Florida Woman Fined $165,000 for Trivial Code Violations Takes Her Case to the Florida Supreme Court
Sandy Martinez was fined for a parking violation on her own property, driveway cracks, and a storm-damaged fence.
Sandy Martinez, a homeowner in Lantana, Florida, has been battling over $165,000 in fines for three minor code violations for years. She's now asking the Florida Supreme Court to consider her case and put a stop to what she says are unconstitutionally excessive fines.
Martinez's accumulated six-figure fine amounts to nearly four times her annual income, financially crippling the single mother over infractions that have since been corrected and never threatened health or safety.
What atrocities warranted such devastating debt? Cracks in her driveway, a storm-blown fence, and cars parked on her own grass. First, Martinez faced daily $75 fines while saving up to replace her cracked driveway in 2013, ultimately owing $16,125 in total, "far greater than the cost of an entirely new driveway," as noted in the initial lawsuit. Then, the city began fining her $125 per day in 2015 for a fence knocked down after a storm. While Martinez waited for her insurance claim to pay for the repair, she accrued another $47,375 in fees—again, "several times the cost of the repair and substantially more than the cost of a completely new fence," according to her complaint.
Finally, while living with her three children, mother, and sister in 2019, Martinez was cited for parking cars slightly beyond her driveway. Although she promptly fixed the issue and left a voicemail with code enforcement requesting a compliance check, no inspector came by. Martinez was being fined $250 per day. By the time the city recognized that the parking violation had been corrected, the total fine for the infraction had ballooned to $101,750.
Unable to cover this debt—even if she sold her home—Martinez took her case to court in 2021, arguing that the city's fines are grossly disproportionate for her offenses and excessive under the Florida Constitution. So far, the lower courts have ruled against Martinez, reasoning that "substantial deference should be given to the legislature's determination of an appropriate fine."
But she and her lawyers at the Institute for Justice believe it is time the Florida Supreme Court, which has not considered a case on the state constitution's excessive fines clause in over a century, revived the right to be free from excessive fines as a meaningful bulwark against government abuse. "Six-figure fines for parking on your own property are outrageous," said I.J. Attorney Mike Greenberg. "The Florida Constitution's Excessive Fines Clause was designed to stop precisely this sort of abuse—to prevent people from being fined into poverty for trivial violations."
Martinez's circumstance is not an isolated incident. Florida homeowners across the state have endured massive, unjust fines without recourse, including a woman fined $103,559 for a dirty pool and overgrown grass, a family facing $250,000 in fines for invasive trees, and an elderly couple facing $366,000 in fines for duplex code violations.
"Municipal code enforcement has become a major and recurring source of government abuse in the form of catastrophic fines," said I.J. Senior Attorney Ari Bargil. "The time has come for the Florida Supreme Court to once again interpret this important constitutional protection and finally put a stop to this injustice."
