend is the basis for this motion was known well before November 2019. The fact that Plaintiffs requested amendment of the scheduling order 5 times in the last year and failed to request an extension of time to amend pleadings demonstrates lack of diligence. See IBEW Local 98 Pension Fund v. Best Buy Co., Inc., 326 F.R.D. 513, 525 (D. Minn. July 11, 2018) (district court denied leave to file second amended class complaint where lead plaintiff did not move for leave to amend after receiving discovery that was used as evidentiary support for amendment).
Third, the cases that Plaintiffs identify and use to support their request for leave to file an amended complaint are not analogous to this case. Plaintiffs fail to cite any cases addressing diligence in the amendment of pleadings for putative class actions or any case law to support their argument for diligence. Plaintiffs cite many cases dealing with prejudice to a defendant and focus
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the bulk of their argument there, but Plaintiffs must first address and establish good cause. Moreover, the cases cited by Plaintiffs involve significantly shorter delays in amendment of pleadings than the delay in this case. The substantial majority of the cases cited by Plaintiffs are not class actions.
In Cornell v. Corbett, the district court granted the plaintiff’s motion for leave to file a second amended complaint, where plaintiff requested leave to add the parent company of the initially pleaded defendants five months after the deadline to add parties or amend pleadings. Cornell v. Corbett, No. 13-CV-4022 DEO, 2014 WL 2860422 (N.D. Iowa May 30, 2014). There are significant differences between these two cases, including Cornell is not a putative class action, the plaintiff discovered the name of the parent company a month before she filed her motion, and plaintiff filed her motion only five months after the initial deadline to add parties. See Cornell, 2014 WL 2860422 at 4-6.
In NRRM v. Kingstar Holdings, also not a putative class action, the plaintiff sought leave to amend the complaint to add another claim based on recently discovered facts. NRRM v. Kingstar Holdings, No. 4:17-CV-1665 PLC, 2018 WL 1993436 (E.D. Mo. Apr. 27, 2018). In that case, the plaintiff filed a motion for leave to amend twenty-six days after the deadline, but two days before the deadline the parties had agreed on for amendment of pleadings. Id. at 2. Further, the Court found that plaintiff sought leave “soon after determining that it had a sufficient evidentiary basis to bring such a claim.” Id. at 3.
In Nine v. Williams, the court found good cause to amend the complaint, because the plaintiff requested leave to amend the complaint to correct the year of the alleged assault a month after the defendant provided discovery indicating the correct year. Nine v. Williams, No. 4:11CV-353 (CEJ), 2012 WL 3815627 at *1-2 (E.D. Mo. Sept. 4, 2012). In Nine, plaintiff did not add
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any new claims or allegations. The court found that plaintiff’s failure to meet the deadline was not due to a lack of diligence on her part.
Likewise, in Schwend v. U.S. Bank, the court found that plaintiff acted diligently when she requested leave to amend four months after the amendment deadline. Schwend v. U.S. Bank, No. 4:10-CV-1590 CDP, 2011 WL 5039812 at *2 (E.D. Mo. Oct. 24, 2011). The court found that Schwend only received the discovery that revealed the claims were applicable to a class action two months after the amendment deadline and that she quickly met with class counsel afterwards and filed the motion for leave another two months after that. In Evantigroup v. Mangia, the time period between the deadline for amending pleadings or adding parties and the request for leave was approximately six or seven months. Evantigroup, LLC v. Mangia Mobile, No. 4:11-CV-1328 CEJ, 2012 WL 3283416 (E.D. Mo. 2012). Buder v. Merrill Lynch, is inapposite, as the decision did not discuss Fed. R. Civ. P. 16(b) and Moore v. Jefferson Capital is inapplicable, because the court found that the delay in the case was principally caused by the stay in the case, not any action by the Plaintiff. See Buder v. Merrill Lynch, 644 F.2d 690 (1981), Moore v. Jefferson Capital Sys., No. 4:15-CV-418 JAR, 2017 WL 2813536 at *2 (E.D. Mo. June 29, 2017). In all of these cases, the plaintiffs clearly showed diligence in a substantially shorter period of time than the Plaintiffs in this action. The additional cases cited by the Plaintiffs do not include sufficient factual background in the opinions to provide support to Plaintiffs’ arguments or the comparisons to this case are not valid, for example leave to amend out of time is not at issue.2 Therefore, Plaintiffs
2 See Messner v. Northshore Univ. HealthSystem, 669 F.3d 802 (7th Cir. 2012); InfoDeli, LLC v. Western Robidoux, Inc., No. 4:15-CV-364 BCW, 2016 WL 6915315 at *2 (W.D. Mo. Oct. 13, 2016), Soular v. Northern Tier Energy, No. 15-CV-556 (SRN/LIB), 2015 WL 5024786 (D. Minn. Aug. 25, 2015), Brooks v. American Family Mut. Ins. Co., No. 2:14-CV-04171-NKL, 2014 WL 5343776 at *1 (W.D. Mo. Oct. 20, 2014), Ghattas v. First Nat. Bank of Layton, No. 4:12-CV-2348 CAS, 2014 WL 222819 at *1 (E.D. Mo. Jan. 21, 2014), Olson v. Desserts on the Blvd., No. 4:12-CV-1629 CAS, 2013 WL 5446922 at *1-2 (E.D. Mo. Sept. 30, 2013), Davidson v. City of Grain Valley, No. 12-1241-CV-W-DW, 2013 WL 12145864 at *1 (W.D. Mo. July 12, 2013, Greenwald v. Phillips Home Furnishings, Inc., No. 4:08-CV-1128 CDP, 2009 WL 792527 at 1 (E.D. Mo. Mar. 23, 2009), In re Vitamins Antitrust Litig., 209 F.R.D. 251 (D.C. D.C. 2002).
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have not shown good cause to add Defendant Demetrius Davis or expand and add additional classes to the Complaint.
B. Addition of Claim Eight under Mo. Rev. Stat. § 544.170 Plaintiffs also seek leave to add a claim under Mo. Rev. Stat. § 544.170, which states that “all persons arrested and confined in any jail or other place of confinement … without warrant or other process, for any alleged breach of the peace or other criminal offense, or on suspicion thereof, shall be discharged from said custody within twenty-four hours from the time of such arrest.” Plaintiffs contend that the addition of this claim is closely related to the claims already brought in this suit, including Plaintiffs’ due process claims under § 1983. Plaintiffs again state that Defendant should not be surprised by this claim. Plaintiff states that no new discovery would be required. Defendant asserts that § 544.170 is not a new law and Plaintiffs have failed to show reasons why they could not have brought this claim earlier. The Court will deny Plaintiffs leave to add claim eight. Pursuant to the good cause standard of Fed. R. Civ. P. 16(b)(4), Plaintiffs have failed to present any evidence to show they were diligent in seeking leave to add this claim to the Complaint. Amendment of pleadings almost three years after the deadline in the case management order has expired is not a right. It is Plaintiffs’ burden to show diligence in seeking amendment and Plaintiffs fail to do so regarding this claim. Their only justification is that claim eight is similar to the other claims, which is insufficient under Rule 16(b)(4). Therefore, Plaintiffs’ motion is denied as to this claim. C. Prejudice “As noted above, it is not necessary to address the issue of prejudice if the movant fails to show good cause for an untimely amendment.” Afshar v. WMG, L.C., 310 F.R.D. 408, 411 (N.D. Iowa Sept. 14, 2015). Nevertheless, the Court also finds that allowing the proposed amendments
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at this stage of the litigation would result in unfair prejudice to the Defendant. The changes proposed by the Plaintiffs are not minor changes and would require additional discovery that would very likely result in further extensions of the discovery deadlines in this case. The parties have engaged in significant discovery in the past few years and the idea that any additional discovery could be done quickly is highly unlikely. Therefore, even if the Court had found good cause for Plaintiffs’ delay in seeking amendment, the motion would still be denied based on prejudice to the Defendant. IV. Conclusion
In conclusion, the Court will grant in part and deny in part Plaintiffs’ Motion for Leave to File Second Amended Complaint. The Court will allow Plaintiffs to amend their Complaint to correct demographical information of the Plaintiffs, including age, incarceration periods, other incorrect dates, and any typographical errors. Plaintiffs may also remove paragraphs that are no longer supported by the information revealed in discovery. The Court will deny Plaintiffs’ request for leave to add Defendant Demetrious Davis, reconfigure and add class categories, and add a claim under Mo. Rev. Stat. § 544.170.
Accordingly, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Plaintiffs’ Motion for Leave to File a Second Amended Complaint is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part. [Doc. 142.] The Court grants Plaintiffs leave to amend their Complaint to correct demographical information of the Plaintiffs, including age, incarceration periods, fine amounts, incorrect dates, and any typographical errors. Plaintiffs are also granted leave to remove paragraphs that are no longer supported by the information revealed in discovery. The Court denies Plaintiffs’ request for leave to add Defendant Demetrious Davis, reconfigure and add class categories, and add a claim under Mo. Rev. Stat. § 544.170.
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It is so ordered. Dated this 6th day of May, 2020.

NANNETTE A. BAKER UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

15

 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT EASTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI
EASTERN DIVISION

THOMAS BAKER, et al., Plaintiffs,
v. CITY OF FLORISSANT,
Defendant.

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)

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Case No. 4:16-CV-1693 NAB

)

)

)

)

)

)

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER1

Plaintiffs in this putative class action claim that they were repeatedly jailed by the City of

Florissant (the “City”) due to their inability to pay fines, fees and other costs arising from traffic

tickets or other minor municipal offenses, without being offered legal representation or any

inquiry into their ability to pay. The City has moved to dismiss Plaintiffs’ first amended

complaint for failure to state a claim, and has also moved for a more definite statement and to

strike redundant or immaterial matter, or, in the alternative, that any counts not dismissed or

struck be repleaded to comply with Rules 8(a) and 10(b). (Doc. No. 22). For the reasons set

forth below, the City’s motion shall be denied.

BACKGROUND

The named Plaintiffs are all purportedly impoverished Missourians who allege that they

have been repeatedly jailed and held indefinitely by the City solely because they could not afford

to pay for their release, a practice that they liken to a modern-day debtors’ prison. They allege

that they were never offered or afforded legal representation or any inquiry into their ability to

pay, and were held in overcrowded, unsanitary, uncomfortably cold cells, where they were

denied access to warm blankets, clean drinking water, and basic hygiene products such as

1 The parties have consented to the jurisdiction of the undersigned United States Magistrate Judge pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(c).

toothbrushes and soap, that they were forced to wear the same dirty clothes for days without access to laundry, and were denied proper medical care. They filed this action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, asserting claims under the Fourth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments, and are seeking declaratory, injunctive, and compensatory relief. They seek to represent two declaratory and injunctive classes of “[a]ll persons who currently owe or who will incur debts to the City . . . from fines, fees . . . costs, or surcharges arising from cases prosecuted by the City, as well as “all persons who, either because they owe debts to the City . . . or for any other reason, will . . . [be] subjected to its post-arrest wealth-based detention procedures.” (Doc. No. 16 at 37). They also seek to represent two damages classes of “[a]ll persons, whether or not such person has ever been jailed, who have paid any amount to the City . . . to satisfy fines, fees. . . costs, or surcharges . . . and who have not been provided an opportunity to prove indigence,” as well as “[a]ll persons who have been jailed by the City . . . for non-payment . . . and who (1) were not provided an opportunity to prove indigence prior to jailing; (2) were not considered a danger to the community by notation in the City’s file; and (3) were not designated as a flight risk at the time of jailing.” 2 (Doc. No. 16 at 37).
Count One of the amended complaint alleges that the City violated the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment by jailing Plaintiffs or threatening to imprison them for their inability to pay debts owed from minor offenses, without conducting any inquiry into their ability to pay and without considering alternatives to imprisonment. Plaintiffs allege that “[a]t any moment, a wealthier person in the Plaintiffs’ position could have paid a sum of cash and been released from jail,” yet Plaintiffs were forced to remain in jail due to the City’s
2 Plaintiffs exclude from the above referenced fees all “warrant recall fees”, “letter fees”, and/or “failure to appear fees,” as defined in Watkins v. City of Florissant, No. 16SL-CC00165, 21st Judicial Circuit Court (St. Louis Cnty. filed Jan. 2016).
- 2 -

policy and practice of holding them indefinitely until they could pay an “arbitrarily determined and constantly-shifting” sum of money. (Doc. No. 16 at 46).
Count Two alleges that the City violated Plaintiffs’ Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights by imprisoning them without affording them the benefit of counsel or obtaining their knowing, intelligent, and voluntarily waiver of counsel. Plaintiffs allege that the City has a policy and practice of not informing people of their right to counsel and “not providing . . . counsel in proceedings in which indigent people are ordered to be imprisoned in the City jail for non-payment, which are, in turn, based on payment plans arising from traffic and other violations at which the person was also unrepresented.” (Doc. No. 16 at 46-47).
Count Three alleges that the City’s use of indefinite and arbitrary detention violates the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. Plaintiffs allege that the City has a policy and practice of jailing indigent persons “indefinitely and without any meaningful legal process through which they can challenge their detention . . . until they could make arbitrarily determined cash payments, or until City employees decided to release them for free.” Id. at 47. Plaintiffs further allege that the City routinely held persons in jail for indeterminate amounts of time, without setting any future court dates or bringing Plaintiffs to court. Id. at 26. Plaintiffs allege that City jail staff have a practice of engaging in informal negotiations with prisoners, making it clear that payment would result in immediate release, and pressuring them to ask friends and family for cash; as it becomes apparent that the person cannot pay the initial cash amount requested, the amount required for release is incrementally reduced, all without resort to any formal court process. Id. at 26, 31.
Count Four alleges that the totality of conditions in the Florissant jail “constitute[s] impermissible punishment unrelated to serving any criminal judgment,” in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Id. at 33, 47. Plaintiffs allege that although they
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were each held for varying amounts of time during different time periods, they were all exposed to the same “deplorable conditions,” including overcrowded, filthy cells, 3 lack of basic hygiene products, 4 lack of access to clean water,5 uncomfortably cold conditions,6 denial of medical care,
and insufficient food. Id. at 2, 9- 13, 15-16, 18, 33.
Count Five alleges that the City’s use of jail and threats of jail to collect debts owed to
the City violates the Equal Protection Clause because it imposes “unduly harsh and punitive
restrictions on debtors whose creditor is the government compared to those who owe money to
private creditors.” Id. at 48. Plaintiffs allege that the City “takes advantage of its control over
the machinery of the City jail and police systems to deny debtors the procedural and substantive
statutory protections that every other Missouri debtor may invoke against a private creditor.” Id.
Count Six alleges that the City has a “policy and practice of issuing and serving invalid
warrants, including those solely based on nonpayment of monetary debt,” in violation of the
Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. Id. Plaintiffs allege that the City routinely issues and
serves arrest warrants against those who have not paid their traffic debt, and that these warrants
are “sought, issued, and served without any finding of probable cause that the person has
committed the elements of any offense,” and “without any inquiry into the person’s ability to
pay.” Id. at 48-49.
3 Plaintiffs allege that cells reeked of visible excrement and the walls were smeared with blood and mucus. (Doc. No. 16 at 32-33). 4 Plaintiffs allege that inmates were denied toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodorant, and soap, and were forced to wear the same “dirty orange jumpsuits for days and weeks without access to clean laundry or clean undergarments.” (Doc. No. 16 at 32). 5 Plaintiffs allege that inmates suffered from dehydration because the only source of water in the jail cell is a spout connected to a dirty toilet, and the “spout does not produce adequate water pressure to dispense water past the lip of the basin where the water is caught and drains . . . [t]hus, the only way for one to drink water is to press one’s lips against the dirty toilet basin, which many inmates are unwilling to do.” (Doc. No. 16 at 33). 6 Plaintiffs allege that they had to “huddle in cold temperatures with a single thin blanket.” (Doc. No. 16 at 33). When Plaintiff Sean Bailey arrived at the jail in November, the outside temperature was twenty-eight degrees, the air conditioner was running, and when he and fellow inmates complained of the cold and asked for more blankets, jail officials told them that they would not turn on the heat because they “wanted the jail to be uncomfortable so that inmates would not want to be there and would be motivated to pay their . . . fines.” (Doc. No. 16 at 11).
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Count Seven alleges that the City’s “extended detention of warrantless arrestees without a neutral judicial finding of probable cause” violates the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. Id. at 49. Plaintiffs allege that the City “routinely fails as a matter of policy and practice to make a neutral finding of probable cause . . . and keeps people in jail for longer than 48 hours without a neutral finding of probable cause based on sworn evidence.” Id. at 50. Plaintiffs further allege that because the City’s policy is to hold people on cash bond and then to eventually release people for free if they cannot pay, these detentions are “unrelated to any legitimate government interest and entirely unconnected from any need to prepare for any . . . hearing because the City does not hold probable cause or preliminary hearings.” Id. at 50.
Plaintiffs allege that the above described challenged actions often took place entirely outside of the judicial process7 and were, in all cases, “caused by and representative of the City’s policies and practices concerning collecting unpaid fines, fees, costs, and surcharges arising from traffic tickets and other minor offenses over at least the past five years. Id. at 24. Plaintiffs further allege that “[i]t is the policy and practice of the City of Florissant to use its municipal court and its jail as significant sources of revenue generation for the City.”8 Id. at 23. Plaintiffs also allege that they still owe money to the City and live with the fear that they will again be detained and jailed due to nothing more than their inability to pay these debts. Id. at 11, 19, 21, 27, and 36.
7 For example, the amended complaint alleges that Plaintiff Baker “has never been brought before a judge while in custody.” (Doc. No. 16 at 7). Plaintiff Bailey alleges that he “never saw or appeared before a judge while he was in custody.” Id. at 12. Additionally, Plaintiff Bolden alleges that she “was never taken before a judge.” Id. at 16. 8 The City of Florissant has approximately 52,000 residents, and in 2015 issued 28,436 arrest warrants. More than 20,000 of these warrants were for minor offenses such as traffic citations. Also in 2015, the City collected more than $2,300,000 in court fines and fees, an amount surpassed only by sales and utility taxes as a source of revenue for the City. Over the past five years, the City has earned more than $12,000,000 from municipal court fines, fees, costs, and surcharges. (Doc. No. 22 at 23-24).
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As relief, Plaintiffs request a declaration that the City’s policies and practices violate their Constitutional rights; a permanent injunction preventing the City from enforcing these policies and practices; and an award of compensatory damages, attorneys’ fees, and costs.
The City moves to dismiss, or alternatively to strike and for a more definite statement of, Plaintiffs’ amended complaint pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 8(a), 10(b), 12(b)(6), 12(e), and 12(f). (Doc. No. 22). DEFENDANT’S ARGUMENTS
Defendant argues that all Counts of the amended complaint should be dismissed “on the basis that it fundamentally fails to comply with the applicable rules of pleading, disadvantaging the Defendant in its ability to provide a meaningful answer.” (Doc. No. 23 at 2). Specifically, the City argues that the amended complaint does not comply with Rule 8(a), as “it is not a short and plain statement of claims,” and that it also fails to comply with Rule 10(b) because its numbered allegations are not limited “as far as practicable to a single set of circumstances.” Id. at 7. Defendant also alleges that the amended complaint should be stricken or repleaded because it “utilizes scandalous verbiage unrelated to any claim actually stated, serving only to vilify the Defendant and portray it in a derogatory light.” Id. at 9.
The City also argues that Counts One through Three and Five through Seven should be dismissed for failure to state a claim, because the City cannot be liable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for the actions of “the separate and distinct municipal court,” which Defendant argues is outside of the City’s control. (Doc. No. 22 at 2). Defendant argues that Count Four should be dismissed because Plaintiffs have failed to state a claim based upon conditions of confinement, asserting that Plaintiffs have not pleaded sufficient exposure to conditions that could be found to be unconstitutionally punitive. (Doc. No. 23 at 27-28). The City asserts an alternative basis for the dismissal of Count Five, arguing that Plaintiffs are not similarly situated to private debtors, and
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thus there can be no Equal Protection violation. Id. at 29-30. Finally, Defendant asserts that Plaintiffs “are not entitled to injunctive relief, as Plaintiffs lack Article III standing, prudential standing, . . . ripeness, [and] failure to sufficiently allege all elements required for injunctive relief.” Id. at 31. RULE 12(E) MOTION FOR A MORE DEFINITE STATEMENT AND 12(F) MOTION TO STRIKE
The federal pleading rules provide that a complaint must contain “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief,” Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a), and that such a statement “give the defendant fair notice of what the plaintiff’s claim is and the grounds upon which it rests.” Swierkiewicz v. Sorema N.A., 534 U.S. 506, 512-13 (2002) (internal quotes omitted). Fed. R. Civ. P. 10(b) requires that a “party must state its claims or defenses in numbered paragraphs, each limited as far as practicable to a single set of circumstances.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(e) allows a party to “move for a more definite statement of a pleading to which a responsive pleading is allowed but which is so vague or ambiguous that the party cannot reasonably prepare a response.” “The remedy of repleader based on violation of Rules 8 and 10 has generally been reserved for egregious cases where a defendant does not know the basic facts that constitute the claim for relief against it.” Superior Edge, Inc., v. Monsanto Co., 44 F. Supp. 3d 890,898 (D. Minn. 2014).
A party may also move to strike from a pleading any “redundant, immaterial, impertinent, or scandalous matter.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(f). Although courts enjoy “broad discretion” in deciding whether to strike a party’s pleadings, motions to strike under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(f) are “viewed with disfavor and are infrequently granted.” Lunsford v. United States, 570 F.2d 221, 229 (8th Cir. 1977) (citations omitted).
Rule 8 “speaks of a short and plain statement of each claim, not a short and plain pleading.” See 21 Charles Alan Wright & Arthur R. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure §
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1217 (3d ed. 1998). Indeed, a multiparty, multiclaim complaint is often “long and complicated by virtue of the number of parties and claims.” Id. The Court has reviewed Plaintiffs’ amended complaint and finds that it satisfies the requirements of Rules 8 and 10. The background information provided at the beginning of the amended complaint presents sufficient, yet not unduly superfluous, information that helps place the allegations against Defendant in context. Moreover, Plaintiffs’ allegations in the individual paragraphs are limited, as far as practicable, to discrete sets of circumstances, which should allow Defendant to frame a responsive pleading. Finally, the Court does not find any of the language in the amended complaint to be so redundant, immaterial, impertinent, or scandalous as to warrant striking sections of the pleading. The Court will deny the City’s motions for repleading or striking under Rules 12(e) and 12(f). MOTION TO DISMISS FOR FAILURE TO STATE A CLAIM
I. Legal Standard A pleading is deficient and may be dismissed under Rule 12(b)(6) if a plaintiff fails “to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). Rule 12(b)(6) is read in conjunction with Rule 8(a), which requires “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2). To survive a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, a plaintiff’s allegations must contain “sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). Rule 8 “does not require ‘detailed factual allegations,’ but it demands more than an unadorned, the-defendantunlawfully-harmed-me accusation.” Id. (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555). A claim “has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Id. (citing Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556). “The plausibility standard is not akin to a ‘probability requirement,’
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but it asks for more than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully.” Id. (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556). The reviewing court must accept the plaintiff’s factual allegations as true and construe them in plaintiff’s favor, but it is not required to accept the legal conclusions the plaintiff draws from the facts alleged. Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678; Retro Television Network, Inc. v. Luken Commc’ns, LLC, 696 F.3d 766, 768-69 (8th Cir. 2012). A court must “draw on its judicial experience and common sense,” and consider the plausibility of the plaintiff’s claim as a whole, not the plausibility of each individual allegation. Zoltek Corp. v. Structural Polymer Grp., 592 F.3d 893, 896 n.4 (8th Cir. 2010) (quoting Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 679).
II. 1983 Municipal Liability Section 1983 provides a remedy against any person who, under color of state law, deprives another of rights protected by the constitution.” Collins v. City of Harker Heights, Tex., 503 U.S. 115, 120 (1992). Section 1983 liability for a constitutional violation may attach to a municipality if the violation resulted from (1) an “official municipal policy,” Monell v. Dept. of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 691 (1978); (2) an unofficial “custom,” id.; or (3) a deliberately indifferent failure to train or supervise, see City of Canton v. Harris, 489 U.S. 378, 389 (1989). The Supreme Court has rejected any heightened pleading requirement for claims alleging municipal liability under § 1983. Leatherman v. Tarrant Cty. Narcotics Intelligence & Coordination Unit, 507 U.S. 163, 165-66 (1993). To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint need only allege facts sufficient “to draw an inference that the conduct complained of resulted from an unconstitutional policy or custom.” Crumpley-Patterson v. Trinity Lutheran Hosp., 388 F.3d 588, 591 (8th Cir. 2004). Policy and custom are not the same thing. “[A] ‘policy’ is an official policy, a deliberate choice of a guiding principle or procedure made by the municipal official who has final authority regarding such matters.” Corwin v. City of Independence, MO., 829 F.3d 695, 699-700 (8th Cir.
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2015) (quoting Mettler v. Whitledge, 165 F.3d 1197, 1204 (8th Cir. 1999)). “Alternatively, a plaintiff may establish municipal liability through an unofficial custom of the municipality by demonstrating ‘(1) the existence of a continuing, widespread, persistent pattern of unconstitutional misconduct by the governmental entity’s employees; (2) deliberate indifference to or tacit authorization of such conduct by the governmental entity’s policymaking officials . . .; and (3) that plaintiff was injured by acts pursuant to the governmental entity’s custom.’” Corwin, 829 F.3d at 700 (quoting Snider v. City of Cape Girardeau, 752 F.3d 1149, 1160 (8th Cir. 2014). “Monell’s ‘policy or custom’ requirement applies in § 1983 cases irrespective of whether the relief sought is monetary or prospective.” Los Angeles Cty. v. Humphries, 562 U.S. 29, 39 (2010).
The City argues that Counts One through Three and Counts Five through Seven of the amended complaint fail to state a claim because Plaintiffs challenge only the actions of the municipal court and its judges, which Defendant contends is an insufficient basis to establish municipal policy or custom. 9 However, Plaintiffs’ claims are not so limited. The complaint clearly alleges that the conduct complained of was driven by the policies and practices implemented by the City for the purpose of increasing City revenue. Indeed, Plaintiffs’ amended complaint is awash with allegations that their alleged injuries resulted from the City’s own unconstitutional policies and the continuing and pervasive unconstitutional customs and practices of a wide range of City departments and employees, including police officers, jail staff and supervisors, and municipal judges, among others. Additionally, Plaintiffs assert that many of the alleged constitutional deprivations took place entirely outside of any judicial process whatsoever.
9 Defendant relies on a line of cases in which courts have held that a municipal judge does not act as a final policymaker of the municipality for purposes of municipal liability when making decisions under the authority of state law and appealable to the state’s higher courts. See, e.g. Granda v. City of St. Louis, 472 F.3d 565, 569 (8th Cir. 2007); Ledbetter v. City of Topeka, Kan., 318 F.3d 1183, 1189-90 (10th Cir. 2003); Eggar v. City of Livingston, 40 F.3d 312-16 (9th Cir. 1994); Johnson v. Moore, 958 F.2d 92, 94 (5th Cir. 1992); Woods v. City of Michigan City, Ind., 940 F.2d 275, 277-78 (7th Cir. 1991).
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The Court finds that Plaintiffs have pleaded facts sufficient to raise a reasonable expectation that discovery will reveal evidence to support their claim of municipal liability under § 1983, which is all that is required at this early stage in the proceedings. See Fant v. The City of Ferguson, No. 4:15-cv-00253-AGF, 2016 WL 6696065, at *6 (E.D. Mo. Nov. 15, 2016) (citing Johnson v. City of Philadelphia, No. 13-cv-02963, 2013 WL 4014565, at *3 (E.D. Pa. Aug. 7, 2013) (city’s policies and procedures, or lack thereof, are fact-sensitive issues that can be addressed in later proceedings)).
III. Conditions of Confinement Because Plaintiffs were pretrial detainees at the time of the alleged violation of their constitutional rights, the Court analyzes their claims under the Fourteenth Amendment, rather than the Eighth Amendment. See Owens v. Scott Cnty. Jail, 328 F.3d 1026, 1027 (8th Cir. 2003). When evaluating the constitutionality of conditions of confinement that are alleged to violate due process, the “proper inquiry is whether those conditions amount to punishment of the detainee.” Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 535 (1979). Under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, “a detainee may not be punished prior to an adjudication of guilt in accordance with due process of law.” Id. See also Owens, 328 F.3d at 1027 (whether jail conditions are unconstitutional depend on whether they constitute punishment); Boswell v. Sherburne Cnty., 849 F.2d 1117, 1120 (8th Cir. 1988) (“Pretrial detainees have not received a formal adjudication of the charges against them and as such are beyond the power of the state to punish”). While the Eighth Circuit has suggested that “the burden of showing a constitutional violation is lighter for a pretrial detainee under the Fourteenth Amendment than for a postconviction prisoner under the Eighth Amendment,” it has also “repeatedly . . . applied the same ‘deliberate indifference’ standard as is applied to Eighth Amendment claims made by convicted
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inmates.” Morris v. Zefferi, 601 F. 3d 805, 809 (8th Cir. 2010). Thus, pretrial detainees are “entitled to at least as great protection” as convicted prisoners are entitled under the Eighth Amendment. Stickley v. Byrd, 703 F.3d 421, 423 (8th Cir. 2013). “The Eighth Amendment prohibits penalties ‘that transgress today’s broad and idealistic concepts of dignity, civilized standards, humanity and decency.’ ” Morris, 601 F. 3d at 809 (quoting Hutto v. Finney, 437 U.S. 678, 685 (1976). “Punishment that deprives inmates of the minimal civilized measures of life’s necessities is unconstitutional.” Owens, 328 F.3d at 1027 (internal quotations omitted). “Hence, pretrial detainees are entitled to reasonably adequate sanitation, personal hygiene, and laundry privileges, particularly over a lengthy course of time.” Stickley, 703 F.3d at 423. “Conditions of confinement, however, constitute cruel and unusual punishment only when they have a mutually enforcing effect that produces the deprivation of a single, identifiable human need such as food, warmth, or exercise.” Whitnack v. Douglas County, 16 F.3d 954, 957 (8th Cir. 1994).
“In considering whether the conditions of pretrial detention are unconstitutionally punitive, [the Court] review[s] the totality of the circumstances of a pretrial detainee’s confinement.” Morris, 601 F.3d at 810 (citing Owens, 328 F.3d at 1027). While reviewing the totality of the circumstances of Plaintiffs’ confinement, the Court focuses on the nature of the conditions and the length of Plaintiffs’ exposure to these conditions. See Owens, 328 F.3d at 1027. “Conditions, such as a filthy cell, may be tolerable for a few days and intolerably cruel for weeks or months.” Whitnack, 16 F.3d at 958 (citations omitted). Plaintiffs allege that although they were each held for varying amounts of time during different time periods, they were all exposed to the same “deplorable conditions,” including overcrowded, filthy cells, lack of basic hygiene products, lack of access to clean water, uncomfortably cold conditions, denial of medical care, and insufficient food.
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Because the length of exposure did vary among Plaintiffs,10 these differences could impact the merits of each Plaintiff’s claim, since the determination as to whether a constitutional violation has occurred in this context is highly fact sensitive. Compare Williams v. Delo, 49 F.3d 442, 444-47 (8th Cir. 1995) (no constitutional violation when inmate was placed in cell for four days and deprived of clothes, running water, blanket, pillow, mattress, toothbrush, toothpaste, and soap) with Morris, 601 F.3d at 811 (transporting pretrial detainee in small, unsanitary dog cage for ninety minute drive “with no compelling urgency” to do so gave rise to inference that conduct amounted to unconstitutional punishment). Plaintiffs allege that they were held for up to several days at a time during which they were exposed to conditions that had “a mutually enforcing effect that produce[d] the deprivation of a single, identifiable human need such as food, warmth, or exercise.” Whitnack, 16 F.3d at 957. Plaintiffs also allege that on at least one occasion jail officials explicitly stated that they were keeping the jail uncomfortably cold in order to make prisoners so uncomfortable that they would want to pay up and leave. At this early stage of the proceedings, the Court finds Plaintiffs’ allegations are sufficient to state a plausible claim for a due process violation attributable to the City. EQUAL PROTECTION OF PLAINTIFFS AS COMPARED TO PRIVATE JUDGMENT DEBTORS
“[T]he Equal Protection Clause requires that state actors treat similarly situated people alike.” See Habhab v. Hon, 536 F.3d 963, 967 (8th Cir. 2008) (citing Bogren v. Minnesota, 236 F.3d 399, 408 (8th Cir. 2000). “State actors may, however, treat dissimilarly situated people dissimilarly without running afoul of the protections afforded by the clause.” Id. Thus, “the first step in an equal protection case is determining whether the plaintiff has demonstrated that she
10 Plaintiffs allege that they have attempted, through a Freedom of Information Act request, to gain more detailed information about the exact amount of time each Plaintiff was held, but have not received any information from the Defendant. (Doc. No. 16 at 7). Therefore, the amended complaint contains incomplete information concerning the exact amount of time each Plaintiff was held. Plaintiff Baker states that he was jailed fifteen times, and that he has been held for up to three to four days at a time. Plaintiff Bailey was jailed five or six times, for up to three days at a time. Plaintiff Bolden was held for over 48 hours during her first arrest. Plaintiff Nelson was held for at least two days.
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was treated differently than others who were similarly situated to her.” See Klinger v. Department of Corrections, 31 F.3d 727, 731 (8th Cir. 1994).
In order to state an equal protection claim based on being treated differently than private judgment debtors, Plaintiffs bear the burden of demonstrating that they are similarly situated to private civil judgment debtors. Id. Here, the City contends that Plaintiffs cannot meet this burden, asserting that they are not similarly situated to individuals owing money to private creditors because Plaintiffs’ fines are in the “criminal realm” and a “fine levied by a municipality is . . . not similar to a debt owed to a private creditor.” (Doc. No. 23 at 29-30). Plaintiffs allege that the fines and fees they owe the City are all civil in nature, as they arise from minor offenses such as traffic violations.11 (Doc. No. 31 at 22). See State ex rel. Kansas City v. Meyers, 513 S.W.2d 414,416 (Mo. 1974) (“Proceedings in municipal courts against persons for violations of city ordinances are civil actions . . ..”) (internal citation omitted). Plaintiffs also assert that in Missouri, private civil judgment debtors are privy to an array of protections unavailable to Plaintiffs, such as freedom from excess garnishment of wages,12 and that while such private judgment debtors are not subject to imprisonment for inability to pay a debt, Plaintiffs have repeatedly been jailed for their inability to pay the City.
In James v. Strange, 407 U.S. 128 (1972), the Supreme Court held that a Kansas statute that permitted state recoupment from indigent criminal defendants without affording the defendants the protections granted to civil judgment debtors violated equal protection. James, 407 U.S. at 141-42 (equal protection clause requires “more even treatment of indigent criminal defendants with other classes of debtors”). The Equal Protection Clause “imposes a requirement
11 Plaintiff Baker’s fines arise from minor traffic violations, including cutting through a parking lot, driving with a defective muffler, driving with no seat belt, speeding, and improper tags. Plaintiff Bailey’s fines arise from speeding tickets and driving with a suspended license. Plaintiff Bolden’s fines arise from similarly minor violations such as driving with expired registration and a suspended license. Plaintiff Nelson was jailed for not paying fines related to traffic tickets and driving a vehicle with expired registration. 12 See R.S. Mo. § 525.030.1(2)(1) (courts cannot order garnishment of more than 25% of a person’s aggregate weekly earnings).
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of some rationality in the nature of the class singled out” and such rationality “is lacking where, as in the instant case, the State has subjected indigent defendants to such discriminatory conditions of repayment” not imposed on other judgment debtors. James, 407 U.S. at 140. See also Olson v. James, 603 F.2d 150, 154 (10th Cir. 1979) (explaining that the essence of the holding in James was that “indigent defendants were entitled to evenhanded treatment in relationship to other classes of debtors.”). Additionally, in Tate v. Short, 401 U.S. 395 (1971) the Supreme Court held that a Texas court violated the Equal Protection Clause by ordering the imprisonment of an indigent person based on his failure to pay traffic fines. Tate, 401 at 399 (the Constitution “prohibits the State from imposing a fine as a sentence and then automatically converting it into a jail term solely because the defendant is indigent and cannot forthwith pay the fine in full.”) Plaintiffs have alleged that the fines and fees they owe are all civil in nature, yet, they have clearly been subjected to debt-collection efforts that would never be tolerated if utilized against a private civil judgment debtor whose creditor is not the government. Consequently, the Court finds that at this early stage of the proceedings, Plaintiffs have adequately alleged an equal protection violation. STANDING FOR INJUNCTIVE RELIEF
The United States Constitution vests federal courts with jurisdiction over disputes only if there is a “case” or “controversy.” U.S. Const. art. III, § 2; Raines v. Byrd, 521 U.S. 811, 818 (1997). One element of the case or controversy requirement is that the plaintiff must establish that she has standing to sue. Raines, 521 U.S. at 818. “To establish standing, a party must, at a minimum, have suffered an “injury-in-fact,” fairly traceable to the defendant’s conduct, which is likely to be redressed by a favorable decision.” Johnson v. Missouri, 142 F.3d 1087, 1088 (8th Cir. 1998) (quoting Brouhard v. Lee, 125 F.3d 656, 661 (8th Cir. 1997)). “In the case of complaints for injunctive relief, the ‘injury in fact’ element of standing requires a showing that
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the plaintiff faces a threat of ongoing or future harm.” Park v. Forest Serv. of the United States, 205 F.3d 1034, 1037 (8th Cir. 2000).
Defendant argues that Plaintiffs cannot establish any such threat. However, at this stage of the proceedings and based on the facts alleged in the amended complaint, the Court finds that Plaintiffs have adequately pleaded a reasonable likelihood of future harm, as they have stated that they still owe debts to the City and live with the constant fear that they will again be arrested and jailed because they cannot pay those debts. See Fant, No. 4:15-cv-00253-AGF, 2016 WL 6696065, at *6, (E.D. Mo. Nov. 15, 2016) (citing Ray v. Judicial Corr. Servs., No. 2-12-CV02819-RDP, 2013 WL 5428360, at *13 (N.D. Ala. Sept. 26, 2013) (holding that the plaintiffs’ allegations that they “still owe[d] various fines and fees,” demonstrated that they were “under the present and constant threat of being subject to the allegedly illegal methods and procedures utilized . . . to collect municipal fines,” and their request for “prospective injunctive relief” was therefore appropriate)).
Defendant also asserts that Plaintiffs’ claims are not yet ripe. The ripeness doctrine is grounded in Article III’s jurisdictional limit to deciding actual cases and controversies. Pub. Water Supply Dist. No. 8 of Clay Cnty., Mo. v. City of Kearney, Mo., 401 F.3d 930, 932 (8th Cir. 2005). The doctrine exists to “prevent the courts, through avoidance of premature adjudication, from entangling themselves in abstract disagreements.” Abbott Labs v. Gardner, 387 U.S. 136, 148 (1967). A federal court may not address a dispute unless it is definite and concrete, rather than hypothetical or abstract. Nebraska Pub. Power Dist. v. MidAmerican Energy Co., 234 F.3d 1032, 1037-38 (8th Cir. 2000).
“The touchstone of a ripeness inquiry is whether the harm asserted has matured enough to warrant judicial intervention.” Parrish v. Dayton, 761 F.3d 873, 875 (8th Cir. 2014) (citations omitted). “A claim is not ripe for adjudication if it rests upon ‘contingent future events that may
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not occur as anticipated, or indeed may not occur at all.’” Texas v. United States, 523 U.S. 296, 300 (1998) (quoting Thomas v. Union Carbide Agric. Prods. Co., 473 U.S. 568, 580-81 (1985)). However, a plaintiff does not have to wait until a threatened harm has materialized before she can seek preventive relief; “[i]f the injury is certainly impending, that is enough.” Parrish, 761 F.3d at 876 (internal quotations omitted). The City argues that whether Plaintiffs will ever again suffer from the alleged unconstitutional practices is “far too speculative to warrant an equitable remedy.” (Doc. No. 23 at 43). To the contrary, and as discussed supra, Plaintiffs allege that they continue to owe debts to the City, and live with the very real fear that they can at any time be arrested and jailed for that reason. At this stage of the proceedings, the Court finds that the facts in the amended complaint sufficiently allege injury to Plaintiffs that is certainly impending.
The City also argues that Plaintiffs’ “claims for equitable relief are abstract questions of wide significance, amounting to a general grievance with Defendant” and thus implicate prudential concerns that bear on the question of standing. (Doc. No. 23 at 42). Plaintiffs here have satisfied any such “prudential” concerns, since they have “assert[ed] their own legal rights and interests,” and not merely a “generalized grievance[ ]” of the public at large. Valley Forge Christian Coll. v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Inc., 454 U.S. 464, 47475 (1982). Whether Plaintiffs will be able to demonstrate that the factors governing injunctive relief definitively weigh in their favor can be determined at a later stage in the proceedings.
CONCLUSION For the reasons set forth above, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that defendant City of Florissant’s motion to dismiss, or alternatively to strike or for a more definite statement via repleading is DENIED. (Doc. No. 22).
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/s/Nannette A. Baker NANNETTE A. BAKER UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE SO ORDERED this 11th day of December, 2017.
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 Case: 4:16-cv-01693-NAB Doc. #: 16 Filed: 12/13/16 Page: 1 of 52 PageID #: 85

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI
EASTERN DIVISION

)

THOMAS BAKER, SEAN BAILEY,

)

NICOLE BOLDEN, ALLISON

)

NELSON, MEREDITH WALKER,

)

individually and on behalf of all others )

similarly situated,

)

)

Plaintiffs,

)

)

v.

)

)

THE CITY OF FLORISSANT

)

)

Defendant.

)

___________________________________ )

No. 4:16-cv-1693 (Jury Trial Demanded)

FIRST AMENDED CLASS ACTION COMPLAINT

Introduction

1. The Plaintiffs in this case are all impoverished Missourians who were jailed by

the City of Florissant because they were unable to make a monetary payment to the City arising

from traffic tickets or other minor municipal offenses. In each instance, the City kept a human

being in its jail solely because the person could not afford to pay for their release. Each was held

in jail indefinitely without either the legal representation or the inquiry into their ability to pay

guaranteed by the United States Constitution. Instead, they were threatened, abused, and left to

languish in confinement until their frightened family members produced enough cash to buy

their freedom, or until City jail officials decided, days or weeks later, to release them free of

charge—after it had become clear the City would not be able to extract any money from them.

2. The City’s modern debtors’ prison scheme has been increasingly profitable to the

City of Florissant, earning it millions of dollars over the past several years. It has devastated the

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poor in the City and surrounding area, trapping people for years in a cycle of increased fees, debt, extortion, and cruel jailings. Thousands of people like the Plaintiffs take from their disability checks or sacrifice money that is desperately needed by their families for food, diapers, clothing, rent, and utilities to pay ever-increasing court fines, fees, costs, and surcharges arising from minor offenses. They are told by City officials that if they do not pay, they will be thrown in jail. The cycle repeats itself, month after month, for years.
3. The treatment of Thomas Baker, Sean Bailey, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, and Meredith Walker reveals systemic illegality perpetrated by the City of Florissant against some of its poorest people. The City has engaged in the same conduct, as a matter of policy and practice, against many other impoverished human beings on a daily basis for years, unlawfully jailing people if they are too poor to pay. The result is an abusive system that flagrantly violates the basic constitutional and human rights of our community’s most vulnerable people.
4. Once locked in the Florissant jail, impoverished people who cannot afford to pay the City endure grotesque treatment. They are kept in overcrowded cells; they are denied toothbrushes, toothpaste, and soap; they are subjected to the constant stench of excrement and refuse in their congested cells; they are kept in the same clothes for days and weeks without access to laundry or shoes or underwear; they step on top of other inmates, whose bodies cover nearly the entire uncleaned cell floor, in order to access a single shared toilet that the City does not clean; illnesses and even infected wounds go untreated and uncovered; they endure days and weeks without being allowed to use the moldy shower; they are housed in short-sleeve jump suits; shoes and flip-flops are not permitted, so those who are not arrested in socks go barefoot on the dirty cement floor; they huddle in cells kept intentionally cold in order to quiet detainees, forced to retreat under a single thin blanket as they beg guards for warmer coverings; they are
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not given adequate hygiene products for menstruation; they are routinely denied vital medical care and prescription medication, even when their families beg to be allowed to bring medication to the jail; they are provided food so insufficient and lacking in nutrition that inmates lose significant amounts of weight; they suffer from dehydration out of fear of drinking foul smelling water dispensed from an apparatus covered in blood and mucus on top of the toilet, without sufficient pressure to drink from without pressing their lips to the contaminated apparatus; and they must listen to the screams of other inmates languishing from unattended medical issues as they sit in their cells without access to books, or legal materials. Perhaps worst of all, they do not know when they will be allowed to leave their disorienting and timeless cage, deprived of windows and perpetually flooded in florescent light.
5. These physical abuses and deprivations are accompanied by other pervasive humiliations. Jail guards primarily ignore, but also routinely taunt impoverished people when they are unable to pay for their release.
6. The City applies its scheme broadly, making jail or payment virtually unavoidable for the area’s poor. Florissant is the largest municipality in St. Louis County by population, and the eighth largest by area. Florissant has a population of 51,812 according to the 2010 U.S. Census. In 2015 alone, the City of Florissant issued 28,436 arrest warrants, equaling an average of 1.3 arrest warrants per household and almost 0.79 arrest warrants for every adult, mostly involving unpaid debt for municipal violations. Between 2011 and 2015, the City of Florissant filed 151,026 new cases. During that same period Florissant generated between 13.2 and 14.5 million dollars in revenue through its municipal court, thus averaging of 2.65 – 2.9 million dollars per year, accounting for over 12 percent of the City’s net revenue.
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7. City officials and employees—through their conduct, decisions, training and lack
of training, rules, policies, and practices—have built a municipal scheme designed to brutalize,
to punish, and to profit from low-income, predominantly minority drivers. Until 2015, the
prosecutor in the City of Florissant was the judge in the City of Ferguson, whose municipal court
practices and policies were highlighted in ArchCity Defenders’ 2014 report as well as the Department of Justice’s 2015 report.1 Additionally, the architecture of this illegal scheme has been in place for nearly 50 years.2
8. By and through their attorneys and on behalf of a class of similarly situated
individuals, the Plaintiffs seek in this civil action the vindication of their fundamental rights,
compensation for the violations that they suffered and for payments wrongly extracted,
injunctive relief assuring that their rights will not be violated again, and a declaration that the City’s conduct is unlawful. In the year 2016, these practices have no place in our society.3
Nature of the Action
9. It is and has been the policy and practice of the City of Florissant to jail people
who cannot afford to pay cash bonds and debts owed to the City resulting from traffic tickets and
1 See, Municipal Courts White Paper, ArchCity Defenders, Thomas Harvey et al (November 23, 2014) (available at http://www.archcitydefenders.org/archcity-defenders-municipal-courtswhitepaper-2/); Investigation of the Ferguson Police Department, United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division (March 4, 2015). 2 See, e.g., T.E. Lauer, Prolegomenon to Municipal Court Reform in Missouri, 31 Mo. L. Rev. 69, 93 (1966) (“Our municipal jails are, in almost every case, nothing but calabooses suited at best for temporary detention. The worst of them are comparable with medieval dungeons of the average class; they are the shame of our cities.”); id. at 88 (“[I]t seems that many citizens of the state are being confined needlessly in our city jails…..”); id. at 85 (“[I]t is disgraceful that we do not appoint counsel in our municipal courts to represent indigent persons accused of ordinance violations.”); id. at 90 (“It is clear that many municipalities have at times conceived of their municipal courts in terms of their revenue-raising ability….”). 3 The Plaintiffs make the allegations in this Complaint based on personal knowledge as to matters in which they have had personal involvement and on information and belief as to all other matters.
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other minor offenses, without conducting any inquiry into each individual’s ability to pay and without considering alternatives to imprisonment as required by federal and Missouri law.
10. It is and has been the policy and practice of the City to jail indigent people for failure to pay debts owed to the City, without informing them of their right to counsel and without otherwise providing adequate counsel.
11. It is and has been the policy and practice of the City to hold indigent inmates in the City jail indefinitely, unless and until the inmates’ families or friends make monetary payments sufficient to satisfy the City. It is and has been the policy and practice of the City to bargain with inmates and their families on an amount of money that the City will accept in exchange for the inmate’s release.
12. It is and has been the policy and practice of the City to arbitrarily and incrementally reduce the amount of money required for release throughout a person’s indefinite detention, eventually releasing the person for free if the City determines it is unlikely to profit from further detention.
13. It is and has been the policy and practice of the City to issue and enforce invalid arrest warrants; to threaten debtors that they will be jailed if they do not appear in court or at the jail with money in hand; to hold jail arrestees for days without appearing before a judge; and to set and subsequently modify monetary payments required to secure release arbitrarily and without any formal process.
14. It is and has been the policy and practice of the City to confine impoverished people who cannot afford to pay their fines and/or bond in grotesque, dangerous, inhumane conditions.
15. The Plaintiffs seek declaratory, injunctive, and compensatory relief.
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Jurisdiction and Venue

16. This is a civil rights action arising under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, 28 U.S.C. § 2201, et

seq., and the Fourth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States

Constitution. This Court therefore has jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331 & 1343.

17. Venue in this District is proper pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1391 because the

Defendant resides here, and a substantial portion of the events giving rise to Plaintiffs’ claims

occurred in this District.

Parties

18. Plaintiff Thomas Baker is a 41-year-old man. Plaintiff Sean Bailey is a 37-year-

old man. Plaintiff Nicole Bolden is a 34-year-old woman. Plaintiff Allison Nelson is a 24-year-

old woman. Plaintiff Meredith Walker is a 47-year-old woman. All of the named Plaintiffs are

residents of Saint Louis County, and the individual facts and circumstances giving rise to their

claims are described below.

19. Defendant City of Florissant is a municipal corporation organized under the laws

of the State of Missouri. The Defendant operates the Florissant City Jail and the Florissant

Municipal Court.

Factual Background

A.

The Plaintiffs’ Imprisonment

i. Thomas Baker

20. Thomas Baker is a 41-year-old African-American male, a former army reservist, a

father of three children—ages eleven years, five years, and three months—and a resident of the

City of Florissant.

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21. Mr. Baker estimates that he has been jailed approximately fifteen times in the City
of Florissant in the past five years, each time for failure to pay fines on minor municipal
ordinance violations and for failure-to-appear charges. Mr. Baker has been jailed for as long as three to four days following such arrests.4 Each time Mr. Baker has been jailed by the City of
Florissant, the city has assessed a “bond” between $600 and $1,200 to secure his release.
Notably, many of the bonds and arrests arise from alleged minor traffic violations punishable by
a fine of not more than $300 dollars and no term of imprisonment, even upon conviction.
22. Mr. Baker has never been brought before a judge while in custody.
23. Based on records produced by Florissant, Mr. Baker has been arrested, charged,
assessed bonds and fines, and imprisoned multiple times based on minor traffic offenses, on at
least the following occasions:
a. A warrant issued on September 12, 2012, for an alleged traffic violation for which Mr. Baker was charged with cutting through a parking lot to avoid an intersection, in violation of Florissant Municipal Code § 340.160, which carries a maximum penalty of a $300.00 fine, and for failure to appear at a court date related to it, assigning a $200.00 bond, plus $125.00 in fees and costs. On January 17, 2013, Mr. Baker was taken into custody by Florissant police at the police station in Creve Coeur, Missouri, on the September 12, 2012 warrant.
b. On September 5, 2013, Florissant issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Baker for operating a vehicle with a defective muffler in violation of Florissant Municipal Code § 380.140, which carries a maximum penalty of a $300.00 fine and no jail time, and for failure to appear at a related court date. The warrant carried a $700.00 bond, and noted four charges for failures to appear, and an outstanding debt to the city of $625.50.
c. Florissant police again arrested Mr. Baker on December 19, 2013, when he was stopped for allegedly speeding and driving without a seatbelt fastened.
4 Counsel for Plaintiffs requested, in writing, that the City of Florissant provide information regarding the length of stay for each period of detention, pursuant to Missouri Sunshine Law, Mo. Rev. Stat. 610.100. In almost every case the City of Florissant neglected to provide information regarding either the period of detention, or the release dates of Plaintiffs.
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Police arrested him on the September 5, 2013 warrant, and for warrants outstanding in Berkley, Missouri, and Ferguson, Missouri.
d. On April 16, 2014, Florissant issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Baker based on the alleged speeding violation from December 19, 2013 and another failure to appear charge. That warrant carried a new $200.00 bond. On May 11, 2014, Florissant police took Mr. Baker into custody on the warrant. The narrative description of the arrest states Mr. Baker was held only on the failure to appear charge, and for charges in the Berkley and Ferguson jurisdictions. A new court date issued for September 3, 2014.
e. On July 17, 2014, Florissant issued yet another arrest warrant for Mr. Baker for allegedly improper vehicle registration tags in violation of Florissant Municipal Code § 390.050, which carries a maximum penalty of a $300.00 fine and no jail time, and for two alleged failures to appear. The warrant carried a $400.00 bond. Florissant police arrested Mr. Baker on February 20, 2015 when he was pulled over for allegedly speeding and possessing improper vehicle registration. He was held for the speeding charge, the improper registration charge, and the four outstanding failure to appear warrants, issued by Florissant, St. Louis County, and the City of St. Louis.
24. Following the above-referenced arrests, Florissant has repeatedly given Mr. Baker
court dates which conflict with court dates in other jurisdictions and/or conflict with work shifts
he is assigned at his job, often without sufficient notice to schedule time off. This has made it
especially difficult for Mr. Baker to appear at his court dates in the Florissant Municipal Court,
with a missed appearance carrying the threat of an additional $100 fine, a new failure to appear
warrant, and a corresponding bond required to secure his release from confinement.
25. Mr. Baker has never been given credit for time served in the Florissant City Jail,
leaving him in a perpetual state of debt to the City of Florissant.
26. In 2015, Mr. Baker lost his job at Specified Credit Association while he was in
the City’s custody. Mr. Baker told the jail staff that he needed to call in to work, but was not
permitted to call. His car was repossessed because he had no income after losing his job and was
forced to pay what money he had toward his fines in the City of Florissant to avoid further
jailing. He was thus unable to make his car payments.
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27. During his stays in Florissant’s jail, Mr. Baker was denied access to medical care by Florissant jail officers who would not permit him to access his medication for depression and anxiety. The officers at the jail told him that they did not believe he needed his medication or he would have carried it with him. Mr. Baker had no need to carry his medication with him because he takes it once nightly before bed. Mr. Baker’s medications, Ativan, Desyrel, and Lexapro, cannot be stopped suddenly without harmful side effects.
28. Mr. Baker experienced the disorienting effects of perpetual florescent light, which lit the Florissant jail 24 hours per day. With no clocks inside of, or visible from, the jail cells and no access to natural light, Mr. Baker sometimes had little sense of what time it was or how long he had been detained in the jail.
29. The City of Florissant did not provide cups to its inmates. The only source of water was a spout connected to the toilet. The spout did not produce adequate water pressure to dispense water past the lip of the basin where the water is caught and drains. The toilets were not cleaned regularly. Thus, the only way to drink water was to press one’s lips against the dirty toilet basin. Fearing for his health if he drank from such an unsanitary water source, Mr. Baker did not drink water at any time that he was held by the City of Florissant and was denied clean water entirely.
30. Nearly every time that Mr. Baker was jailed by the City of Florissant, he witnessed overcrowded cells where three to four men or women were held in a two-person cell. On one occasion, Mr. Baker was housed in a two-man cell, with only two mats on two steel bunks. During that stay, four men were eventually stuffed into the small cell at the same time. No additional mats were provided for the additional men, and Mr. Baker was forced to sleep on the hard steel slab that he had claimed for himself, so that one of the men, sleeping on the ground
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next to the toilet, could use a sleeping mat. On occasions when Mr. Baker was the third or fourth man, he stood throughout the night while the others slept.
31. On one occasion, Mr. Baker was housed in a cell adjacent to a large man suffering from a Staph infection who had sores covering his body. The jail made no effort to cover the sores, and provided no treatment to the man. During that same stay, Mr. Baker observed another man enter another jail cell, who was visibly injured and bloody from some physical altercation. Mr. Baker was horrified to observe that the sleeping mats and blankets used by these inmates were not cleaned or disinfected but merely thrown into a pile where they contaminated other mats and blankets before they were used again.
32. At no time did Florissant perform an inquiry into Mr. Baker’s indigence or ability to pay.
ii. Sean Bailey 33. Mr. Bailey is a 37-seven-year-old single father of one. He has experienced extended periods of homelessness since October 2014. He currently lives in St. Louis City. 34. In February 2006, Mr. Bailey was pulled over, ticketed and arrested in Florissant for allegedly speeding and driving with a suspended driver’s license. 35. At his initial court date for the traffic violations, Mr. Bailey appeared in court, where the Florissant municipal judge announced that everyone was expected to make a payment against their traffic fines that evening, and that anyone who was unable to make a payment should prepare themselves to go to jail that evening. Mr. Bailey could not afford to make a payment, but secured his release by entering a guilty plea and agreeing to a payment plan even though he could not afford to keep up with it.
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36. When his next court date arrived, he did not have enough money to make the required payment. Fearing the Florissant Municipal Judge’s threat of imprisonment if he was unable to pay, Mr. Bailey did not return to court. As a result, a warrant issued automatically for his arrest.
37. Mr. Bailey estimates that he has been jailed five or six times by the City of Florissant based on warrants stemming from the original 2006 violations, sometimes for as long as 72 hours.
38. In November 2012, the City of Florissant took Mr. Bailey into custody from the St. Louis City Justice Center. He had spent two months in the “Workhouse” (the St. Louis City Medium Security Institution) as a pre-trial detainee because he had been unable to pay a bond issued by St. Louis City until it was reduced to $100, which he borrowed money to pay.
39. The temperature outside was twenty-eight degrees when Florissant took Mr. Bailey into custody. When he arrived at the Florissant jail, the air conditioner was running. Florissant jail officers gave Mr. Bailey an orange jumpsuit, a sheer blanket as thin as a golf shirt, and a dirty sleeping mat to take to his cell. The officers took his underpants and shoes. He and fellow inmates complained about the frigid temperatures, but the jailers told the inmates that the place would become a cesspool if they did not keep it cold. The jailers also stated that they wanted the jail to be uncomfortable so that inmates would not want be there and would be motivated to pay their bonds and fines.
40. Mr. Bailey was given a $500 bond, which he was not able to pay. Florissant officers released him the following morning on a recognizance bond.
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41. Documents produced by Florissant show that Mr. Bailey has been arrested on failure to appear charges stemming from that same 2006 arrest on at least the following occasions:
a. On April 16, 2013, Florissant police arrested Mr. Bailey on a failure to appear charge stemming from the same traffic arrest issued seven years earlier in 2006, and on an outstanding warrant from the City of Ferguson. The Florissant warrant carried a $500 bond. At the time he was unemployed. Florissant police held him at the city jail for thirty-six hours, then transferred him to the custody of the Ferguson police department with a Florissant court date 120 days later on August 15, 2013.
b. On August 15, 2013, a warrant issued for Mr. Bailey’s arrest for failure to appear. The warrant carried another $500 bond. On November 15, 2013, Florissant police executed the warrant and arrested Mr. Bailey on the failure to appear charge while he was in custody of the St. Louis City police department.
42. Bonds requested of Mr. Bailey stemming from his 2006 traffic arrest ran as high as $1,000, and fines reached nearly $1,500, accruing from “Failure to Appear” Charges and warrant fees. During some stays in Florissant jail, his jailers and their Sergeants would attempt to negotiate with him to pay various amounts of bonds, decreasing the amounts requested the longer he was held, until he was finally released either after payment or on his own recognizance if he was unable to pay any amount. Mr. Bailey never saw or appeared before a judge while he was in custody.
43. While Mr. Bailey was being held in the Florissant jail, drinking water came only from the top of the toilet, via a spout and reservoir that were generally covered with spit, blood, and urine, in their perch roughly one and a half feet from the toilet seat. Cups were never provided to detainees, and the water pressure was insufficient, requiring thirsty detainees suffering from the dry, air-conditioned air, to press their lips against the contaminated surface to
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drink. The water temperature varied unpredictably from hot to cold, and always tasted and smelled rank. Mr. Bailey felt that the water was not fit to give to a dog.
44. Mr. Bailey never saw Florissant jailers clean any cells. The only time he saw the jailers clean was when an inmate vomited in the hallway that guards regularly walked. Otherwise, the cells remained dirty.
45. Used, dirty sleeping mats and blankets were stacked in a laundry cart, but were not cleaned between uses. They were visibly stained, smelled of other people’s body odor, and were uniformly contaminated with sweat, puss, blood, vomit, and other bodily fluids of countless inmates, along with dirt and other contaminants.
46. Phone use was severely limited in Florissant jail. Mr. Bailey observed that only one call could be made at booking. If no one answered, the inmate was “out of luck.” Otherwise, calls could be made within the jail only one at a time, and he and other inmates often went a day or more without being permitted to make any telephone calls, including to lawyers and family. Generally, only one collect call was permitted per detainee per stay, and then only to individuals in possession of a credit card who were willing to accept the charges and able to receive calls.
47. Mr. Bailey observed that cells were overcrowded at the Florissant jail. Three-bed cells were often stuffed with a fourth detainee, who would then be forced to sleep on the floor.
48. Mr. Bailey and other inmates were routinely denied access to their medications. 49. All of Mr. Bailey’s experiences with the Ferguson Municipal Court and Jail stem from his arrest by Florissant police for municipal traffic violations in February 2006, now more than ten and a half years ago. 50. At no time did Florissant perform an inquiry into Mr. Bailey’s indigence or ability to pay.
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iii. Nicole Bolden 51. Nicole Bolden is a 34-year-old single mother of four children. 52. Ms. Bolden was arrested in the City of Florissant on or about March 19, 2014 after she was involved in a traffic accident. Police arrived on the scene of the accident at approximately 8:30 a.m. Ms. Bolden had just dropped off two of her children at school and was driving with her two other children, a two-and-a-half-year-old daughter and a fourteen-monthold son. Ms. Bolden was not at fault, but a responding officer conducted a warrant check and discovered that Ms. Bolden had outstanding arrest warrants in three jurisdictions: the cities of Dellwood and Hazelwood in St. Louis County, and Foristell in St. Charles County. All of Ms. Bolden’s warrants were for unpaid traffic tickets. 53. The arresting Florissant officer instructed Ms. Bolden to contact someone to come pick up her children. Fortunately, Ms. Bolden was near her mother’s house and able to reach her sister. Ms. Bolden was permitted to wait with her children while her sister took a taxi to the location of the accident. Once her sister arrived, the officer handcuffed Ms. Bolden and placed her in a police car in the presence of her children. The officer then transported her to the Florissant jail. 54. After arriving at the Florissant jail, Ms. Bolden requested that she be taken to the hospital so that she could be examined for possible injuries suffered during the accident. The arresting officer refused, and instead offered Ms. Bolden pills that she stated were ibuprofen. Ms. Bolden was not sure that the pills contained ibuprofen and refused to take them. This angered the officer, who placed a warning by Ms. Bolden’s name on the dry-erase inmate information board. The officer then told her that she would have to stay in jail until she could pay her bond.
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55. Ms. Bolden was assigned a $400 bond on traffic charges issued after Florissant officers responded to the accident. The charges were for driving with a suspended driver’s license and driving a vehicle with expired registration, both Florissant Municipal Code violations.
56. Ms. Bolden told the jail officers that she could not afford the bond and asked why she had a bond on charges for which she had not yet been assigned a court date. The guard did not answer her question except to state that Ms. Bolden would be released to Hazelwood sooner if she paid the bond.
57. Florissant jailers placed Ms. Bolden in a cell with four other women. The cell and floors were dirty. One of her cellmates stated that she saw a roach, but Ms. Bolden closed her eyes and tried to sleep. The sleeping mats and blankets provided by the jailers were also dirty.
58. The jail was cold, and without any natural light. Jail officers gave Ms. Bolden a short-sleeved jumpsuit to wear, and permitted her to keep her underwear. Ms. Bolden did not have socks, so she went barefoot throughout her stay.
59. Because the jumpsuits were one piece, the women had to strip to their knees to use the toilet. They warned each other when they were using the toilet to give one another privacy. Those without bras exposed their breasts as they used their hands to keep their jumpsuits off of the floor and away from the toilet water. These predominantly black women hoped that the predominantly white and male guards did not watch them on the video surveillance cameras while they relieved themselves, but had no way to avoid it.
60. One of Ms. Bolden’s cellmates was going through withdrawal from a substance dependence, for which she received no treatment. Another was menstruating. That woman asked for sanitary supplies, but was not provided with tampons, pads, toilette paper, a shower, soap to
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clean herself, or even a clean jumpsuit. Menstrual blood soaked through her jump suit and onto her sleeping mat and blanket. The only hygiene product available to her were tissues.
61. In addition to the hygiene products listed above, Ms. Bolden and her fellow detainees were also denied access to toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodorant, and combs. They ate microwaveable pot pies for lunch and dinner and doughnuts for breakfast. Water was only available from a spout connected to the dirty toilets they shared, with insufficient water pressure to drink without pressing their lips against the toilet.
62. At no point did any guards inquire about Ms. Bolden’s ability to pay her bond. She was never taken before a judge.
63. Ms. Bolden was held in Florissant for over 48 hours before she was taken into custody by the City of Hazelwood on March 21, 2014. From the City of Hazelwood she was taken into custody by St. Louis County on a warrant arising from a traffic ticket in the City of Dellwood. From St. Louis County, she was then transported to St. Charles County and held there on behalf of the City of Foristell, also for a warrant stemming from a traffic ticket. In total, she was jailed for 15 straight days solely due to her inability to pay fines for municipal court violations.
64. Florissant arrested and jailed Ms. Bolden again on April 27, 2015. This arrest stemmed from a failure to appear warrant. Ms. Bolden was again assessed two $200 bonds that she could pay to secure her release. The conditions in the jail were substantially the same as during her incarceration in March, 2014. At this time, however, Ms. Bolden was in her third trimester of pregnancy, and her mother had recently died. Ms. Bolden received a small sum of money from her mother’s life insurance policy. She used part of that money to pay her bond and go home.
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65. At no time did Florissant perform an inquiry into Ms. Bolden’s indigence or ability to pay.
iv. Allison Nelson 66. Allison Nelson is a 24-year-old woman living in Jennings, Missouri. 67. Ms. Nelson worked at a clothing store making near minimum wage from June 2012 to June 2014. She was recently hired by Sears, working on commission and making $4.63 per hour. 68. Ms. Nelson has been jailed on two occasions by Florissant because she could not pay fines and costs from traffic tickets. On each occasion, Ms. Nelson was held in jail—even though she was indigent—because she could not afford a sum of money demanded by the City. 69. On June 26, 2012, Florissant issued a warrant for Ms. Nelson’s arrest for failure to appear, stemming from a citation for allegedly driving a vehicle with expired registration in violation of Florissant Municipal Code § 390.050. A violation of Section 390.050 is a “minor traffic violation,” carrying a penalty of not more than a $300 fine and no jail time. The arrest warrant carried a $200 bond. 70. On January 22, 2013, Florissant police took Ms. Nelson into custody from the Ferguson police department. Florissant officers released Ms. Nelson after her mother, who lives on a fixed income, paid her bond. 71. In November 2013, Ms. Nelson was arrested in Chesterfield on a Florissant warrant for failure to make a monetary payment stemming from traffic tickets. She remained in Chesterfield for several hours awaiting pickup by Florissant. While she was in Chesterfield, her mother contacted the City of Florissant to see how much it would cost to bond her out. Florissant
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officials told her that it would cost $700 to bond Ms. Nelson out, but that the bond would be reduced once Ms. Nelson could be picked up by Florissant and booked.
72. Florissant police collected Ms. Nelson sometime after midnight and took her to the Florissant City Jail. At some point thereafter, Ms. Nelson’s bond was reduced to $300. Ms. Nelson’s mother still could not afford to bond her out. Ms. Nelson remained in jail for approximately two days until her mother was able to borrow the bond money on her behalf.
73. During this period in the Florissant jail, Ms. Nelson was housed with a sick, coughing older woman and a pregnant heroin addict who was experiencing severe symptoms of withdrawal, foaming at the mouth and urinating on herself and on the floor. The guards did nothing to clean up the woman or the mess, other than to push the urine around on the floor with a wet mop and release the woman from jail.
74. Even after Ms. Nelson’s mother was able to secure enough money to bond her out of the Florissant jail, Ms. Nelson was taken to the Jennings jail. There, jail staff told Ms. Nelson that she would not be released unless she paid approximately $1,000. She informed the jail staff that she could not afford to pay. After four days, the jail staff informed her that her release amount would be lowered to $100. Her parents came to the jail and paid $100, and she was released immediately in the early morning hours of Thanksgiving Day. Ms. Nelson was then transported to the Ferguson jail. Ferguson jail staff told her that she would be held indefinitely and miss Thanksgiving with her family unless she paid several hundred dollars. That same morning, after shift change, a new guard arrived and told her that, since it was Thanksgiving, he would agree to let her out if she could find someone to pay $100. Ms. Nelson’s family borrowed money and came as fast as they could to Ferguson in order to bring her home for Thanksgiving.
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75. While in the Florissant jail, Ms. Nelson was surrounded by other women who were there because they could not afford to pay the amount that Florissant required for their release.
76. Ms. Nelson endured materially the same deplorable jail conditions as the other Plaintiffs. She was kept in a cell and denied access to a toothbrush, toothpaste, and soap. The walls were moldy and covered in gum, paint chips, blood, mucus, and feces.
77. The jail did not provide clean mats, and also passed dirty blankets from previous inmates to new inmates without cleaning them.
78. If the inmates wanted water, she and the other women were forced to drink warm water from a mechanism above the toilet, which smelled like a sewer. The water pressure was insufficient so that the water did not break contact with the toilet. Ms. Nelson was unable to drink water under such conditions and went without water each time she was held in Florissant.
79. Ms. Nelson and other inmates ate only a honey bun or a doughnut in the morning and a microwaveable pot pie for lunch and dinner.
80. The threat of jail and cycle of increasing debts to the City of Florissant has been a constant fact of daily life for Ms. Nelson for several years, causing her fear of leaving her own home or even getting into a car as a passenger.
81. Ms. Nelson’s dream for years has been to join the Navy. After she passed the relevant tests as a teenager, a Navy recruiter told her that she could not join until she fixed all of her unpaid traffic warrants and tickets. She was never able to afford to do so.
82. In addition to being jailed by Florissant, Ms. Nelson has also suffered through arrests and jailings by the City of Chesterfield, the City of Ferguson, the City of Jennings, the City of Pagedale, the City of Country Club Hills, and the City of Bellefontaine Neighbors. In
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every instance, she has been jailed simply because she could not afford to pay fines, fees and/or bonds related to traffic tickets.
83. At no time did Florissant perform an inquiry into Ms. Nelson’s indigence or ability to pay.
v. Meredith Walker 84. Meredith Walker is a 47-year-old mother of two in Florissant, Missouri. 85. In the past five years, Ms. Walker has been jailed on at least ten occasions by municipalities in the St. Louis region for unpaid fines from traffic tickets and other minor municipal violations. She has paid over $15,000 in fees, court costs, and bond forfeitures, rendering her unable to provide for herself and her children. She has lost her driver’s license— and in turn her ability to seek and retain employment—because of her inability to pay the fines. 86. Ms. Walker’s traffic citations from the City of Florissant continue to plague her to this day, even though she has not been cited for a moving violation in over fifteen years. 87. In the past five years, Ms. Walker has been jailed in Florissant two or three times in addition to being jailed in St. Ann (on behalf of Normandy and Velda City), Bel Nor, Moline Acres, Ferguson, St. Louis County, St. Louis City, and Pine Lawn. At one point, Ms. Walker had outstanding warrants for her arrest in eleven different St. Louis area municipalities, all of which stemmed from unpaid traffic tickets and charges for “Failure to Pay” or “Failure to Appear” in connection with those alleged traffic infractions. 88. On almost all of these occasions, Ms. Walker experienced the so-called “munishuffle”: she was transferred from one municipal jail to another, paying bonds at each to secure her “release” to the next, or, if she could not afford to pay bond, remaining in jail until jail
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officials (or the municipality on whose behalf she was held) decided to release her into the hands of the next set of jailers.
89. Ms. Walker has appeared in Florissant’s municipal court on multiple occasions. Not once has a Florissant municipal court judge informed her of her right to an attorney, afforded her an attorney, or proposed alternatives to payment of a fine (such as community service).
90. Ms. Walker has tried to pay off her debts, but simply cannot afford to do so. It is well known in Ms. Walker’s community and among her friends and family that showing up at court without full payment will lead to incarceration. As a result, Ms. Walker has on many occasions feared that appearing in court without the money to pay a fine would immediately land her in jail.
91. Ms. Walker has been unsuccessfully trying to pay off approximately $3,000 of fines to the City of Florissant over the past four years.
92. Ms. Walker’s inability to extricate herself from this cycle of debt and jailing imposed by the City has virtually destroyed her life.
93. Ms. Walker does not have a valid driver’s license because she cannot afford to pay off all of her fines, costs, surcharges, and interest. She is forced to rely on family and friends to drive her to the store or to her son’s basketball games, placing strain on cherished relationships. Ms. Walker is unemployed and has been unable to find a new job in large part because of her traffic record and because she does not have a valid license. Many of the positions for which she is otherwise qualified require a valid driver’s license to transport clients.
94. Ms. Walker has been forced to change her appearance because she discovered that she was stopped by police officers more often when she had dreadlocks in her hair and appeared more masculine.
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95. Ms. Walker has spent many holidays in jail for unpaid traffic tickets, missing time with family and friends.
96. Ms. Walker is unable to travel around the St. Louis area, in part because bus service in North County (where she lives) is unreliable, and in part because she is now terrified of the police.
97. Ms. Walker has had a trying experience when she has attempted to address charges which have been unfairly brought against her. When she has contested these new charges both the Municipal Court Clerk and Judge have threatened to renege on prior agreements to reduce her fines if she continued to contest the fines added on.
98. When Ms. Walker has been unable to make payments to the City of Florissant, additional fines have been assessed against her, even when she has appeared in court.
99. Most recently, on March 26, 2016, Ms. Walker appeared in the Florissant Municipal Court and stated that she could not make a payment because she was unable to work and earn income while recovering from a torn ACL. The court only gave Ms. Walker a onemonth continuance even though she would be unable to work for ten weeks. When she appeared in court on April 21, 2016, still unable to make a payment, the court assessed additional fines against Ms. Walker.
100. On one occasion, Florissant jailed Ms. Walker overnight and would not permit her to call in to work, resulting in disciplinary action at her job.
101. At no time did Florissant perform an inquiry into Ms. Walker’s indigence or ability to pay.
B. The City’s Policies and Practices
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102. The City of Florissant is the largest municipality in St. Louis County and the twelfth largest city in Missouri, with 52,000 residents. Approximately 8% of the City’s residents live in poverty according to the United States Census Bureau.
103. The City of Florissant issued 28,436 arrest warrants in 2015, more than three times the average of 8,842 from 2011 to 2014. More than 20,000 of these warrants were for traffic citations—averaging more than one warrant issued for every 1.8 residents. Even with this increase in warrants, there was a 33% decrease from 2014 to 2015 in total new traffic cases filed in Florissant Municipal Court. New traffic cases remained relatively constant between 2011 and 2014, with an average of 28,799 new traffic cases filed each year.
104. The vast numbers of warrants and fines issued by the City also make up a substantial portion of the City’s revenue. In 2015, the City collected more than $2,300,000 in court fines and fees and forfeited bond payments, down from more than $2,500,000 in 2014, $2,670,000 in 2013, $2,620,000 in 2012, and $3,100,000 in 2011. The cost to operate the City’s Municipal Court, by contrast, was budgeted at roughly $700,000 per year between 2011 and 2015. The City thus netted as much as $2,200,000 in 2011 and still netted $1,600,000 even in its least profitable year. The City’s only sources of greater revenue are sales and utility taxes.
105. It is the policy and practice of the City of Florissant to use its municipal court and its jail as significant sources of revenue generation for the City. The City of Florissant projects the amount of revenue to be raised through ticketing and fines during its budgeting process.5 As a result, the entire municipal government apparatus, including municipal court officials and City
5 The City uses the money collected through these procedures to help fund the City jail, to pay Municipal Court judicial salaries, to pay City Attorney’s Office salaries, and to fund other portions of the City budget.
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jailors, has a significant and corrupting incentive to operate the court and the jail in a way that maximizes revenues, not justice.
106. Over the past five years, the City of Florissant has, according to its public records, earned more than $12,000,000 from its municipal court fines, fees, costs, and surcharges. A proportional per capita budgetary revenue stream from municipal court fees for the entire Saint Louis metropolitan region would be more than $644,000,000
107. The impact of the City’s ticketing and warrant-issuance practices falls disproportionately on black residents and black motorists. Black drivers have been significantly more likely to be stopped, searched, and arrested than white drivers, even though whites are more likely to possess illegal contraband when searched. Although whites make up more than 71% of Florissant’s population, they constituted only just over a quarter of vehicle stops in 2014. Conversely, while black residents are only 26.8% of the City’s population, 71.2% of vehicle stops conducted in Florissant in 2014 involved a black motorist. The same financial pressures and corrupting influences thus infect City police decisions, including decisions about conducting traffic stops, issuing tickets, and making arrests.
108. The treatment Plaintiffs received was caused by, and is representative of, the City’s policies and practices concerning collecting unpaid fines, fees, costs, and surcharges arising from traffic tickets and other minor offenses over at least the past five years.
109. Decisions regarding the operation of the court and the jail—including but not limited to the assessment of fines, fees, costs,6 and surcharges; the availability and conditions of payment plans; the setting and re-setting of amounts required for release from jail; the issuance and withdrawal of arrest warrants; and the non-appointment of an attorney—are significantly
6 Missouri Law requires costs to be waived for the indigent, see Mo. Code § 479.260, but the City ignores that law.
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influenced by and based on maximizing revenues collected rather than on legitimate penological
considerations.
i. Arbitrary and Indefinite Detention of the Indigent
110. As each of the Plaintiffs’ cases illustrates, the City of Florissant has adopted a
policy and practice of arresting people when they owe unpaid debt from old and even new traffic
tickets and other minor offenses. When those arrestees are booked at the Florissant jail, they are
told by jail staff that they can be released immediately, but only if they pay cash to the City of Florissant. If they cannot pay the City, they are told that they will be held indefinitely.7
111. The amount of cash that Florissant requires for release is based on the debt owed
by the person from their old traffic or other misdemeanor cases.
112. It is and has been the policy and practice of the City of Florissant to hold people
in jail unless and until they or their families pay the City—regardless of indigence.
113. It is and has been the policy and practice of the City of Florissant to gradually and
incrementally reduce the amount of money required to buy a person’s release. The reason for this
policy is to generate as much money as possible. Some people’s families are able to borrow and
7 The City’s policies and practices—and the terminology that it uses—are at times difficult to navigate. For example, many of the monetary debts that the City claims are owed are actually additional fees and surcharges automatically assessed for the issuance of warrants or the recalling of warrants. These are “assessed” and declared owed entirely independent of any conviction and without any finding of guilt. Moreover, many of the release amounts (which City employees call “bond” amounts) are purportedly classified as pretrial money bail for new charges, typically the charge of “failure to appear.” Each of the named Plaintiffs was, according to the City, kept in its jail pursuant to cash “bond” relating to new “failure to appear” charges. In any event, the City applies materially the same money-based post-arrest detention policies to arrestees charged with new offenses as it does to arrestees who owe old debts. All are kept in jail indefinitely unless and until they make arbitrary monetary payments or unless and until City employees negotiate lower release amounts or ultimately decide to release them for free. None are held pending any court appearance. Thus, those arrested for new ordinance violations and those arrested for non-payment (which is typically accomplished through a new charge) are all treated the same and are all subjected to the same post-arrest money-based policies and practices.
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raise significant money up front to buy the release of their loved one within hours or days. The longer a person stays in the Florissant jail, however, the more it costs the City and the clearer it is that the person’s family cannot raise enough money. Thus, the City’s policy and practice is to lower the amount periodically on the assumption that the person can raise at least some money to buy his or her release.
114. As a matter of policy and practice, City jail staff and supervisors, including Sergeants of the police department, attempt to negotiate or bargain with the person or the person’s family concerning the amount of money that they are able to pay. This bargaining takes place both inside the jail with the inmate and over the phone or in person at the clerk’s office with the inmate’s family.
115. In many cases, after significant jail time, the City will release the person for free if it is clear that the City cannot extract any money from the person during that jail stay.
116. Upon information and belief, inmates find out about these incremental reductions by asking jail staff every morning what their new required payment is. Some days they are told that it has remained the same, and other days they are told that it has been reduced. Inmates are then usually given an opportunity to use the telephone to call family or friends who might be able to come up with enough money to pay for their release. The reductions do not happen as the result of any formal adversarial process.
117. The City’s incremental reductions of the amount required for release are designed also to punish debtors for non-payment on the theory that time in jail will encourage impoverished people to pay in the future if they know that they will be jailed for non-payment. These threats result in people and families borrowing money at high rates of interest to release a loved one or taking money otherwise needed for food, diapers, rent, clothing, and utilities and
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giving it to the City of Florissant instead. The result has been widespread hardship for the impoverished people of Florissant and the surrounding area, whose local governments have decided to make families choose between feeding hungry children and letting a loved one languish in jail.
118. These policies and practices have created a culture of fear among the City’s poorest residents, who are afraid even to go to the City police department or the City court to explain their indigence because they know they will be jailed by the City without any meaningful process. The same fear motivates many very poor City residents to sacrifice food, clothing, utilities, sanitary home repairs, and other basic necessities of life in order to scrape together money to pay traffic debts to the City.
119. From the perspective of City officials, these coercive threats are successful. They are successful because the threats and jailings have been crucial to pressuring family members— who have no legal obligation to pay any money to the City on behalf of indigent relatives or friends who owe money from old civil judgments—to come up with money in order to get their loved ones released from jail. They have also been crucial in getting low-income people to forgo basic necessities of life in order to pay the City in an attempt to avoid jail. It is only through this illegal confinement and threat of confinement that the City is able to collect that additional money that any normal creditor could not.
120. The basic scheme of the City of Florissant is to extort—through the threat of physical confinement—money from debtors who are otherwise unable to afford to pay both the basic necessities of life and their debts to the City. The City’s policies and practices have resulted in the community knowing, and fearing, that impoverished debtors will be arrested and held by the City for days or weeks unless and until they pay enough cash to the City.
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121. When providing information to inmates, the City refers to the amount of cash
required for release as the inmate’s “bond,” even though the amount is set by reference to the
amount of outstanding debt. Moreover, the money is applied automatically toward old unpaid
debts and is set, reset, and modified without any judicial process and without making any of the
lawful considerations required by Missouri’s statutory bail system and the United States
Constitution.8 Nor is the “bond” amount set in relation to any particular pending charge for
which legal proceedings are imminent. Indeed, inmates are held indefinitely without being
brought before a judge. If a person subsequently misses any future payment after being released,
the City, without any legal process, confiscates previous amounts paid by the person to secure
their release from jail, and resets the person’s debts. The City also adds a “warrant” fee9 for the
person’s missed payment without any legal process.10 Trapped by this cycle of recurring debt,
arrest, payment, and new debt many impoverished people pay thousands of dollars to the City
8 In the case of new warrantless arrests who owe no debts from prior cases, the City uses these release amounts to ensure collection of future not-yet-imposed money judgments from people who will likely be too poor to pay those judgments after conviction absent the threat of jail. Because it releases people for free after indeterminate periods of time but routinely prior to any court date, the City uses these “cash bond” amounts to ensure that it collects money for ultimate violations in advance rather than for any legitimate pretrial government objective. The City uses a cash “bail schedule” based on the charge of arrest as determined by City police as the starting point for police and jail officials to negotiate and lower with arrestees and their families the longer a person remains in jail after an arrest. 9 From 2009 through 2016, Defendant City of Florissant raised more than $1,800,000 by charging illegal “warrant cancellation” fees, requiring individuals to pay money not only to have their warrants recalled, but to be given a court date to appear in court and the chance to contest the underlying charges, as well. In addition to violating state law due to profit generating purpose, “warrant cancellation” fees violate due process, insofar as they require that a person pay an illegal fee in order to obtain access to the courts and hopefully to justice. They also violate equal protection insofar as such fees deny access to the courts on the basis of an individual’s inability to pay a fee. 10 For example, the person is not arraigned on any new charge for failure to appear prior to the “warrant cancellation” fee being assessed against them, and the person is not given a meaningful opportunity to present a defense to the elements of a failure to appear charge. The fee is simply added to the person’s debts. See Watkins v. City of Florissant, 16SL-CC00165 (St. Louis Co. Cir. Ct., Jan. 2016).
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over a period of many years, arising solely from a small number of relatively inexpensive initial traffic citations.
122. At any time, a person indebted to the city can end this cycle by paying the balance of her debt. It is and has been the policy and practice of the City of Florissant to allow any inmate at any time to pay the full amount of the debt owed and to be released immediately, terminating all existing previously assessed “cases” for which debt is still being collected.11
123. Similarly, at any time, either before or after an arrest, the policy and practice of the City of Florissant is to allow all arrest warrants to be recalled if they pay the entire amount of their outstanding balance with the City. It is also the policy and practice of the City to allow individual warrants to be removed without eliminating the entire debt, if the person also pays an amount arbitrarily set by City employees—usually several hundred dollars in cash based on the arrestee’s total unpaid balance.
124. The City employs a materially different set of procedures for those arrestees and debtors who retain private defense counsel. It is and has been the policy and practice of the City of Florissant to immediately remove existing arrest warrants and schedule new court dates when an attorney makes an appearance on behalf of a debtor or arrestee. However, if the individual is in custody, they must pay their bond to secure their release. Furthermore, if the individual has already pled guilty, and has had a warrant issued for failure to make a payment or appear in court, Florissant’s court clerks will often decline to permit an attorney to appear on the case and will not recall the warrant. It is the City’s policy and practice, however, to tell unrepresented debtors and arrestees that there is no way to clear their warrants unless they pay their “bond” to the City.
11 The “cases” for which the City is collecting debts have, for the most part, been closed for years, with civil judgments entered requiring the payment of fines and costs.
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125. It is and has been the policy and practice of the City of Florissant to keep some debtors in jail for indefinite periods without bringing them to court. The City has often kept inmates unable to make monetary payments in its jail without bringing them to court for days or weeks.12
ii. Debt-Collection Proceedings in the Florissant Municipal Court 126. It is and has been the policy and practice of the City of Florissant to conduct court sessions approximately six to seven times per month, for a variety of different dockets, including traffic docket, trial docket, housing docket, and attorney docket. Traffic specific dockets are usually held twice per month in the evening. Inmates brought to the court from the jail (of which there are few) are told that they will remain in jail unless they make monetary payments, even though it is the policy and practice of the City of Florissant not to provide them with an attorney and not to conduct any meaningful inquiry into their ability to pay, as required by the United States Constitution.13 127. Inmates are not advised of their relevant rights under federal or Missouri law, including applicable constitutional rights and state-law defenses and procedures. 128. Those appearing in court from jail are told that they must pay a certain amount of money or be kept in jail. They are, as a matter of policy and practice, told to make phone calls to family members in an attempt to get family members to pay their debts. 129. Non-incarcerated people are provided future dates to appear before the court. People are told, as a matter of City policy and practice, that failure to bring money to pay old debts will result in their arrest. 12 The City also follows a policy and practice of holding inmates in jail for days on behalf of other municipalities until the other municipality decides whether it will pick them up or not. 13 Because no inquiry is made into ability to pay, no inquiry is likewise made into the reasons for non-payment or alternatives to incarceration.
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130. As with confined inmates, a non-incarcerated debtor can end this debt collection process at any time by paying what she owes to the City in full. If that debtor is too poor to end this process, her closed “case” can go on for years and years in perpetuity after a civil judgment assessing financial penalties, with the City imposing additional fees and surcharges for missed debt-collection payments.14
131. The City prosecutor and City judge do not conduct indigence or ability-to-pay hearings. Prior to this year, regular observers of the City court had never once seen an indigence or ability to pay hearing conducted in the preceding five years.
132. The City prosecutor and City judge conduct no meaningful individualized process prior to ordering people to make particular monthly payments. Payment plans are set entirely without any adversarial process and without any individualized inquiry into the circumstances of a debtor. City jail officials ordering payments upon release from jail similarly follow no formal adversarial process in determining the amount of required payments. Those jailed for unpaid debts from tickets and other offenses (e.g., for not making their ordered payments) are not appointed an attorney, even though the City is represented by an experienced prosecutor.
133. In addition to the difficulty of mounting constitutional and statutory arguments and defenses in the face of an experienced prosecutor, navigating the origin of the numerous fees and surcharges imposed by Florissant and determining whether they are even validly assessed by the City in any particular case is a complicated inquiry. This inquiry involves the application of
14 It is the policy and practice of the City of Florissant to inform debtors that, if they or their families pay their debt in full, they can be released from jail and have all proceedings terminated at any moment. At any time, the entire process can be ended by a monetary payment. If a person can afford to pay, the person will never have another court date set by the City of Florissant. The termination of these cases is determined solely by the wealth of individuals.
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state law and procedure; local law and practice; multiple court files, accounting documents, and receipts over a period of years; and constitutional law to a person’s lengthy case history.
134. The vast majority of those jailed for violating a payment plan condition imposed by the City court were not represented by an attorney at any time on the underlying traffic or minor charge, because of the City’s policy and practice not to appoint counsel for the indigent.
135. The Plaintiffs and many other witnesses have observed numerous impoverished people jailed by the City for non-payment of debts without a meaningful inquiry into their ability to pay, without the representation of counsel, and without the City taking any consideration of whether imprisonment serves legitimate state interests in light of available alternatives, as required by federal and Missouri law. The Plaintiffs and other witnesses have observed numerous people and families who have been told that either they themselves or members of their family would be held in jail by the City unless and until one of them could produce large sums of money to pay off debts supposedly owed for traffic citations and subsequent surcharges.
iii. The Deplorable Conditions in the Florissant Jail 136. As described above, inmates jailed for non-payment have, as a matter of City policy and practice, been kept in overcrowded cells with inmates strewn about the floors. The City has deliberately and callously ignored basic principles of hygiene, sanitation, medical and mental health care, and inmate safety. 137. Inmates are denied toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodorant, and soap; they are kept in cells that reek of visible excrement and surrounded by walls smeared with blood and mucus; they are forced out of their own clothes and ordered to wear the same stained and dirty orange jumpsuits for days and weeks without access to clean laundry or clean undergarments; women are deprived of their bras, and forced to expose their breasts in order to use the toilet; all inmates
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are deprived of socks and shoes; they huddle in cold temperatures with a single thin blanket even as they beg guards for warm blankets; their illnesses and infections, and open wounds and sores go uncovered and untreated, and disease, infection, puss, and blood cover mats and blankets which pass from inmate to inmate without being cleaned; they sleep next to an open uncleansed toilet; they endure days without being allowed to shower; women are not given hygiene products for menstruation; they are routinely denied vital medical care and prescription medication; inmates with serious mental health issues are not provided mental health treatment or prescription medication that they need; they are provided food so insufficient and uniform that inmates lose significant amounts of weight and lack essential nutrients; they suffer from dehydration because the City does not provide cups to its inmates and the only source of water is a spout connected to the toilet. The spout does not produce adequate water pressure to dispense water past the lip of the basin where the water is caught and drains. The toilets are not cleaned with any apparent regularity. Thus, the only way for one to drink water is to press one’s lips against the dirty toilet basin, which many inmates are unwilling to do; they are deprived of books, legal materials, exercise, or internet; and they do not know when they will be allowed to leave their disorienting and timeless cage, deprived of windows and perpetually flooded in florescent light.
138. These abuses and deprivations are accompanied by other pervasive humiliations. Jail guards primarily ignore inmates but also taunt impoverished people when they are unable to pay for their release, telling them that all they have to do in order to be released is to pay money that they do not have.
139. The totality of these conditions described by the Plaintiffs and by numerous witnesses amounts to unlawful punishment. The conditions at the Florissant jail are deliberately
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designed to be as degrading and humiliating as possible in order to punish debtors for not paying their debts and to discourage them from missing payments to the City. The purpose and effect is to coerce debtors to borrow money or use money otherwise needed for the basic necessities of life in order to pay the City to avoid being subjected to the dangerous and humiliating Florissant jail.
140. The jail conditions created and perpetuated by the City of Florissant would be unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment if individuals convicted and sentenced to prison were treated with such callous disregard for basic health and safety. The City forces these conditions on pretrial detainees and post-judgment debtors jailed long after monetary judgments and solely because of their inability to make monetary payments and not pursuant to any criminal sentence.
141. It is the City’s policy and practice to use its jail and the deplorable conditions there in discrete spurts of indefinite confinement to extract money from arrestees through arbitrary and incrementally decreasing “bond” debts until they finally prove unable to pay.
iv. The City’s Flawed and Unlawful Warrant Process 142. It is and has been the policy and practice of the City to issue invalid arrest warrants and to apply arbitrary and illegal policies for the issuance and recalling of warrants. 143. Among the policies and practices of the City of Florissant are the following:
a. The City informs people that they can remove outstanding warrants simply by paying a sum of money but does not offer a way for the indigent to remove arrest warrants.15
b. The City allows for the removal of existing warrants without paying the City only if the person retains a lawyer.
15 See Watkins v. City of Florissant, 16SL-CC00165 (St. Louis Co. Cir. Ct., Jan. 2016). 34

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c. The City issues arrest warrants for the failure to make a payment without probable cause to believe that the person had the ability to make a payment.
d. When impoverished people appear in the courtroom and City payment window, they are told by the judge, courtroom officers, City prosecutor, City clerk, and City judge without a finding of ability to pay that they will be jailed if they do not bring specific sums of money to the City on designated dates in the future.
e. The City issues arrest warrants for “failure to appear” when people do not pay by certain designated dates even though the person did not fail to appear at any court appearance.
f. The City issues arrest warrants for “failure to appear” at court dates for which the person had not been given adequate notice. For example, for a hearing to which the person had not been validly summoned or to a hearing whose date the City has moved without ensuring actual notice has been given to the person. The City does not adequately ensure actual notice of changes in court dates and routinely issues arrest warrants even when it has no probable cause to believe that the elements of a “failure to appear” charge have been met, such as that the person did not intentionally fail to appear because the person was in the custody of another jurisdiction or was in the hospital.
g. After arrest pursuant to a warrant, the City either does not bring the person to court at all or delays presentment unnecessarily and for no legitimate purpose for days or weeks.
h. In cases of warrantless arrest, the City routinely fails as a matter of policy and practice to make a neutral finding of probable cause and thus holds people in jail for longer than 48 hours without a neutral finding of probable cause based on sworn evidence. Moreover, because the City’s policy is to negotiate cash bond and then to release people for free eventually, it does not detain new arrestees for the purpose of any kind of court proceeding. Thus, the City’s initial detention period based on warrantless arrest is unrelated to any legitimate government interest and entirely unconnected from any need to prepare for any probable cause or preliminary hearing because the City does not hold probable cause hearings or preliminary hearings or make any formal probable cause findings.
C. The Cycle of Debt and Jailing in Other Municipalities
144. Like the other impoverished people stuck in this broken system, the Plaintiffs
have been overwhelmed by the combination of multiplying fines, fees, costs, and surcharges
from many different municipalities at once, as well as the cycle of repeated jailings and
subsequent transfers to several different jails during each jailing, lost jobs, increased fees, and
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the inability to renew driver’s licenses because of unpaid tickets. After scraping together cash from family and friends and borrowing money to pay Florissant, the Plaintiffs and other Class members would simply be jailed by another city.
145. The hopelessness of trying to navigate this system for years without financial resources and without the assistance of a lawyer who understands the process—never knowing when they left the house if they would be arrested and always confronted with the powerlessness of being kept in jail indefinitely because of their poverty—fundamentally altered the lives of the Plaintiffs and continues to tear at the core of the community.
146. The fear of having basic rights violated with no recourse is a daily fact of life for the Plaintiffs and thousands of others. It is this despair that the Saint Louis County debtors’ prison network cultivates that leads many impoverished people to avoid the system and some, sadly, to take their own lives while languishing in a jail cell.16
Class Action Allegations 147. The Plaintiffs bring this action on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated, for the purpose of asserting the claims alleged in this Complaint on a common basis. 148. A class action is a superior means, and the only practicable means, by which Plaintiffs and unknown Class members can challenge the City’s unlawful debt-collection scheme. 149. This action is brought and may properly be maintained as a Class action pursuant to Rule 23(a)(1)–(4), Rule 23(b)(2), and Rule 23(b)(3) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. 150. This action satisfies the numerosity, commonality, typicality, and adequacy requirements of those provisions.
16 At least four suicides and suicide attempts by people held because they were too poor to pay for their release have occurred in local municipal jails just in the past year.
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151. Plaintiffs propose three Classes: two Declaratory and Injunctive Classes, and two
Damages Classes.
a. The first Declaratory and Injunctive Class is defined as: All persons who currently owe or who will incur debts to the City of Florissant from fines, fees (excluding “warrant recall fees”, “letter fees”, and/or “failure to appear fees”, as defined in Watkins v. City of Florissant, No. 16SL-CC00165 (St. Louis Co. Cir. Ct. filed Jan. 2016)), costs, or surcharges arising from cases prosecuted by the City of Florissant.
b. The second Declaratory and Injunctive Class is all persons who, either because they owe debts to the City of Florissant or for any other reason, will become in the custody of the City of Florissant and thereby subjected to its post-arrest wealth-based detention procedures.
c. The first Damages Class is defined as: All persons, whether or not such person has ever been jailed, who have paid any amount to the City of Florissant to satisfy fines, fees (excluding “warrant recall fees”, “letter fees”, and/or “failure to appear fees”, as defined in Watkins v. City of Florissant, No. 16SL-CC00165 (St. Louis Co. Cir. Ct. filed Jan. 2016)), costs, or surcharges arising from cases in the City court and who have not been provided an opportunity to prove indigence (the “Paid Fines Class”).
d. The second Damages Class is defined as: All persons who have been jailed by the City of Florissant for non-payment fines, fees (excluding “warrant recall fees”, “letter fees”, and/or “failure to appear fees”, as defined in Watkins v. City of Florissant, No. 16SL-CC00165 (St. Louis Co. Cir. Ct. filed Jan. 2016)), costs, or surcharges arising from cases in the City court and who (1) were not provided an opportunity to prove indigence prior to jailing; (2) were not considered a danger to the community by notation in the City’s file; and (3) were not designated as a flight risk at the time of jailing (the “Jailed Class”).
A. Numerosity: Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(a)(1)
152. Over the past five years, thousands of people have owed and currently owe the
City of Florissant money from old traffic tickets and other minor municipal offenses. Pursuant to
City policy and practice, thousands of people who have indicated that they are too poor to pay
their debts in full have been placed on payment plans by the City. All of these people are
currently being threatened with arrest and jailing pursuant to the City’s illegal post-arrest money-
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based detention policies if they do not make the payments in the amount or frequency purportedly required by the City. Pursuant to City policy, thousands of additional arrestees have been and will be charged by the City with new ordinance violations and kept in jail pursuant to the City’s illegal post-arrest money-based detention policies.
153. The City has kept hundreds of people in its jail for non-payment of cash “bond” in each of the past five years. The City retains, and is required by law to retain, records of these instances.
154. The City followed and follows materially the same post-arrest procedures and debt-collection policies, practices, and procedures to accomplish the jailing of the Class members. For example, pursuant to the City’s policy and practice, those kept in jail by the City when they could not pay did not receive meaningful inquiries into their ability to pay as required by federal and Missouri law. Pursuant to City policy, no determinations of indigence or evaluations of alternatives to incarceration were made, and the City provided none of the relevant state and federal protections for debtors. Nor were those jailed by the City provided adequate counsel to represent them.
155. Those who still owe the City debt payments or who will incur such debts or be arrested for new charges will be subjected to the same ongoing policies and practices absent the relief sought in this Complaint.
B. Commonality: Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(a)(2). 156. The relief sought is common to all members of the Class, and common questions of law and fact exist as to all members of the Class. The Plaintiffs seek relief concerning whether the City’s policies, practices, and procedures violated their rights and relief mandating the City to
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change its policies, practices, and procedures so that the Plaintiffs’ rights will be protected in the
future.
157. Among the most important, but not the only, common questions of fact are:
• Whether the City has a policy and practice of placing and keeping people in its jail who owe money on old judgments unless and until they can pay a monetary sum;
• Whether the City has a policy and practice of keeping people in its jail after arrest unless and until they can pay a monetary sum;
• Whether the City has a policy and practice of incrementally lowering the amount required to buy a person’s release from custody as the person sits in jail;
• Whether the initial amount of money required by the City for release is predetermined and set by a fixed bail schedule without reference to a person’s ability to pay;
• Whether the City has a policy and practice of failing to conduct meaningful inquiries into the ability of a person to pay before keeping the person in jail for non-payment;
• Whether the City provides notice to debtors that their ability to pay will be a relevant issue at the proceedings at which they are jailed or kept in jail and whether the City makes findings concerning ability to pay and alternatives to incarceration;
• Whether the City provides adequate legal representation to those jailed for non-payment in proceedings that result in their incarceration;
• Whether the City jail conditions are and have been unsanitary, unsafe, and inhumane in the ways described in this Complaint;
• Whether City employees and agents have a policy and practice of threatening debtors and families of debtors with incarceration for unpaid debts without informing them of their rights;
• Whether the City has a policy of issuing and executing warrants for the arrest of debtors despite lacking probable cause that they have committed any offense and without any notice or opportunity to be heard concerning their ability to pay or the validity of the debt;
• Whether the City has a policy and practice of failing to make neutral probable cause findings based on sworn evidence for warrantless
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arrests.
27. Among the most important common question of law are:
• Whether keeping people in jail solely because they cannot afford to make a monetary payment is lawful;
• Whether people are entitled to a meaningful inquiry into their ability to pay before being jailed by the City for non-payment;
• Whether people who cannot afford to pay the City are entitled to the consideration of alternatives to incarceration before being jailed for non-payment;
• Whether it is lawful for the City to keep arrestees in jail after arrest pursuant to a predetermined fixed cash bail schedule that does not take into account ability to pay before releasing arrestees after indeterminate periods of detention;
• Whether people are entitled to the appointment of and representation by a lawyer in proceedings initiated and litigated by City prosecutors that result in their incarceration if they cannot afford an attorney;
• Whether the City can employ jail, threats of jail, onerous generic “payment dockets,” and other harsh debt-collection measures (such as ordering payment of significant portions of a person’s public assistance benefits) against debtors who cannot afford immediately to pay the monetary judgment to the City in full;
• Whether the City can arrest people based solely on their non-payment without any probable cause that they have committed any willful conduct or other offense and without notice and an opportunity to be heard concerning legal predicates for a valid detention, such as their ability to pay and the validity of the debt;
• Whether and how long the City can lawfully hold people in custody on warrantless arrests without any neutral finding of probable cause and without any intention of bringing the arrested person before a neutral judicial officer for such a finding;
• Whether the jail conditions described in this Complaint violate federal law.
158. These common legal and factual questions arise from one central scheme and set
of policies and practices: the City’s enormously profitable traffic- and ordinance-related post-
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arrest detention and debt-collection system. The City operates this scheme openly and in materially the same manner every day, and all of the ancillary factual questions about how that scheme operates are common to all members of the Class, as well as the resulting legal questions about whether that scheme is unlawful. The material components of the scheme do not vary from Class member to Class member, and the resolution of these legal and factual issues will determine whether all of the members of the class are entitled to the constitutional relief that they seek.
C. Typicality: Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(a)(3). 159. The named Plaintiffs’ claims are typical of the claims of the members of the Classes, and they have the same interests as all other members of the Classes that they represent. Each of them suffered injuries from the failure of the City to comply with the basic constitutional provisions detailed below. The answer to whether the City’s scheme of policies and practices is unconstitutional will determine the claims of the named Plaintiffs and every other Class member. 160. If the named Plaintiffs succeed in their claims that the City’s policies and practices concerning post-arrest wealth-based detention and debt collection for fines, fees (excluding “warrant recall fees”, “letter fees”, and/or “failure to appear fees”, as defined in Watkins v. City of Florissant, No. 16SL-CC00165 (St. Louis Co. Cir. Ct. filed Jan. 2016)), costs, and surcharges violate the law in the ways alleged in each claim of the Complaint, then that ruling will likewise benefit every other member of the Injunctive and Damages Classes. D. Adequacy: Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(a)(4). 161. The named Plaintiffs are adequate representatives of the Classes because they are members of the Classes and because their interests coincide with, and are not antagonistic to,
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those of the Classes. There are no known conflicts of interest among Class members, all of
whom have a similar interest in vindicating the constitutional rights to which they are entitled.
162. Plaintiffs are represented by attorneys from ArchCity Defenders,17 who have
experience in litigating complex civil rights matters in federal court. They have both knowledge
of the City’s scheme and relevant constitutional and statutory law and extensive knowledge of
the functioning of the municipal court system in the City of Florissant through their
representation of numerous impoverished people in the City of Florissant. Plaintiffs are also
represented by attorneys from Tycko & Zavareei, LLP, a national law firm based in Washington,
DC, specializing in class action litigation on behalf of plaintiffs. The attorneys at Tycko &
Zavareei, LLP have extensive experience litigating class action cases on behalf of plaintiffs in
state and federal courts, including civil rights actions and actions against government entities.
17 ArchCity Defenders is a non-profit public interest law firm based in Saint Louis. It has represented the poor and homeless in cases involving the Municipal Defendants for the past five years and is an expert on the ways in which the Defendants’ illegal practices and policies make and keep people poor. ArchCity Defenders has recently brought class actions in the Eastern District of Missouri restricting the use of chemical munitions on peaceful protesters, is cocounsel on two federal class actions alleging the operation of debtors’ prisons in Ferguson and Jennings, Missouri, two additional class actions ending cash bail, and an additional series of state class action suits alleging the imposition of illegal fees and fines in various municipal courts in the St. Louis County region. ArchCity Defenders has most recently filed class action litigation against 13 cities in the St. Louis region alleging the operation of debtors’ prisons. See Thomas et al v. St. Ann, Missouri, City of et al, 4:16-cv-01302; Templeton v. Dotson, 4:14-cv-01019; Jenkins et al. v. City of Jennings, 15-cv-252-CEJ (E.D. Mo. 2015); Fant et al. v. City of Ferguson, 15-cv-253-AGF (E.D. Mo. 2015); Powell v. City of St. Ann 4:15-cv-840 (E.D. Mo. 2015); Pierce v. City of Velda City, 4:15-CV-570 (E.D. Mo. 2015); White v. City of Pine Lawn, 14SL-CC04194 (St. Louis Co. Cir. Ct., Dec. 2014); Pruitt v. City of Wellston, 14SL-CC04192 (St. Louis Co. Cir. Ct., Dec. 2014); Lampkin v. City of Jennings, 14SL-CC04207 (St. Louis Co. Cir. Ct., Dec. 2014); Wann v. City of St. Louis, 1422-CC10272 (St. Louis City Cir. Ct., Dec. 2014); Reed v. City of Ferguson, 14SL-CC04195 (St. Louis Co. Cir. Ct., Dec. 2014); Eldridge v. City of St. John, 15SL-00456 (St. Louis Co. Cir. Ct., Feb. 2015); Watkins v. City of Florissant, 16SL-CC00165 (St. Louis Co. Cir. Ct., Jan. 2016). ArchCity Defenders also published an extensive report detailing these practices and policies in the cities of Bel-Ridge, Ferguson, and Florissant in August of 2014. The report is available at www.archcitydefenders.org.
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Both ArchCity Defenders and Tycko & Zavareei, LLP can and will dedicate the resources necessary to prosecute this case and to represent the plaintiffs and the proposed classes.
163. The efforts of Plaintiffs’ counsel have so far included extensive investigation over a period of months, including numerous interviews with witnesses, City employees, City jail inmates, families, attorneys practicing in the Florissant Municipal Court, community members, statewide experts in the functioning of Missouri municipal courts, and national experts in constitutional law, debt collection, bankruptcy law, criminal law, and jails.
164. Counsel and their colleagues have also observed numerous courtroom hearings in the City of Florissant and in municipalities across the region in order to compile a detailed understanding of state law and practices as they relate to federal constitutional requirements. Counsel have studied the way that these systems function in other cities in order to investigate the wide array of options in practice for municipalities.
165. As a result, counsel have devoted enormous time and resources to becoming intimately familiar with the City’s scheme and with all of the relevant state and federal laws and procedures that can and should govern it. Counsel has also developed relationships with many of the individuals and families most victimized by the City’s practices.
166. The interests of the members of the Class will be fairly and adequately protected by the Plaintiffs and their attorneys.
E. Rule 23(b)(2) 167. Class action status is appropriate because the City, through the policies, practices, and procedures that make up its post-arrest wealth-based detention and traffic and ordinance debt-collection scheme, has acted and refused to act on grounds generally applicable to the Declaratory and Injunctive Classes. Thus, a declaration that people in the City cannot be held in
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jail solely because they cannot afford to make a monetary payment will apply to each Class member. Similarly, a determination that Class members are entitled, as a matter of federal law, to a meaningful inquiry into their ability to pay and an evaluation of alternatives to incarceration before they are jailed by the City for non-payment will apply to each Class member. The same applies to rulings on the other claims, including: that Class members are entitled to representation by counsel at proceedings initiated and litigated by City prosecutors in connection with which they are jailed; that the City cannot collect debts from Class members in an onerous manner that violates and evades all of the relevant protections for other judgment debtors; that the jail conditions to which members of the class are exposed are inhumane and unconstitutional; and that the City cannot issue and execute arrest warrants for traffic debtors without probable cause that they have committed an offense and without notice or a hearing prior to the deprivation of their liberty.
168. Injunctive relief compelling the City to comply with these constitutional rights will similarly protect each member of the Class from being again subjected to the City’s unlawful policies and practices with respect to the debts that they still owe and protect those who will incur such debts or be subject to arrest by the City in the future from the same unconstitutional conduct. Therefore, declaratory and injunctive relief with respect to the Class as a whole is appropriate.
F: Rule 23(b)(3) 169. Class treatment under Rule 23(b)(3) is also appropriate because the common questions of law and fact overwhelmingly predominate. This case turns, for every Class member, on what the City’s policies and practices were and on whether those policies were lawful.
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170. The common questions of law and fact listed above are dispositive questions in the case of every member of the Classes; the City of Florissant applies its policies and practices uniformly to all arrestees, and has applied them uniformly to all named plaintiffs and all members of the classes without any individualized assessments. The question of liability can therefore be determined on a class-wide basis. Class-wide treatment of liability is a far superior method of determining the content and legality of the City’s policies and practices than individual suits by hundreds or thousands of City residents.
171. The question of damages will also be driven by class-wide determinations, such as the policies, practices, and conditions at the City jail. To the extent that individual damages will vary, they will vary depending in large part on the amount of time that a person was unlawfully jailed, and the objectively determinable amount each plaintiff and each member of the class paid out of pocket to the City to secure release from jail. Determining damages for individual Class members can thus typically be handled in a ministerial fashion, based on easily verifiable records of the length of unlawful incarceration and the City’s payment records for members of the Jailed Class, and the amounts of money actually paid to the City for members of the Paid Fines Class. If necessary, focused and limited individual hearings on individualized Class-member specific damages based on special circumstances can be held after Class-wide liability is determined—a method far more efficient than the wholesale litigation of hundreds or thousands of individual lawsuits.
172. The Plaintiffs seek the following relief and hereby demand a jury trial in this cause for all matters so appropriate.
Claims for Relief
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Count One: Defendant City of Florissant Violated the Plaintiffs’ Rights by Jailing Them for Their Inability to Pay the City, or by Forcing Them to Make Payments in Order to Avoid Jail, Without Providing an Indigence Analysis.
173. Plaintiffs incorporate by reference the allegations in the preceding paragraphs of this Complaint.
174. The Fourteenth Amendment’s due process and equal protection clauses have long prohibited imprisoning a person for the failure to pay money owed to the government if that person is indigent and unable to pay. Defendant violated Plaintiffs’ rights by jailing Plaintiffs when they could not afford to pay the debts allegedly owed from traffic and other minor offenses, and by forcing them to make payments in order to avoid jail, even where indigent. Defendant violated Plaintiffs’ rights by imprisoning them, and by threatening to imprison them, without conducting any inquiry into their ability to pay and without considering alternatives to imprisonment as required by the United States Constitution. At any moment, a wealthier person in the Plaintiffs’ position could have paid a sum of cash and been released from jail. Defendant’s policy and practice of keeping Plaintiffs in its jail unless and until they are able to pay arbitrarily determined and constantly-shifting sums of money violates the Fourteenth Amendment.
Count Two: Defendant City of Florissant Violated Plaintiffs’ Rights by Imprisoning Them Without Appointing Adequate Counsel.
175. Plaintiffs incorporate by reference the allegations in the preceding paragraphs of this Complaint.
176. Defendant violated Plaintiffs’ right to the effective assistance of counsel under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution by jailing Plaintiffs during or following proceedings initiated by City prosecutors at which Plaintiffs did not have the benefit of counsel and did not knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily waive counsel. The City’s policy of not providing adequate counsel in proceedings in which indigent people are ordered to be
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imprisoned in the City jail for non-payment, which are, in turn, based on payment plans arising from traffic and other violations at which the person was also unrepresented, violates the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.
Count Three: Defendant City of Florissant’s Use of Indefinite and Arbitrary Detention Violates Equal Protection and Due Process.
177. Plaintiffs incorporate by reference the allegations in the preceding paragraphs of this Complaint.
178. The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits Defendant from jailing the Plaintiffs indefinitely and without any meaningful legal process through which they can challenge their detention by keeping them confined in the Defendant’s jail unless or until they could make arbitrarily determined cash payments, or until City employees decided to release them for free. The Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses prohibit the City’s arbitrary and indeterminate post-arrest detention as a result of the City’s use of a pre-fixed cash bail schedule whereby initial cash release amounts were arbitrarily set without any inquiry into a person’s ability to pay. As a result, those arrestees able to pay are released immediately while those who cannot pay are detained indefinitely without any meaningful legal process to inquire into their ability to pay the amounts demanded by the City.
Count Four: The Deplorable Conditions in the Florissant Jail Violate Due Process and Constitute Impermissible Punishment.
179. Plaintiffs incorporate by reference the allegations in the preceding paragraphs of this Complaint.
180. The unsafe, unsanitary, inhumane, and dangerous conditions of confinement in the Florissant jail constitute impermissible punishment unrelated to serving any criminal judgment. Even if imposed after valid conviction, the conditions would constitute cruel and
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unusual treatment. The deplorable and excessively harsh conditions in the Defendant’s jail are unnecessary to accomplish any legitimate government objective and shock the conscience of any reasonable person concerned with human dignity and liberty.
Count Five: Defendant City of Florissant’s Use of Jail and Threats of Jail to Collect Debts Owed to the City Violates Equal Protection Because It Imposes Unduly Harsh and Punitive Restrictions On Debtors Whose Creditor Is the Government Compared To Those Who Owe Money to Private Creditors.
181. Plaintiffs incorporate by reference the allegations in the preceding paragraphs of this Complaint.
182. The United States Supreme Court has held that, when governments seek to recoup costs of prosecution from indigent defendants, they may not take advantage of their position to impose unduly harsh methods of collection solely because the debt is owed to the government and not to a private creditor. Not only does the City place indigent people on generic and overly onerous payment plans lasting years or decades when the cases of wealthier people would be terminated, but by imposing imprisonment, repeated threats of imprisonment, indeterminate “payment dockets” for many years, extra and invalid fees and surcharges, and other restrictions on Plaintiffs, the City takes advantage of its control over the machinery of the City jail and police systems to deny debtors the procedural and substantive statutory protections that every other Missouri debtor may invoke against a private creditor. Many people like the Plaintiffs owing money to the City of Florissant on old judgments have to borrow money and go further in debt in order to pay off the City of Florissant because other non-government creditors are not permitted to jail them for non-payment of debt. This coercive policy and practice constitutes invidious discrimination and violates the fundamental principles of equal protection of the laws.
Count Six: Defendant City of Florissant’s Policy and Practice of Issuing and Serving Invalid Warrants, Including Those Solely Based on Nonpayment of Monetary Debt, Violates the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments.
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183. Plaintiffs incorporate by reference the allegations in the preceding paragraphs of this Complaint.
184. The City’s policy and practice is to issue and serve arrest warrants against those who have not paid their traffic debt. These warrants are sought, issued, and served without any inquiry into the person’s ability to pay even when the City has prior knowledge that the person is impoverished and unable to pay the debts and possesses other valid defenses. These warrants are regularly sought, issued, and served without any finding of probable cause that the person has committed the elements of any offense. The City chooses to pursue warrants instead of issuing summons even when it has spoken to people on the phone or in person and has the opportunity to notify them to appear in court. The City’s policy of allowing wealthy residents or residents who can afford to hire an attorney to remove their warrants but refusing to clear warrants for indigent people who cannot afford those options is unlawful. Moreover, the City’s policy and practice of not presenting arrestees in court or unreasonably delaying presentment for days or weeks for no legitimate reason is unlawful. These practices violate the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments and result in a deprivation of fundamental liberty without adequate due process.
Count Seven: Defendant City of Florissant’s Extended Detention of Warrantless Arrestees Without a Neutral Judicial Finding of Probable Cause Based On Sworn Evidence Violates the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments.
185. Plaintiffs incorporate by reference the allegations in the preceding paragraphs of this Complaint.
186. The Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments prohibit extended pretrial detention after a warrantless arrest without a finding of probable cause by a neutral judicial officer based on sworn evidence. The City routinely fails as a matter of policy and practice to make a neutral finding of probable cause and thus keeps people in jail for longer than 48 hours without a neutral
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finding of probable cause based on sworn evidence. Because City policy is to negotiate cash
bond and then to release people for free eventually if they cannot pay, it does not detain new
arrestees for the purpose of any legal proceeding. Thus, the City’s extended initial detention
period for those who cannot afford to pay after warrantless arrest is unrelated to any legitimate
government interest and entirely unconnected from any need to prepare for any probable cause or
preliminary hearing because the City does not hold probable cause hearings or preliminary
hearings or make any formal probable cause findings.
Request for Relief
WHEREFORE, Plaintiffs request that this Court issue the following relief:
a. A declaratory judgment that Defendant violates Plaintiffs’ Fourteenth Amendment due process and equal protection rights by imprisoning them because they cannot afford to pay the City and by imprisoning them without conducting any meaningful inquiry into their ability to pay or into alternatives to incarceration;
b. A declaratory judgment that Defendant violates Plaintiffs’ rights under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments by imprisoning them without appointing adequate counsel at the proceedings that led to their incarceration;
c. A declaratory judgment that Defendant violates Plaintiffs’ rights by holding them indefinitely in jail independent of any formal legal process;
d. A declaratory judgment that Defendant violates Plaintiffs’ rights by subjecting them to unconstitutional jail conditions;
e. A declaratory judgment that Defendant violates Plaintiffs’ equal protection rights by imposing harsh debt collection measures not imposed on debtors whose creditors are private entities;
f. A declaratory judgment that Defendant violates Plaintiffs’ Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights by issuing and serving arrest warrants without probable cause to believe that the elements of an offense had been committed, with unreasonable delay prior to presentment, without requiring a neutral probable cause finding for warrantless arrestees, and without providing pre-deprivation of liberty process where such process is easily available to the City for judgment debtors;
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g. An order and judgment permanently enjoining Defendant from enforcing the above-described unconstitutional policies and practices against Plaintiffs;

h. A judgment compensating members of the Jailed Class for damages they suffered as a result of the City’s unconstitutional and unlawful conduct in imprisoning them in violation of law;

i. A judgment compensating members of the Paid Fines Class for damages they suffered and restitution for money paid to the City as the result of unlawful fines, fees (excluding “warrant recall fees”, “letter fees”, and/or “failure to appear fees”, as defined in Watkins v. City of Florissant, No. 16SL-CC00165 (St. Louis Co. Cir. Ct. filed Jan. 2016)), costs, or from cases in the City court and who have not been provided an opportunity to prove indigence;

j. An order and judgment granting reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1988 and any other relief this Court deems just and proper.

Dated: December 13, 2016

Respectfully submitted,

By: /s/ Thomas B. Harvey Thomas B. Harvey (MBE #61734MO) Michael-John Voss (MBE #61742MO) Edward J. Hall (MBE #0012692IA) Blake A. Strode (MBE #68422MO) Nathaniel Carroll (MBE #67988MO)
ARCHCITY DEFENDERS, INC. 1210 Locust Street Saint Louis, MO 63103 Tel: (855) 724-2489 Fax: (314) 925-1307 tharvey@archcitydefenders.org mjvoss@archcitydefenders.org bstrode@archcitydefenders.org ehall@archcitydefenders.org ncarroll@archcitydefenders.org
and
Jeffrey D. Kaliel (pro hac vice) Martin D. Quiñones (pro hac vice)
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Case: 4:16-cv-01693-NAB Doc. #: 16 Filed: 12/13/16 Page: 52 of 52 PageID #: 136 TYCKO & ZAVAREEI LLP 1828 L Street, NW – Suite 1000 Washington, D.C. 20036 Tel: (202) 973-0900 Fax: (202) 973-0950 jkaliel@tzlegal.com mquinones@tzlegal.com Attorneys for Plaintiffs
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 U.S. District Court Eastern District of Missouri (St. Louis) CIVIL DOCKET FOR CASE #: 4:16-cv-01693-NAB

Baker et al v. City of Florissant Assigned to: Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker Cause: 42:1981 Civil Rights

Date Filed: 10/31/2016 Jury Demand: Both Nature of Suit: 440 Civil Rights: Other Jurisdiction: Federal Question

Plaintiff Thomas Baker

represented by Andrea R. Gold TYCKO AND ZAVAREEI LLP DC 1828 L Street NW Suite 1000 Washington, DC 20036 202-973-0300 Fax: 202-973-0950 Email: agold@tzlegal.com LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

Blake Alexander Strode ARCHCITY DEFENDERS 440 N. 4th St. Suite 390 St. Louis, MO 63102 855-724-2489 x1003 Fax: 314-925-1307 Email: bstrode@archcitydefenders.org LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

Edward James Hall ARCHCITY DEFENDERS 440 N. 4th St. Suite 390 St. Louis, MO 63102 855-724-2489 Fax: 314-925-1307 Email: e.j.hall89@gmail.com TERMINATED: 04/14/2017

LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Jeffrey D. Kaliel TYCKO AND ZAVAREEI LLP DC 1828 L Street NW Suite 1000 Washington, DC 20036 202-973-0900 Fax: 202-973-0950 Email: Jkaliel@kalielpllc.com LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Jonathan K. Tycko TYCKO AND ZAVAREEI LLP DC 1828 L Street NW Suite 1000 Washington, DC 20036 (202) 973-0900 Fax: (202) 973-0950 Email: jtycko@tzlegal.com LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Lauren Joyce Kelleher TYCKO AND ZAVAREEI LLP DC 1828 L Street NW Suite 1000 Washington, DC 20036 202-973-0900 Fax: 202-973-0950 Email: lkelleher@tzlegal.com TERMINATED: 05/25/2017 LEAD ATTORNEY
Matthew William Lanahan TYCKO AND ZAVAREEI LLP DC 1828 L Street NW Suite 1000 Washington, DC 20036 202-973-0300

Fax: 202-973-0950 Email: mlanahan@tzlegal.com LEAD ATTORNEY PRO HAC VICE ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Michael-John Voss ARCHCITY DEFENDERS 440 N. 4th St. Suite 390 St. Louis, MO 63102 855-724-2489 x1002 Fax: 855-925-1307 Email: mjvoss@archcitydefenders.org LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Nathaniel Richard Carroll ARCHCITY DEFENDERS 440 N. 4th St. Suite 390 St. Louis, MO 63102 314-361-8834 Fax: 314-925-1307 Email: ncarroll@archcitydefenders.org LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Ryan A. Keane KEANE LAW LLC 7777 Bonhomme Ave. Suite 1600 St. Louis, MO 63105 314-391-4700 Fax: 314-244-3778 Email: ryan@keanelawllc.com LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Thomas B. Harvey ADVANCEMENT PROJECT 1220 L. Street NW Suite 850 Washington, DC 20005

314-482-3342 Fax: 314-925-1307 Email: tharvey@archcitydefenders.org LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Jacqueline Marie Kutnik-Bauder ARCHCITY DEFENDERS 440 N. 4th St. Suite 390 St. Louis, MO 63102 314-361-8834 x1024 Fax: 314-925-1307 Email: jkutnikbauder@archcitydefenders.org TERMINATED: 08/11/2020
John McCann Waldron ARCHCITY DEFENDERS 440 N. 4th St. Suite 390 St. Louis, MO 63102 314-361-8834 x1021 Fax: 314-925-1307 Email: jwaldron@archcitydefenders.org ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Kyra A. Taylor TYCKO AND ZAVAREEI LLP DC 1828 L Street NW Suite 1000 Washington, DC 20036 202-973-0900 Fax: 202-973-0950 Email: ktaylor@tzlegal.com
Martin D. Quinones TYCKO AND ZAVAREEI LLP Oakland 483 Ninth St. Suite 200 Oakland, CA 94607 510-254-6808

Plaintiff Sean Bailey

Fax: 202-973-0950 Email: quinones.martin@gmail.com TERMINATED: 02/02/2017 ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
represented by Andrea R. Gold (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Blake Alexander Strode (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Edward James Hall (See above for address) TERMINATED: 04/14/2017 LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Jeffrey D. Kaliel (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Jonathan K. Tycko (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Lauren Joyce Kelleher (See above for address) TERMINATED: 05/25/2017 LEAD ATTORNEY
Matthew William Lanahan (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY PRO HAC VICE ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Michael-John Voss (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY

Plaintiff Nicole Bolden

ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Nathaniel Richard Carroll (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Ryan A. Keane (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Thomas B. Harvey (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Jacqueline Marie Kutnik-Bauder (See above for address) TERMINATED: 08/11/2020
John McCann Waldron (See above for address) ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Kyra A. Taylor (See above for address)
Martin D. Quinones (See above for address) TERMINATED: 02/02/2017 ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
represented by Andrea R. Gold (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Blake Alexander Strode (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Edward James Hall (See above for address)

TERMINATED: 04/14/2017 LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Jeffrey D. Kaliel (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Jonathan K. Tycko (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Lauren Joyce Kelleher (See above for address) TERMINATED: 05/25/2017 LEAD ATTORNEY
Matthew William Lanahan (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY PRO HAC VICE ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Michael-John Voss (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Nathaniel Richard Carroll (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Ryan A. Keane (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Thomas B. Harvey (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Jacqueline Marie Kutnik-Bauder

Plaintiff Allison Nelson

(See above for address) TERMINATED: 08/11/2020
John McCann Waldron (See above for address) ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Kyra A. Taylor (See above for address)
Martin D. Quinones (See above for address) TERMINATED: 02/02/2017 ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
represented by Andrea R. Gold (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Blake Alexander Strode (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Edward James Hall (See above for address) TERMINATED: 04/14/2017 LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Jeffrey D. Kaliel (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Jonathan K. Tycko (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Lauren Joyce Kelleher (See above for address) TERMINATED: 05/25/2017 LEAD ATTORNEY

Plaintiff

Matthew William Lanahan (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY PRO HAC VICE ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Michael-John Voss (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Nathaniel Richard Carroll (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Ryan A. Keane (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Thomas B. Harvey (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Jacqueline Marie Kutnik-Bauder (See above for address) TERMINATED: 08/11/2020
John McCann Waldron (See above for address) ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Kyra A. Taylor (See above for address)
Martin D. Quinones (See above for address) TERMINATED: 02/02/2017 ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

Meredith Walker individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated

represented by Andrea R. Gold (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Blake Alexander Strode (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Edward James Hall (See above for address) TERMINATED: 04/14/2017 LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Jeffrey D. Kaliel (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Jonathan K. Tycko (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Lauren Joyce Kelleher (See above for address) TERMINATED: 05/25/2017 LEAD ATTORNEY
Matthew William Lanahan (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY PRO HAC VICE ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Michael-John Voss (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Nathaniel Richard Carroll (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

V. Defendant City of Florissant

Ryan A. Keane (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Thomas B. Harvey (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Jacqueline Marie Kutnik-Bauder (See above for address) TERMINATED: 08/11/2020
John McCann Waldron (See above for address) ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Kyra A. Taylor (See above for address)
Martin D. Quinones (See above for address) TERMINATED: 02/02/2017 ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
represented by Blake Daniel Hill HELLMICH HILL LLC 1049 N. Clay Ave. Kirkwood, MO 63122 314-646-1110 Fax: 314-646-1122 Email: Blake@hellmichhillretter.com LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Jason S. Retter HELLMICH HILL LLC 1049 N. Clay Ave. Kirkwood, MO 63122 314-646-1110

Fax: 314-646-1122 Email: Jason@hellmichhillretter.com LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Rachel A. Bates HELLMICH HILL LLC 1049 N. Clay Ave. Kirkwood, MO 63122 314-646-1110 Email: rachel@hellmichhillretter.com LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
William A. Hellmich HELLMICH HILL LLC 1049 N. Clay Ave. Kirkwood, MO 63122 314-646-1110 Fax: 314-646-1122 Email: Bill@hellmichhillretter.com LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
John Michael Reeves , Jr. REEVES LAW LLC 3703 Watson Road Saint Louis, MO 63109 314-775-6985 Fax: 314-775-6985 Email: reeves@reeveslawstl.com TERMINATED: 09/17/2019 ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Lauren A Behan SCHECHTER LAW FIRM PC 8000 Maryland Avenue Suite 950 Clayton, MO 63105 314-727-7289 ext. 32 Fax: 314-727-2230 Email: lauren@schechterlaw.com TERMINATED: 09/11/2018 ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

V.
witness
REJIS 4255 W. Pine Blvd. Saint Louis, MO 63108 3145351950

Date Filed 10/31/2016
10/31/2016 10/31/2016 11/01/2016
11/01/2016 11/01/2016 11/01/2016

#

Docket Text

1 COMPLAINT against defendant City of Florissant with receipt number 0865-5655690, in the amount of $400 Jury Demand,, filed by Allison Nelson, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Sean Bailey, Meredith Walker. (Attachments: # 1 Civil Cover Sheet Civil Cover Sheet, # 2 Original Filing Form Original Filing Form, # 3 Waiver of Service Notice of Lawsuit and Request to Waive Service)(Harvey, Thomas) (Attachment 2 replaced on 11/1/2016) (MFG). (Attachment 3 replaced on 11/1/2016) (MFG). (Entered: 10/31/2016)

2 ENTRY of Appearance by Nathaniel Richard Carroll for Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Carroll, Nathaniel) (Entered: 10/31/2016)

3 ENTRY of Appearance by Blake Alexander Strode for Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Strode, Blake) (Entered: 10/31/2016)

Case Opening Notification: Waivers issued 1. All parties must file the Notice Regarding Magistrate Judge Jurisdiction Form consenting to or opting out of the Magistrate Judge jurisdiction. Click here for the instructions. Judge Assigned: Honorable Nannette A. Baker. (MFG) (Entered: 11/01/2016)

4 ENTRY of Appearance by Edward James Hall for Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Hall, Edward) (Entered: 11/01/2016)

5 ENTRY of Appearance by Michael-John Voss for Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Voss, Michael-John) (Entered: 11/01/2016)

6 Pursuant to Local Rule 2.08, the assigned/referred magistrate judge is designated and authorized by the court to exercise full

11/18/2016 11/18/2016 11/21/2016 11/29/2016 12/07/2016 12/09/2016
12/12/2016 12/13/2016 12/13/2016

authority in this assigned/referred action or matter under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 636 and 18 U.S.C Sec. 3401. (CSAW) (Entered: 11/01/2016)
7 WAIVER OF SERVICE Returned Executed filed by Allison Nelson, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Sean Bailey, Meredith Walker City of Florissant waiver signed on 10/31/2016, answer due 12/30/2016. (Hall, Edward) (Entered: 11/18/2016)
8 ENTRY of Appearance by Blake Daniel Hill for Defendant City of Florissant. (Hill, Blake) (Entered: 11/18/2016)
9 FULL CONSENT has been received by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker, Defendant City of Florissant.. (GGB) (Entered: 11/21/2016)
10 RULE 16 ORDER This case is assigned to Track: 2-Standard Joint Scheduling Plan due by 12/7/2016. Rule 16 Conference set for 12/12/2016 10:30 AM before Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker. Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on 11/29/16. (KJS) (Entered: 11/29/2016)
11 JOINT SCHEDULING PLAN by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. . (Hall, Edward) (Entered: 12/07/2016)
12 MOTION for Leave to Appear Pro Hac Vice Jeffrey D. Kaliel. The Certificate of Good Standing was attached.(Filing fee $100 receipt number 0865-5714677) by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit Bar Admissions list, # 2 Certificate of Good Standing Disctrict of Columbia)(Kaliel, Jeffrey) (Entered: 12/09/2016)
13 Docket Text ORDER: IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that attorney Jeffrey D. Kaliel's Verified Motion for Admission Pro Hac Vice is GRANTED. [Doc. 12.] Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on December 12, 2016. (EMM) (Entered: 12/12/2016)
14 Minute Entry for proceedings held before Magistrate Judge Lewis M. Blanton: Rule 16 Conference held on 12/13/2016. Conference held in person. CMO to issue. (Court Reporter:none) (FTR Gold: No) (CLA) (Entered: 12/13/2016)
15 MOTION for Leave to Appear Pro Hac Vice Martin D. Quinones. The Certificate of Good Standing was attached.(Filing fee $100 receipt number 0865-5718215) by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker.

12/13/2016 12/13/2016
12/14/2016 12/21/2016 12/22/2016
01/13/2017 01/13/2017

(Attachments: # 1 Exhibit List of Bar Admissions, # 2 Certificate of Good Standing)(Quinones, Martin) (Entered: 12/13/2016)

AMENDED COMPLAINT against defendant All Defendants

16

Amendment to 1 Complaint, , filed by Allison Nelson, Thomas

Baker, Nicole Bolden, Sean Bailey, Meredith Walker. Related

document: 1 Complaint, filed by Meredith Walker, Nicole Bolden,

Sean Bailey, Allison Nelson, Thomas Baker.(Hall, Edward)

(Entered: 12/13/2016)

17 CASE MANAGEMENT ORDER This case is assigned to Track: 3 (Complex) Motion to Join Parties due by 1/20/2017. Discovery Completion due by 12/29/2017. ADR Future Reference 6/1/2017. Dispositive Motions due by 3/26/2018. Jury Trial set for 8/20/2018 09:00 AM before Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker. Pretrial Conference set for 8/16/2018 11:00 AM before Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker. SEE ORDER for full details. Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on 12/13/2016. (GGB) (Entered: 12/13/2016)

18 Docket Text ORDER: IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that attorney Martin D. Quinones' Verified Motion for Admission Pro Hac Vice is GRANTED. [Doc. 15.] Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on December 14, 2016. (EMM) (Entered: 12/14/2016)

19 Consent MOTION for Extension of Time to File Answer re 16

Amended Complaint, by Defendant City of Florissant. (Hill, Blake) (Entered: 12/21/2016)

20 Docket Text ORDER: IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Defendant City of Florissant's Motion for Extension of Time to Respond to First Amended Complaint is GRANTED. [Doc. 19.] IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Defendant shall file its Response to Plaintiffs' First Amended Complaint no later than January 13, 2017. Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on December 22, 2016. (EMM) (Entered: 12/22/2016)

21 MOTION for Leave to File in Excess of Page Limitation by Defendant City of Florissant. (Hill, Blake) (Entered: 01/13/2017)

MOTION to Dismiss Case by Defendant City of Florissant. (Hill,

22

Blake) (Entered: 01/13/2017)

01/13/2017 01/17/2017 01/18/2017
01/19/2017 02/01/2017 02/13/2017
02/14/2017 02/17/2017 02/19/2017
02/21/2017

23 MEMORANDUM in Support of Motion re 22 MOTION to Dismiss Case filed by Defendant City of Florissant. (Hill, Blake) (Entered: 01/13/2017)
24 MOTION for Extension of Time to File Response/Reply by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Hall, Edward) (Entered: 01/17/2017)
25 ORDER granting 24 Motion for Extension of Time to File Response (Response due by 2/17/2017); granting 21 Motion for Leave to File in Excess of Page Limitation. Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on 1/18/2017. (ESF) (Entered: 01/18/2017)
26 ENTRY of Appearance by William A. Hellmich for Defendant City of Florissant. (Hellmich, William) (Entered: 01/19/2017)
27 NOTICE by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker Withdrawal of Attorney Martin D. Quinones (Kaliel, Jeffrey) (Entered: 02/01/2017)
28 MOTION for Leave to Appear Pro Hac Vice Lauren Kelleher. The Certificate of Good Standing was attached.(Filing fee $100 receipt number 0865-5810153) by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Attachments: # 1 Certificate of Good Standing)(Kelleher, Lauren) (Entered: 02/13/2017)
29 Docket Text ORDER granting 28 MOTION for Leave to Appear Pro Hac Vice by Attorney Lauren Kelleher. Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on 2/14/2017. (ESF) (Entered: 02/14/2017)
30 MOTION for Leave to File in Excess of Page Limitation by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Hall, Edward) (Entered: 02/17/2017)

31

RESPONSE in Opposition re 22 MOTION to Dismiss

Case filed by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole

Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Carroll, Nathaniel)

(Entered: 02/19/2017)

32 Docket Text ORDER: IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Plaintiffs' Motion to File in Excess of Page Limit is GRANTED. [Doc. 30.]

02/27/2017 02/28/2017 03/24/2017 03/27/2017 03/31/2017 04/11/2017 04/14/2017 04/28/2017 05/01/2017

Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on February 21, 2017. (EMM) (Entered: 02/21/2017)
33 MOTION for Extension of Time to File Response/Reply as to 31
Response in Opposition to Motion (BY CONSENT) by Defendant City of Florissant. (Hill, Blake) (Entered: 02/27/2017)
34 ORDER granting 33 Motion for Extension of Time to File Reply. Reply due by 3/24/2017. Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on 2/28/2017. (ESF) (Entered: 02/28/2017)
35 Consent MOTION for Extension of Time to File Response/Reply
as to 31 Response in Opposition to Motion by Defendant City of Florissant. (Hill, Blake) (Entered: 03/24/2017)
36 ORDER granting 35 Motion for Extension of Time to File Reply. Reply due by 3/31/2017. Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on 3/27/2017. (ESF) (Entered: 03/27/2017)

37

REPLY to Response to Motion re 22 MOTION to Dismiss

Case filed by Defendant City of Florissant. (Hill, Blake) (Entered:

03/31/2017)

38 MOTION to Withdraw as Attorney ;attorney/firm Edward Hall by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Hall, Edward) (Entered: 04/11/2017)

39 ORDER granting 38 Motion to Withdraw as Attorney. Attorney Edward James Hall is withdrawn. Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on 4/14/2017. (ESF) (Entered: 04/14/2017)

40 Joint MOTION for Leave to Schedule Telephone Status Conference by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Carroll, Nathaniel) (Entered: 04/28/2017)

41 ORDER granting 40 Joint MOTION for Leave to Schedule Telephone Status Conference. IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that a telephone premotion conference is set on Monday, May 8, 2017 at 2:30 p.m. The Court will initiate the call. The parties must provide a phone number where they can be reached no later than Friday, May 5, 2017 at 5:00 p.m. Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on 5/1/2017. (ESF) (Entered: 05/01/2017)

05/08/2017 05/24/2017 06/01/2017
06/07/2017
06/21/2017 06/26/2017 06/27/2017
08/15/2017

42 Minute Entry for proceedings held before Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker: StatusTelephone Conference held on 5/8/2017 in chambers. (Court Reporter:none)(FTR Gold Operator initials:none) (FTR Gold: No) (CLA) (Entered: 05/09/2017)
43 NOTICE Withdrawal of Appearance of Counsel: by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker (Kaliel, Jeffrey) (Entered: 05/24/2017)
44 ORDER REFERRING CASE to Alternative Dispute Resolution. This case is referred to: mediation Designation of Lead Counsel: Blake Strode ADR Completion Deadline due by 8/1/2017. ADR Compliance Report Deadline due by 8/15/2017. Designation of Neutral/Conference Report due by 7/18/2017. Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on 6/1/17. (CLA) (Entered: 06/01/2017)
45 NOTICE Supplemental Authority related to Plaintiffs' Opposition to Defendant's pending Motion to Dismiss: by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith
Walker re 31 Response in Opposition to Motion, 37
Reply to Response to Motion, 22 MOTION to Dismiss Case , 23 Memorandum in Support of Motion (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit Exhibit A - Webb et al. v. Maplewood - June 5, 2017 Order)(Carroll, Nathaniel) (Entered: 06/07/2017)
46 MOTION to Vacate ADR or Postpone Referral by Defendant City of Florissant. (Hellmich, William) (Entered: 06/21/2017)
47 RESPONSE to Motion re 46 MOTION to Vacate ADR or Postpone Referral filed by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Kaliel, Jeffrey) (Entered: 06/26/2017)
48 ORDER AMENDING REFERRING CASE to Alternative Dispute Resolution. This case is referred to: mediation Designation of Lead Counsel: Blake Strode ADR Completion Deadline due by 11/24/2017. ADR Compliance Report Deadline due by 12/8/2017. Designation of Neutral/Conference Report due by 11/10/2017. Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on 6/27/17. (CLA) (Entered: 06/28/2017)
49 MOTION for Protective Order (by consent) by Defendant City of Florissant. (Attachments: # 1 Text of Proposed Order proposed consent protective order)(Hill, Blake) (Entered: 08/15/2017)

08/16/2017 08/16/2017 11/13/2017 11/13/2017 11/15/2017
12/11/2017
12/23/2017 12/27/2017

50 Docket Text ORDER: Re: 49 MOTION for Protective Order (by consent) by Defendant City of Florissant. (Attachments: # 1 Text of Proposed Order proposed consent protective order)(Hill, Blake) filed by City of Florissant ; ORDERED GRANTED NAB. Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on 8/15/17. (CLA) (Entered: 08/16/2017)

51 PROTECTIVE ORDER. Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on 8/15/17. (CLA) (Entered: 08/16/2017)

***REMARK - Sent counsel an email reminding them that the: ADR DESIGNATION OF NEUTRAL/CONFERENCE REPORT was due on Nov. 10, 2017 (KJS) (Entered: 11/13/2017)

52 Joint MOTION to Vacate ADR or Postpone ADR Deadline by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Carroll, Nathaniel) (Entered: 11/13/2017)

53 ORDER AMENDING ORDER REFERRING CASE TO ALTERNATIVE DISPUTE RESOLUTION: IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the Order Amending Order Referring Case to Alternative Dispute Resolution of June 27, 2017 is AMENDED as follows: (SEE ORDER FOR DETAILS) ( ADR Completion Deadline due by 3/5/2018., ADR Compliance Report Deadline due by 3/19/2018., ADR Future Reference 1/5/2018., Designation of Neutral/Conference Report due by 2/20/2018.). Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on 11/15/2017. (CLO) (Entered: 11/15/2017)

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER - IT IS HEREBY ORDERED

54

that defendant City of Florissants motion to dismiss, or

alternatively to strike or for a more definite statement via

repleading is DENIED. (Doc. No. 22 ). Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on 12/11/17. (KJS) (Entered: 12/11/2017)

55 Consent MOTION for Extension of Time to File Answer re 54

Memorandum & Order, 16 Amended Complaint, by Defendant City of Florissant. (Hill, Blake) (Entered: 12/23/2017)

56 Docket Text ORDER: Defendant's Motion for Extension of Time for Answer [Doc. 55] ORDERED GRANTED. Defendant shall have until January 12, 2018 to respond to the Amended

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02/08/2018
02/13/2018

Complaint. Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on December 27, 2017. (HEH) (Entered: 12/27/2017)
57 ENTRY of Appearance by Lauren A. Regan for Defendant City of Florissant. (Regan, Lauren) (Entered: 01/08/2018)
58 ANSWER to 16 Amended Complaint, by City of Florissant.(Hill, Blake) (Entered: 01/12/2018)
59 Joint MOTION to Amend/Correct 17 Case Management Order, by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Carroll, Nathaniel) (Entered: 01/25/2018)
60 AMENDED CASE MANAGEMENT ORDER 59 Joint MOTION to Amend/Correct 17 Case Management Order, filed by Plaintiff Meredith Walker, Plaintiff Nicole Bolden, Plaintiff Sean Bailey, Plaintiff Allison Nelson, Plaintiff Thomas Baker ( Discovery Completion due by 10/31/2018., ADR Future Reference 4/30/2018., Dispositive Motions due by 1/30/2019., Jury Trial set for 6/17/2019 09:00 AM before Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker., Pretrial Conference set for 6/12/2018 11:00 AM before Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker.) Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on 1/29/18. (CLA) (Entered: 01/29/2018)
61 ENTRY of Appearance by Rachel A. Bates for Defendant City of Florissant. (Bates, Rachel) (Entered: 01/30/2018)
62 MOTION for Leave to Appear Pro Hac Vice Jonathan K. Tycko. The Certificate of Good Standing was attached.(Filing fee $100 receipt number 0865-6372450) by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit, # 2 Certificate of Good Standing)(Tycko, Jonathan) (Entered: 02/08/2018)
63 MOTION for Leave to Appear Pro Hac Vice Kyra A. Taylor. The Certificate of Good Standing was attached.(Filing fee $100 receipt number 0865-6372486) by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Attachments: # 1 Certificate of Good Standing)(Taylor, Kyra) (Entered: 02/08/2018)
64 Docket Text ORDER: Motion for Leave to Appear Pro Hac Vice by Attorneys Jonathan Tycko and Kyra Taylor [Docs. 62 and 63] is ORDERED GRANTED. Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on February 13, 2018. (HEH) (Entered: 02/13/2018)

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65 THIRD ORDER REFERRING CASE to Alternative Dispute Resolution. This case is referred to: mediation Designation of Lead Counsel: Blake Strode ADR Completion Deadline due by 8/1/2018. ADR Compliance Report Deadline due by 8/15/2018. Designation of Neutral/Conference Report due by 5/21/2018. Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on 4/30/18. (CLA) (Entered: 04/30/2018)
66 Designation of Neutral by parties and ADR Conference Report by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker Neutral: Cohen, Robert S. Date of Conference: 07/18/2018 time: 9:00 A.M. Location: 500 N. Broadway, Suite 1800, St. Louis, MO 63102(Carroll, Nathaniel) (Entered: 05/21/2018)
67 NOTICE of Appointment of Neutral. Neutral name: Cohen, Robert S. Neutral selected by Parties. (cc: neutral)(KJS) (Entered: 05/22/2018)
68 NOTICE of Change of Address filed by Nathaniel Richard Carroll. (Carroll, Nathaniel) Law Firm address updated in CM/ECF (CAR). (Entered: 06/21/2018)
69 Joint MOTION to Amend/Correct 65 Order Referring Case to ADR, 60 Case Management Order - Amended,, by Defendant City of Florissant. (Hill, Blake) (Entered: 07/17/2018)
70 ORDER AMENDING THIRD ORDER REFERRING CASE TO ALTERNATIVE DISPUTE RESOLUTION - This case is referred to: Mediation effective November 1, 2018. Designation of Lead Counsel: Blake Alexander Strode. ADR Completion Deadline due by 11/16/2018. ADR Compliance Report Deadline due by 11/30/2018. Designation of Neutral/Conference Report due by 11/1/2018. Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on 7/17/18. (KJS) (Entered: 07/17/2018)
71 Joint MOTION for Extension of: Expert Deadlines for 60 Days by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Tycko, Jonathan) (Entered: 07/31/2018)
72 SECOND AMENDED CASE MANAGEMENT ORDER - IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the parties Joint Motion to Extend Expert Deadlines for 60 Days [Doc. No. 71 ] is GRANTED. (See Order For Details) ( Discovery Completion due by 12/30/2018.). Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on 08/02/2018. (AAS) (Entered: 08/02/2018)

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73 MOTION for Leave to Appear Pro Hac Vice Andrea R. Gold. The Certificate of Good Standing was attached.(Filing fee $100 receipt number 0865-6690576) by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit, # 2 Certificate of Good Standing)(Gold, Andrea) (Entered: 08/10/2018)
74 Docket Text ORDER: IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the 73 MOTION for Leave to Appear Pro Hac Vice filed by Andrea R. Gold is GRANTED. Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on 8/13/2018. (GGB) (Entered: 08/13/2018)
75 MOTION to Withdraw by Defendant City of Florissant. (Regan, Lauren) (Entered: 09/04/2018)
76 Docket Text ORDER: Motion to Withdraw as Co-Counsel filed by Lauren Regan (Doc. 75) is ORDERED GRANTED. Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on September 10, 2018. (HEH) (Entered: 09/10/2018)
77 Joint MOTION for Extension of: Case Deadlines by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Tycko, Jonathan) (Entered: 09/26/2018)
78 THIRD AMENDED CASE MANAGEMENT ORDER - (See Order For Details) ( Discovery Completion due by 2/13/2019., Dispositive Motions due by 5/13/2019., Jury Trial set for 11/18/2019 09:00 AM in Courtroom 13N before Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker., Pretrial Conference set for 11/12/2019 11:00 AM in Courtroom 13N before Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker.). Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on 10/02/2018. (AAS) (Entered: 10/02/2018)
79 MOTION to Vacate ORDER REFERRING CASE TO ALTERNATIVE DISPUTE RESOLUTION by Defendant City of Florissant. (Hellmich, William) (Entered: 11/05/2018)
80 Docket Text ORDER: Re: 79 Defendant City of Florissant's MOTION to Vacate the ORDER REFERRING CASE TO ALTERNATIVE DISPUTE RESOLUTION is ORDERED DENIED. The parties are expected to comply with the Order Amending Third Order Referring Case to Alternative Dispute Resolution (Doc. 70), entered on July 17, 2018. Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on November 7, 2018. (HEH) (Entered: 11/07/2018)

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81 Electronic Notice of Noncompliance to Review of case shows the Designation of Neutral/ADR conference report has not been filed. A written motion requesting an extension of the designation of neutral/ADR conference report filing deadline must be filed with the court within 5 days. Notice only, no.pdf attached.(AAS) (Entered: 11/13/2018)
82 Joint MOTION to Amend/Correct 80 Docket Text Order, 70 Order Referring Case to ADR, 81 Electronic Notice of Noncompliance Designation of Neutral/Conference Report, by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Carroll, Nathaniel) (Entered: 11/15/2018)
83 Designation of Neutral by parties and ADR Conference Report by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker Neutral: Reeves, James W. Date of Conference: 12/12/2018 time: 9am Location: USAM - 500 N. Broadway, Suite 1800, Saint Louis, Missouri 63102(Carroll, Nathaniel) (Entered: 11/15/2018)
84 NOTICE of Appointment of Neutral. Neutral name: Reeves, James W. Neutral selected by Parties (cc:neutral) (AAS) (Entered: 11/16/2018)
85 MOTION to Withdraw as Attorney ;attorney/firm Nathaniel R. Carroll by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Carroll, Nathaniel) (Entered: 11/29/2018)
86 MOTION to Amend/Correct Third Case Management Order by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Voss, Michael-John) (Entered: 11/30/2018)
87 ENTRY of Appearance by John McCann Waldron for Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Waldron, John) (Entered: 12/03/2018)
88 RESPONSE to Motion re 86 MOTION to Amend/Correct Third Case Management Order filed by Defendant City of Florissant. (Hellmich, William) (Entered: 12/03/2018)
89 Docket Text ORDER: Re: 85 MOTION to Withdraw as Attorney by Nathaniel R. Carroll is ORDERED GRANTED. Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on December 3, 2018. (HEH) (Entered: 12/03/2018)

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90 ORDER SETTING STATUS CONFERENCE IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that counsel for the parties shall appear at a telephone status conference to discuss the Motion to Amend the Case Management Order (Doc. 86) on Thursday, December 6, 2018, at 11:00 a.m., in the chambers of the undersigned. The parties are directed to call in to the status conference at the scheduled time using the following information: DIAL IN (866) 434-5269, ACCESS CODE 5487605. Telephone Conference set for 12/6/2018 11:00 AM in Telephone before Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker. Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on 12/3/18. (CLA) (Entered: 12/03/2018)
91 ORDER EXTENDING THE AMENDED THIRD ORDER REFERRING CASE TO ALTERNATIVE DISPUTE RESOLUTION IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the parties Joint Motion to Amend Third Order Referring Case to Alternative Dispute Resolution [Doc. 82] is GRANTED. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the Amended Third Order Referring Case to Alternative Dispute Resolution of July 17, 2018, is AMENDED as follows: (b) Conduct of ADR Conference(s): The ADR conference(s) shall be conducted in accordance with the procedures outlined in E.D.Mo. L.R. 6.01 - 6.05. (c) Scheduling ADR Conference(s): The ADR conference(s) shall be concluded before December 12, 2018, unless extended by order of the Court.Designation of Lead Counsel: Blake Alexander Strode is designated as lead counsel and shall be responsible for working with the parties and the neutral to coordinate an agreeable date, time, and, if necessary, location for the initial ADR conference. (e) Responsibilities of Lead Counsel: The parties have changed their selection of neutral to James Reeves in this case. [Doc. 82]. Not later than December 10, 2018, lead counselshall notify the clerk if the agreed choice of neutral selected by the parties has changed, as well as the date, time and location of the ADR Conference (see Designation of Neutral/ADR Conference Report form, www.moed.uscourts.gov, ADR, forms). Lead counsel shall send a copy of this order to the neutral. All other provisions of the Third Order Referring Case to Alternative Dispute Resolution of April 30, 2018, and the remaining deadlines set forth in the Amended CaseManagement Order of January 29, 2018, remain in full force and effect. 82 80 70 81 ( ADR Completion Deadline due by 12/12/2018.) Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on 12/3/18. (CLA) (Entered: 12/04/2018)
92 MOTION for Hearing Pursuant to Local Rule 16-6.02(B)(2) by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison

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Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit Exhibit 1)(Voss, Michael-John) (Entered: 12/04/2018)
93 ORDER VACATING REFERRAL TO ALTERNATIVE DISPUTE RESOLUTION IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the Third Order Referring Case to Alternative Dispute Resolution, and its amendment [Docs. 70 and 91] are VACATED, and the mediation set for December 12, 2018, is cancelled.IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Plaintiffs Motion for Hearing Pursuant to Local Rule 16-6.02(B)(2) [Doc. 92] is DENIED as moot. 92 Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on 12/6/18. (CLA) (Entered: 12/06/2018)
94 ELECTRONIC MINUTE ENTRY (no pdf attached) for proceedings held before Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker: Status Conference held on 12/6/2018 by telephone. (proceedings started: 11:00) (proceedings ended: 11:46) (CLA) (Entered: 12/06/2018)
95 FOURTH AMENDED CASE MANAGEMENT ORDER - IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the Amended Case Management Order of January 29, 2018, the Second Amended Case Management Order of August 2, 2018, as well as the Third Amended Case Management Order of October 2, 2018, are AMENDED as follows: (See order for full details.) ( Discovery Completion due by 10/4/2019., Dispositive Motions due by 12/13/2019., Jury Trial set for 6/22/2020 09:00 AM before Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker., Pretrial Conference set for 6/16/2020 11:00 AM before Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker.) Signed by District Judge Jean C. Hamilton on 12/7/18. (KJS) (Entered: 12/07/2018)
96 ENTRY of Appearance by John Michael Reeves, Jr for Defendant City of Florissant. (Reeves, John) (Entered: 12/18/2018)
97 Joint MOTION to Amend/Correct 95 Case Management Order Amended,, by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Voss, Michael-John) (Entered: 02/15/2019)
98 FIFTH AMENDED CASE MANAGEMENT ORDER: IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the Amended Case Management Order of January 29, 2018, the Second Amended Case Management Order of August 2, 2018, the Third Amended Case Management Order of October 2, 2018, as well as the Fourth Amended Case Management Order of December 7, 2018, are AMENDED as follows: IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the following schedule shall apply in this case, and will be modified only upon a showing

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of exceptional circumstances: (SEE ORDER FOR DETAILS) ( Discovery Completion due by 1/2/2020., Dispositive Motions due by 3/12/2020., Jury Trial set for 9/21/2020 09:00 AM in Courtroom 13N before Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker., Pretrial Conference set for 9/14/2020 11:00 AM in Courtroom 13N before Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker.). Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on 3/6/19. (JAB) (Entered: 03/06/2019)
99 Consent MOTION for Leave to File in Excess of Page Limitation as to sup by Defendant City of Florissant. (Reeves, John) (Entered: 03/16/2019)
100 MOTION for Judgment on the Pleadings for failure to join an indispensable party under Rule 19 by Defendant City of Florissant. (Reeves, John) (Entered: 03/16/2019)
101 MEMORANDUM in Support of Motion re 100 MOTION for Judgment on the Pleadings for failure to join an indispensable party under Rule 19 filed by Defendant City of Florissant. (Reeves, John) (Entered: 03/16/2019)
102 NOTICE filing exhibits in support of motion for judgment on the pleadings: by Defendant City of Florissant re 100 MOTION for Judgment on the Pleadings for failure to join an indispensable party under Rule 19 (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit A (Rule 19 text), # 2 Exhibit B (Relevant Missouri Law), # 3 Exhibit C (Mo.S.Ct. R. 37))(Reeves, John) (Entered: 03/16/2019)
103 NOTICE request for oral argument: by Defendant City of Florissant re 100 MOTION for Judgment on the Pleadings for failure to join an indispensable party under Rule 19 (Reeves, John) (Entered: 03/16/2019)
104 Docket Text ORDER: Re: [Doc. 99] Defendants' Consent MOTION for Leave to File in Excess of Page Limitation is ORDERED GRANTED. Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on March 19, 2019. (HEH) (Entered: 03/19/2019)
105 Joint MOTION for Extension of Time to File Response/Reply as to 100 MOTION for Judgment on the Pleadings for failure to join an indispensable party under Rule 19 by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Waldron, John) (Entered: 03/20/2019)
106 Docket Text ORDER: - IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the 105 Joint MOTION for Extension of Time to File

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Response/Reply as to 100 MOTION for Judgment on the Pleadings for failure to join an indispensable party under Rule 19 is GRANTED. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Plaintiffs shall respond to Florissants Motion to Dismiss no later than Monday, April 15, 2019, with any reply brief from the City of Florissant due no later than Thursday, April 28, 2019. Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on 3/21/2019. (GGB) (Entered: 03/21/2019)
107 MOTION for Leave to Appear Pro Hac Vice Matthew W. Lanahan. The Certificate of Good Standing was attached.(Filing fee $100 receipt number 0865-7113262) by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Attachments: # 1 Certificate of Good Standing)(Lanahan, Matthew) (Entered: 03/26/2019)
108 ENTRY of Appearance by Ryan A. Keane for Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Keane, Ryan) (Entered: 03/27/2019)
109 ENTRY of Appearance by Nathaniel Richard Carroll for Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Carroll, Nathaniel) (Entered: 03/27/2019)
110 Consent MOTION for Leave to File in Excess of Page Limitation by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Waldron, John) (Entered: 04/15/2019)
111 MEMORANDUM in Opposition re 100 MOTION for Judgment on the Pleadings for failure to join an indispensable party under Rule 19 filed by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit Exhibits)(Waldron, John) (Entered: 04/15/2019)
112 Docket Text ORDER: Re: 107 MOTION for Leave to Appear Pro Hac Vice by Matthew W. Lanahan for Plaintiffs is ORDERED GRANTED. Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on April 17, 2019. (HEH) (Entered: 04/17/2019)
113 Docket Text ORDER: Re: 110 Consent MOTION for Leave to File in Excess of Page Limitation by Plaintiffs is ORDERED GRANTED. Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on April 17, 2019. (HEH) (Entered: 04/17/2019)
114 Consent MOTION for Extension of Time to File Response/Reply as to 100 MOTION for Judgment on the Pleadings for failure to

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join an indispensable party under Rule 19 by Defendant City of Florissant. (Reeves, John) (Entered: 04/25/2019)
115 Docket Text ORDER: Defendant's Consent Motion for Extension of Time to File Reply [Doc. 114] is ORDERED GRANTED. Defendant shall have up to and including May 2, 2019, to file a reply. Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on April 26, 2019. (HEH) (Entered: 04/26/2019)
116 Consent MOTION for Leave to File in Excess of Page Limitation as to reply memorandum by Defendant City of Florissant. (Reeves, John) (Entered: 05/02/2019)
117 REPLY to Response to Motion re 100 MOTION for Judgment on the Pleadings for failure to join an indispensable party under Rule 19 filed by Defendant City of Florissant. (Attachments: # 1 Attachment Addendum 1)(Reeves, John) (Entered: 05/02/2019)
118 Docket Text ORDER: Re: 116 Defendant's Consent MOTION for Leave to File in Excess of Page Limitation as to reply memorandum is ORDERED GRANTED. Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on May 6, 2019. (HEH) (Entered: 05/06/2019)
NOTICE: IF YOU HAVE ALREADY UPGRADED YOUR PACER ACCOUNT YOU CAN DISREGARD THIS NOTICE. IF YOU DO NOT UPGRADE YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO FILE IN THE SYSTEM AFTER MAY 31, 2019. PLEASE UPGRADE IMMEDIATELY. If you are using a shared account to file cases, you will need to create an individual account; instructions can be found at:https://www.moed.uscourts.gov/sites/moed/files/Register-forNew-PACER-account.pdf. If you already have an individual account, it will need to be upgraded; instructions can be found https://www.moed.uscourts.gov/sites/moed/files/UpgradeCurrent-PACER-Account.pdf. If you need further assistance contact the MOED CM/ECF Help Desk at 314-244-7650 or moedml_cmecf_help@moed.uscourts.gov. (CSAW) (Entered: 05/20/2019)
119 Joint MOTION to Amend/Correct 98 Case Management Order Amended,,, by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Carroll, Nathaniel) (Entered: 06/11/2019)

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120 SIXTH AMENDED CASE MANAGEMENT ORDER - See Order For Details ( Discovery Completion due by 1/2/2020., Dispositive Motions due by 5/13/2020., Jury Trial set for 12/7/2020 09:00 AM in Courtroom 13N before Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker., Pretrial Conference set for 11/30/2020 11:00 AM in Courtroom 13N before Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker.). Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on 06/13/2019. (AAS) (Entered: 06/13/2019)
121 NOTICE Intent to Serve Subpoena to Testify at a Deposition: by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(Gold, Andrea) (Entered: 07/05/2019)
***REMARK Doc 121 Please refer to Rule 26 - 3.02 Filing of Discovery and Disclosure Materials. (A) In civil actions, discovery and disclosure materials pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 26, 30, 31, 33, 34, 35, and 36, and the certificates of their service, shall not be filed with the Court except as exhibits to a motion or memorandum (AAS) (Entered: 07/08/2019)
122 MOTION for Extension of Time to File Answer Plaintiffs' Second Set of Interrogatories and Third Request for Production of Documents by Defendant City of Florissant. (Hellmich, William) (Entered: 07/25/2019)
123 Docket Text ORDER: Re: 122 Defendant's MOTION for Extension of Time to File Answer to Plaintiffs' Second Set of Interrogatories and Third Request for Production of Documents is ORDERED GRANTED. Defendant shall have up to and including August 2, 2019. Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on July 29, 2019. (HEH) (Entered: 07/29/2019)
124 MOTION to Compel Directed to Non-Party REJIS by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Carroll, Nathaniel) (Entered: 08/01/2019)
125 MEMORANDUM in Support of Motion re 124 MOTION to Compel Directed to Non-Party REJIS filed by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit 1 - First REJIS Subpoena, # 2 Exhibit 2 - Second REJIS Subpoena, # 3 Exhibit 3 - Bippen Deposition Excerpts, # 4 Exhibit 4 - Bahmani Deposition Excerpts, # 5 Text of Proposed Order Proposed Order)(Carroll, Nathaniel) (Entered: 08/01/2019)

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126 NOTICE of Supplemental Authority re 100 MOTION for Judgment on the Pleadings for failure to join an indispensable party under Rule 19 by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker . (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit Order of the court in Brucker v. City of Doraville)(Gold, Andrea) (Entered: 08/01/2019)
127 NOTICE of Supplemental Authority re 100 MOTION for Judgment on the Pleadings for failure to join an indispensable party under Rule 19 by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker . (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit A)(Gold, Andrea) (Entered: 08/06/2019)
128 MEMORANDUM in Opposition re 124 MOTION to Compel Directed to Non-Party REJIS filed by witness REJIS. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit A Subpoena)(Flojo, Raymond) (Entered: 08/07/2019)
129 Joint MOTION to Amend/Correct 120 Case Management Order Amended, by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Gold, Andrea) (Entered: 08/08/2019)
130 MEMORANDUM AND ORDER - IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Defendants motion to dismiss Counts I through III and V through VII for failure to join an indispensable party, and its motion for oral argument on the same, are both DENIED. (Doc. Nos. 100 & 103 ). Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on 08/12/2019. (AAS) (Entered: 08/12/2019)
131 SEVENTH AMENDED CASE MANAGEMENT ORDER Discovery Completion due by 4/1/2020. Dispositive Motions due by 8/11/2020. Jury Trial set for 3/8/2021 09:00 AM before Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker. Pretrial Conference set for 3/1/2021 11:00 AM before Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker.. Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on 8/14/19. (KJS) (Entered: 08/14/2019)
132 REPLY to Response to Motion re 124 MOTION to Compel Directed to Non-Party REJIS filed by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Carroll, Nathaniel) (Entered: 08/14/2019)
133 ENTRY of Appearance by Jacqueline Marie Kutnik-Bauder for Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Kutnik-Bauder, Jacqueline) (Entered: 09/05/2019)

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134 MOTION to Withdraw as Attorney ;attorney/firm John M. Reeves by Defendant City of Florissant. (Reeves, John) (Entered: 09/13/2019)
135 Docket Text ORDER: Re: 134 MOTION to Withdraw as Attorney attorney/firm John M. Reeves by Defendant City of Florissant. (Reeves, John) filed by City of Florissant is ORDERED GRANTED. Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on September 16, 2019. (HEH) (Entered: 09/16/2019)
136 Docket Text ORDER: IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, that a Discovery Conference to discuss the pending motion to compel is set for Thursday, 10/17/2019 at 10:00 AM in Chambers 13N - St. Louis before Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker.. Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on October 15, 2019. (HEH) Modified on 10/16/2019 (AAS). (Entered: 10/15/2019)
137 ELECTRONIC MINUTE ENTRY (no pdf attached) for proceedings held before Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker: Motion Hearing held on 10/17/2019 re 124 MOTION to Compel Directed to Non-Party REJIS filed by Meredith Walker, Nicole Bolden, Sean Bailey, Allison Nelson, Thomas Baker. Attorney for REGIS present - Raymond Flojo. Arguments heard on the matter of the motion to compel. Motion To Compel 124 is GRANTED. Parties agreed on proposed order. Order To Issue. Counsel for plaintiff mentioned an eighth amended case management order may be needed for an extension of time to complete discovery. (proceedings started: 10:05am) (proceedings ended: 10:32am)(FTR Gold Operator initials: A. SHEPARD)(Appearance for Plaintiff: Nathaniel Richard Carroll)(Appearance for Defendant: Blake Daniel Hill) (AAS) (Entered: 10/17/2019)
138 Docket Text ORDER: Re: 124 MOTION to Compel Directed to Non-Party REJIS by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Carroll, Nathaniel) filed by Meredith Walker, Nicole Bolden, Sean Bailey, Allison Nelson, Thomas Baker ; ORDERED GRANTED. Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on 10/17/2019. (AAS) (Entered: 10/17/2019)
139 ORDER - See Order For Full Details. Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on 10/17/2019. (AAS) (Entered: 10/17/2019)
140 Joint MOTION to Amend/Correct 131 Case Management Order, by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden,

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Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Carroll, Nathaniel) (Entered: 11/07/2019)
141 EIGHTH AMENDED CASE MANAGEMENT ORDER - See Order For Full Details - ( Discovery Completion due by 4/1/2020., Dispositive Motions due by 8/11/2020., Jury Trial set for 3/8/2021 09:00 AM in Courtroom 13N - St. Louis before Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker., Pretrial Conference set for 3/1/2021 11:00 AM in Courtroom 13N - St. Louis before Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker.). Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on 11/19/2019. (AAS) (Entered: 11/19/2019)
142 MOTION for Leave to File Second Amended Complaint by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit Exhibit 1 Second Amended Complaint)(Carroll, Nathaniel) (Entered: 01/15/2020)
143 MEMORANDUM in Support of Motion re 142 MOTION for Leave to File Second Amended Complaint filed by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit Exhibit 1 - Second Amended Complaint, # 2 Exhibit Exhibit 2 - In-line Comparison of First Amended Complaint and Second Amended Complaint)(Carroll, Nathaniel) (Entered: 01/15/2020)
144 Consent MOTION for Extension of Time to File Response/Reply as to 143 Memorandum in Support of Motion, 142 MOTION for Leave to File Second Amended Complaint by Defendant City of Florissant. (Hill, Blake) (Entered: 01/22/2020)
145 Docket Text ORDER: IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Defendant's Motion for Extension of Time to Respond to Motion is GRANTED. [Doc. 144.] IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Defendant shall file the response to Plaintiffs' Motion for Leave to file a Second Amended Complaint no later than January 27, 2020. Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on January 22, 2020. (EMM) (Entered: 01/22/2020)
146 MEMORANDUM in Opposition re 142 MOTION for Leave to File Second Amended Complaint filed by Defendant City of Florissant. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit Deposition of Matthew Bohn of May 15, 2019 at 87:6-90:22, # 2 Exhibit Deposition of Amber Pate of May 14, 2019 at 31:8-33:15)(Hill, Blake) (Entered: 01/27/2020)

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147 MOTION for Leave to File in Excess of Page Limitation (re: MEMORANDUM IN OPPOSITION TO PLAINTIFFS MOTION FOR LEAVE TO FILE SECOND AMENDED COMPLAINT) by Defendant City of Florissant. (Hill, Blake) (Entered: 01/27/2020)
148 Docket Text ORDER:IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Defendant City of Florissant's Motion for Leave to Exceed Page Limit is GRANTED. [Doc. 147.] Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on February 3, 2020. (EMM) (Entered: 02/03/2020)
149 REPLY to Response to Motion re 142 MOTION for Leave to File Second Amended Complaint filed by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit Exhibit 1 - Bolden Booking Sheet (Redacted), # 2 Exhibit Exhibit 2 - DeHart Deposition Excerpts, # 3 Exhibit Exhibit 3 - Emails re Search Terms, # 4 Exhibit Exhibit 4 - Defendant's Responses to Plaintiffs' Second Requests for Production)(Carroll, Nathaniel) (Entered: 02/06/2020)
150 MOTION for Leave to File Sur-Reply and for Hearing/Oral Argument by Defendant City of Florissant. (Hill, Blake) (Entered: 02/11/2020)
151 Consent MOTION to Amend/Correct 141 Case Management Order - Amended, by Defendant City of Florissant. (Hill, Blake) (Entered: 02/11/2020)
152 RESPONSE in Opposition re 150 MOTION for Leave to File SurReply and for Hearing/Oral Argument filed by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Carroll, Nathaniel) (Entered: 02/12/2020)
153 NINTH AMENDED CASE MANAGEMENT ORDER - See Order For Full Details - ( Discovery Completion due by 7/1/2020.). Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on 02/12/2020. (AAT) (Entered: 02/12/2020)
154 Docket Text ORDER: IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Defendant's Motion for Leave to File Sur-Reply is DENIED. [Doc. 150.] IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that a hearing on Plaintiffs' Motion for Leave to File Second Amended Complaint is SET for Tuesday, March 3, 2020 at 11:30 a.m.(In Court Hearing set for 3/3/2020 11:30 AM in Courtroom 13N - St. Louis before Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker.) Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on February 12, 2020. (EMM) (Entered: 02/12/2020)

03/03/2020

155 ENTRY of Appearance by Jason S. Retter for Defendant City of Florissant. (Retter, Jason) (Entered: 03/03/2020)

03/03/2020

156 ELECTRONIC MINUTE ENTRY (no pdf attached) for proceedings held before Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker: Motion Hearing held on 3/3/2020 re 142 MOTION for Leave to File Second Amended Complaint filed by Meredith Walker, Nicole Bolden, Sean Bailey, Allison Nelson, Thomas Baker. Arguments heard. Matter taken under submission. (proceedings started: 11:30 a.m.) (proceedings ended: 12:10 p.m.)(FTR Gold Operator initials: C. Long)(Appearance for Plaintiffs: Nathaniel Carroll, Matthew Lanahan, John Waldron)(Appearance for Defendant: Blake Hill, William Hellmich, Jason Retter) (CBL) (Entered: 03/03/2020)

04/15/2020

Judge Baker enters a Standing Order in all of her cases as follows: See Order for details https://www.moed.uscourts.gov/judge/nannettebaker (AAT) (Entered: 04/16/2020)

05/04/2020

158 Digital Audio File regarding Motion Hearing,, 156 held on 03/03/2020 before Judge HONORABLE NANNETTE A. BAKER. AUDIO FILE SIZE (19.9 MB)1 of 1 (Audio Records are for Court Use Only.) (AAT) (Entered: 05/04/2020)

05/06/2020 159

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Plaintiffs' Motion for Leave to File a Second Amended Complaint is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part. [Doc. 142.] The Court grants Plaintiffs leave to amend their Complaint to correct demographical information of the Plaintiffs, including age, incarceration periods, fine amounts, incorrect dates, and any typographical errors. Plaintiffs are also granted leave to remove paragraphs that are no longer supported by the information revealed in discovery. The Court denies Plaintiffs request for leave to add Defendant Demetrious Davis, reconfigure and add class categories, and add a claim under Mo. Rev. Stat. § 544.170. It is so ordered. Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on May 6, 2020. (MCB) (Entered: 05/06/2020)

05/07/2020

160 MOTION for Reconsideration re 159 Memorandum & Order,,, by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Carroll, Nathaniel) (Entered: 05/07/2020)

05/20/2020

161 Consent MOTION for Leave to File in Excess of Page Limitation by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole

05/21/2020 05/21/2020 05/21/2020
05/21/2020 05/21/2020

Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Waldron, John) (Entered: 05/20/2020)
162 MEMORANDUM in Opposition re 160 MOTION for
Reconsideration re 159 Memorandum & Order,,, filed by Defendant City of Florissant. (Hellmich, William) (Entered: 05/21/2020)
163 Docket Text ORDER: IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Plaintiffs' Consent Motion For Leave to File in Excess of Page Limitation is GRANTED. [Doc. 161.] IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Plaintiffs may file a brief in support of their Motion for Class Certification of up to 30 pages in length. Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on May 21, 2020. (JMR) (Entered: 05/21/2020)
164 MOTION to Exclude The Report and Testimony of Dr. Thomas R. Ireland by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Attachments: # 1 Memorandum in Support of Plaintiff's Motion to Exclude the Report and Testimony of Dr. Thomas R. Ireland, # 2 Declaration of Matthew Lanahan, # 3 Exhibit 1 - Rogers Report, # 4 Exhibit 2 - Ireland Invoices, # 5 Exhibit 3 - Ireland Report, # 6 Exhibit 4 Rogers Deposition Transcript, # 7 Exhibit 5 - Ireland Deposition Transcript, # 8 Exhibit 6 - Ireland Retention Agreement, # 9 Exhibit 7 - Ireland CV, # 10 Exhibit 8 - Ireland Delgado Deposition Transcript, # 11 Proposed Order)(Gold, Andrea) (Entered: 05/21/2020)
165 MOTION for Leave to File Sealed Motion for Class Certification by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Attachments: # 1 Memorandum in Support of Motion to Seal, # 2 Proposed Order)(Gold, Andrea) (Entered: 05/21/2020)
166 SEALED MOTION for Class Certification by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Attachments: # 1 Memorandum in Support of Motion for Class Certification, # 2 Declaration of Matthew Lanahan, # 3 Declaration of Blake Strode, # 4 Declaration of Ryan Keane, # 5 Proposed Order, # 6 Exhibit 1, # 7 Exhibit 2, # 8 Exhibit 3, # 9 Exhibit 4, # 10 Exhibit 5, # 11 Exhibit 6, # 12 Exhibit 7, # 13 Exhibit 8, # 14 Exhibit 9, # 15 Exhibit 10, # 16 Exhibit 11, # 17 Exhibit 12, # 18 Exhibit 13, # 19 Exhibit 14, # 20 Exhibit 15, # 21 Exhibit 16, # 22 Exhibit 17, # 23 Exhibit 18, # 24 Exhibit 19,

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05/27/2020 05/28/2020 05/28/2020 06/04/2020 06/04/2020 06/04/2020

# 25 Exhibit 20, # 26 Exhibit 21, # 27 Exhibit 22, # 28 Exhibit 23, # 29 Exhibit 24, # 30 Exhibit 25, # 31 Exhibit 26, # 32 Exhibit 27, # 33 Exhibit 28, # 34 Exhibit 29, # 35 Exhibit 30)(Gold, Andrea) (Entered: 05/21/2020)
167 MOTION to Certify Class by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Attachments: # 1 Memorandum in Support of Motion for Class Certification, # 2 Declaration of Matthew Lanahan, # 3 Declaration of Blake Strode, # 4 Declaration of Ryan A. Keane, # 5 Proposed Order, # 6 Exhibit 1, # 7 Exhibit 2, # 8 Exhibit 3, # 9 Exhibit 4, # 10 Exhibit 5, # 11 Exhibit 6, # 12 Exhibit 7, # 13 Exhibit 8, # 14 Exhibit 9, # 15 Exhibit 10, # 16 Exhibit 11, # 17 Exhibit 12, # 18 Exhibit 13, # 19 Exhibit 14, # 20 Exhibit 15, # 21 Exhibit 16, # 22 Exhibit 17, # 23 Exhibit 18, # 24 Exhibit 19, # 25 Exhibit 20, # 26 Exhibit 21, # 27 Exhibit 22, # 28 Exhibit 23, # 29 Exhibit 24, # 30 Exhibit 25, # 31 Exhibit 26, # 32 Exhibit 27, # 33 Exhibit 28, # 34 Exhibit 29, # 35 Exhibit 30)(Gold, Andrea) (Entered: 05/21/2020)
168 MOTION for Hearing by Defendant City of Florissant. (Hellmich, William) (Entered: 05/27/2020)
169 MEMORANDUM in Opposition re 168 MOTION for Hearing filed by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Gold, Andrea) (Entered: 05/28/2020)
170 REPLY to Response to Motion re 168 MOTION for Hearing DEFENDANTS REPLY BRIEF filed by Defendant City of Florissant. (Hellmich, William) (Entered: 05/28/2020)
171 MEMORANDUM in Opposition re 164 MOTION to Exclude The Report and Testimony of Dr. Thomas R. Ireland filed by Defendant City of Florissant. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit Ex. A Deposition of William H. Rogers, excerpts)(Hill, Blake) (Entered: 06/04/2020)
172 MOTION for Extension of Time to File Response/Reply as to 166 SEALED MOTION for Class Certification , 167 MOTION to Certify Class by Defendant City of Florissant. (Hellmich, William) (Entered: 06/04/2020)
173 MOTION for Contempt by Defendant City of Florissant. (Hellmich, William) (Entered: 06/04/2020)

06/04/2020 06/04/2020 06/08/2020 06/08/2020 06/11/2020
06/12/2020 06/15/2020 06/17/2020

174 MOTION to Shorten Time by Defendant City of Florissant. (Hellmich, William) Modified on 6/5/2020 (EAB). (Entered: 06/04/2020)
175 MEMORANDUM in Support of Motion re 173 MOTION for Contempt , 172 MOTION for Extension of Time to File Response/Reply as to 166 SEALED MOTION for Class Certification , 167 MOTION to Certify Class , 174 MOTION to Shorten Time filed by Defendant City of Florissant. (Hellmich, William) Modified on 6/5/2020 (EAB). (Entered: 06/04/2020)
176 Docket Text ORDER: IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Plaintiffs' Motion for Leave to File Sealed Motion for Class Certification is GRANTED. [Doc. 165.] Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on June 8, 2020. (JMR) (Entered: 06/08/2020)
177 ORDER - IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Defendants Motion for Conference is DENIED without prejudice. [Doc. 168 .] Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on 06/08/2020. (AAT) (Entered: 06/08/2020)
178 MEMORANDUM in Opposition re 173 MOTION for Contempt , 172 MOTION for Extension of Time to File Response/Reply as to 166 SEALED MOTION for Class Certification , 167 MOTION to Certify Class , 174 MOTION to Amend/Correct 173 MOTION for Contempt , 172 MOTION for Extension of Time to File Response/Reply as to 166 SEALED MOTION for Class Certification , 167 MOTION to Certify Class filed by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Carroll, Nathaniel) (Entered: 06/11/2020)
179 REPLY to Response to Motion re 172 MOTION for Extension of Time to File Response/Reply as to 166 SEALED MOTION for Class Certification , 167 MOTION to Certify Class filed by Defendant City of Florissant. (Hill, Blake) (Entered: 06/12/2020)
180 REPLY to Response to Motion re 164 MOTION to Exclude The Report and Testimony of Dr. Thomas R. Ireland filed by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit 1 - Excerpts from Deposition of Dr. Ireland)(Carroll, Nathaniel) Modified on 6/16/2020 (MCB). (Entered: 06/15/2020)
181 REPLY to Response to Motion re 173 MOTION for Contempt filed by Defendant City of Florissant. (Hellmich, William) (Entered: 06/17/2020)

06/17/2020 06/17/2020 06/25/2020 07/10/2020 07/10/2020
07/28/2020
08/06/2020 08/10/2020

182 ORDER IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Defendant's Motion for Extension of Time to File Opposition to Plaintiffs' Motion for Class Certification is GRANTED. [Doc. 172.] Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on June 17, 2020. (MCB) (Entered: 06/17/2020)
183 MOTION for Leave to File Sur-Reply by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit Sur-Reply)(Waldron, John) (Entered: 06/17/2020)
184 MEMORANDUM in Opposition re 183 MOTION for Leave to File Sur-Reply filed by Defendant City of Florissant. (Hellmich, William) (Entered: 06/25/2020)
185 MOTION to Amend/Correct 141 Case Management Order Amended, 153 Case Management Order Amended (DEFENDANTS MOTION TO EXTEND DISPOSITIVE MOTION DEADLINE) by Defendant City of Florissant. (Hill, Blake) (Entered: 07/10/2020)
186 MEMORANDUM in Support of Motion re 185 MOTION to Amend/Correct 141 Case Management Order Amended, 153 Case Management Order Amended (DEFENDANTS MOTION TO EXTEND DISPOSITIVE MOTION DEADLINE) filed by Defendant City of Florissant. (Hill, Blake) (Entered: 07/10/2020)
187 Docket Text ORDER: IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Defendant's Motion to Extend Dispositive Motion Deadline is GRANTED. [Doc. 185.] IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that any dispositive motions must be filed no later than sixty (60) days following the Court's ruling on Plaintiffs' Motion for Class Certification. Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on July 28, 2020. (JMR) (Entered: 07/28/2020)
188 MOTION to Withdraw by Plaintiffs Sean Bailey, Thomas Baker, Nicole Bolden, Allison Nelson, Meredith Walker. (Kutnik-Bauder, Jacqueline) (Entered: 08/06/2020)
189 Docket Text ORDER: IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that attorney Jacqueline Kutnik-Bauder's Motion to Withdraw as counsel of record for Plaintiffs is GRANTED. [Doc. 188.] All other attorneys of record for Plaintiffs will remain. Signed by Magistrate Judge Nannette A. Baker on August 10, 2020. (JMR) (Entered: 08/10/2020)

08/24/2020

190 NOTICE of Change of Address filed by Nathaniel Richard Carroll. (Carroll, Nathaniel) (Entered: 08/24/2020)

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On October 31st, 2016, a group of Plaintiffs who had been jailed for their inability to pay fines owed to the City of Florissant, Missouri for traffic tickets or other minor municipal offenses, sued the City for this violation of due process. This case is still in the discovery stage and has been ongoing for four years. 