Unexpected Consequences of Titling a Vehicle in a Company Name; You Can Fight City Hall Only If You Get a Lawyer

Unexpected Consequences of Titling a Vehicle in a Company Name; You Can Fight City Hall Only If You Get a Lawyer

     A recent news story from Chicago highlights a no doubt unintended, but certainly no less real, consequence of titling company vehicles in the name of the company.  In this instance, an individual had organized her photography business as a limited liability company and had titled the vehicle she used in her business in the name of the company.  Certainly nothing wrong with that.  While on the job, she received a clearly erroneous parking ticket; she had actual evidence showing that the meter was valid at the time the ticket was issued.  Not that, ultimately, it would matter.

      In reliance upon Stone Street Partners LLC v. City of Chicago Department of Administrative Hearings, 2014 Il. App. (1^st) 123654, 12 N.E.3d 691 (May 20, 2014),  the Chicago Department of Administrative Hearings, the body to whom parking tickets are appealed, threw out the appeal on the basis that the vehicle was owned by a business organization (whether a corporation or an LLC is not entirely clear, not that the distinction would in this instance matter) and must, in any proceeding, be represented by an attorney.  Hence, the individual sole owner of the business organization could not, on its behalf, appeal a parking ticket.

      HERE IS A LINK to that news story.  

There is Kentucky law providing that only an attorney must represent an LLC; in the Bobbett decision the pleadings filed on behalf of the member of an LLC seeking the eviction of a tenant of a mobile home owned by the LLC was stricken under Rule 11. Bobbett v. Russellville Mobile Park, LLC, No. 2007-CA-000684-DG (Ky. App. Sept. 12, 2008; modified Oct. 17, 2008).  See also Rutledge, Regarding the Disregarded Entity, 14 J. Passthrough Entities, Mar./Apr., 2011, 39.  HEREIS A LINK to that article.

 

      Assuming that a parking ticket is an in rem claim against the vehicle (rather than a liability imposed on the person who parked it), this decision actually (weirdly) makes sense.  At the same time, I can't imagine that anyone who put the title to a vehicle in either a corporation or LLC realize they were giving up the right to individually challenge parking ticket.

     Thanks to Kelley Bender (Chapman & Cutler) for the lead.