A City Fined Her Over $100,000 for Parking on Her Own Grass. The Florida Supreme Court Won't Hear Her Case.
Sandy Martinez's little-known story is a microcosm of the broader debate over what, exactly, transgresses the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on excessive fines.
What price should someone pay for three minor code violations?
For Sandy Martinez of Lantana, Florida, the answer is: over $165,000, plus interest, a sum so high that selling her house would be insufficient to pay off the debt, according to her complaint filed against the city in 2021. The Florida Supreme Court effectively closed the door on the case in December when it declined her appeal and left in place a decision that ruled the fines were not "excessive." But Martinez's little-known story is a microcosm of the broader debate over what, exactly, transgresses the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on fines that are unconstitutionally severe, especially as local governments are known to rely on such penalties to raise revenue.
Whether there is a disconnect between common sense and the law is open to interpretation. The bulk of her debt—over $100,000—comes from a parking job.
Martinez shares her home, and her driveway, with her sister and two adult children, all of whom have a car. "There is no curb to park alongside, and the roadways in front of and beside the house are only wide enough to handle two-way neighborhood traffic," notes her complaint. "If [Martinez] were to park in the street, she would completely block an entire lane of the roadway." So the four of them park in her driveway.
Pressed for room, the outer wheels initially made contact with Martinez's yard space, which is illegal in Lantana. She was cited in 2019—the cost would be $250 per day. "[Martinez] was notified by mail of the outcome and got the Home into compliance, at which time she sought a compliance inspection," her attorneys write. "But getting code enforcement officials on the phone and to [Martinez's] property was fruitless."
Martinez did not know, she says, what that meant practically: The fines would keep accruing, day after day, despite that she had rectified the issue. She would learn the hard way upon unsuccessfully attempting to refinance the home the next year. "What could I have possibly done for a fine to be that high?" she asked in an email to a city official.
An inspector was finally dispatched in June 2020 to verify that no wheel infringed on Martinez's grass. But 407 days had passed, and she would be on the hook for over $100,000, plus interest.
And yet that is not the only ruinous fine she is facing. For a storm-damaged fence she could not immediately afford to remedy, requiring that she wait for a slow-moving insurance claim, the city hit her with $47,375. The cost of installing an entirely new fence runs the average U.S. homeowner between $2,000 and $5,000. And for her driveway's cosmetic cracks, also a problem she did not have the money to fix right away, she was assessed $16,125. An average new asphalt driveway costs, on average, around $5,000. Martinez, according to her complaint, makes less than $43,000 a year.
"Fines are excessive when they shock the conscience and are unreasonably harsh or oppressive penalties in proportion to the violations to be redressed," Palm Beach County Circuit Court Judge Luis Delgado wrote in 2024, adding that "substantial deference should be given to the legislature's determination of an appropriate fine." All in all, he concluded, "the total sum of her fines are not grossly disproportionate to her offense," in part because Martinez's "violations have been enduring for a number of years"—notwithstanding the fact that they were enduring because of the financial constraints attached to addressing them. Delgado also lamented that Martinez did not challenge the "code enforcement board's order" within 30 days of "the final decision's execution." But that elides the fact that the bulk of Martinez's debt accrued over an extended period.
An appeals court affirmed. "The trial court…did not err in finding the fines were not grossly disproportionate to the violations," ruled the Florida Fourth District Court of Appeals in April 2025.
So where does that leave Martinez? Florida's homestead exemption protects her from foreclosure, but that is somewhat cold comfort. "Even if Martinez sold her home for top dollar, she still would not have enough money left over to pay off more than a small fraction of her debt to the City," her complaint notes. "[Martinez] will be unable to move for many years, if ever." When she dies, the city will be able to foreclose on the home, depriving her family of any equity she built.
Barring an extreme turn of good fortune, in other words, she is trapped in a house-arrest version of debtor's prison, her life derailed because she parked on grass she owns. Is that "grossly disproportionate"?
