Chicago vehicle owners whose cars were towed under the city’s abandoned-vehicle program between 2017 and recent years can file claims for payments of up to $1,250 under a settlement tied to two federal lawsuits. The deadline to submit a claim is August 12. The agreement resolves Santiago v. City of Chicago (19-CV-04652) and Fitzgibbons v. City of Chicago (22-CV-05827), which alleged the city routinely failed to give drivers proper notice before and after towing their vehicles.
Due-process failures in Chicago’s towing program
The settlement stems from years of litigation over how Chicago handled its abandoned-vehicle process. Under city procedures, a vehicle flagged as abandoned was supposed to receive a sticker notice affixed to the car before removal. After towing, the city was also required to send post-tow notices to the registered owner. The federal appellate opinion in Santiago v. City of Chicago, No. 20-3522, laid out how these notice steps worked on paper and examined whether the city actually followed them in practice.
The core allegation across both lawsuits was straightforward: Chicago towed cars without giving owners a meaningful chance to respond. Drivers often discovered their vehicles were gone only after the fact, sometimes facing storage fees and fines that compounded daily. The failure was not a one-off clerical error but a recurring pattern, according to the claims brought by the named plaintiffs.
In court filings, the plaintiffs described a system in which vehicles were tagged as abandoned even when they were in active use, and then towed with little or no effective warning. Owners who did not receive timely notice could not contest the designation, retrieve personal property, or move their cars before fees escalated. Some lost vehicles entirely when they were sold or scrapped after accumulating charges they never had a fair chance to challenge.
Whether the breakdowns in notice happened uniformly across the city or clustered in particular neighborhoods is a question the claims data could eventually answer. If approved claims concentrate in specific wards, that pattern would suggest localized enforcement gaps rather than a single citywide policy failure. The settlement itself, however, does not appear to require the city to publish ward-level data on where towing violations occurred, leaving those distributional questions to future analysis by advocates or researchers who obtain the records.
Two lawsuits and a City Council settlement order
The resolution brings together two separate cases filed in federal court. Santiago was the earlier action, filed as case 19-CV-04652. Fitzgibbons followed as case 22-CV-05827, raising similar due-process arguments about inadequate towing notices. Both cases targeted the City of Chicago as the defendant. The settlement framework was authorized by the City Council through an order recorded in the clerk’s system as Or2026-0023119, which formally approved resolving both lawsuits together.
The Seventh Circuit’s 2021 ruling in Santiago did not end the litigation but clarified the legal standards at stake and allowed the core due-process claims to move forward. The appellate court examined Chicago’s sticker notice and post-tow notice procedures, emphasizing that written policies are insufficient if, in practice, they fail to give owners a realistic opportunity to be heard. By the time the city agreed to settle, the record reflected documented gaps in notice that exposed Chicago to significant liability under the Fourteenth Amendment.
Who can file a claim
Eligible claimants are vehicle owners whose cars were towed as “abandoned” by the City of Chicago between 2017 and the end of the settlement period and who did not receive adequate pre-tow or post-tow notice as required by city procedures. The settlement focuses on people who were deprived of their vehicles or forced to pay towing and storage charges without a fair chance to contest the underlying abandonment designation.
Claimants may qualify for different levels of compensation depending on what happened to the vehicle. Owners whose cars were ultimately destroyed or sold by the city can seek higher awards, while those who recovered their vehicles but incurred substantial fees may receive lower but still meaningful payments. The maximum available under the agreement is $1,250 per qualifying vehicle, subject to verification of the tow and confirmation that it occurred under the abandoned-vehicle program.
People who believe they are eligible will generally need to provide identifying details such as the vehicle identification number, license plate, approximate tow date, and proof of ownership at the time of the tow. Documentation of payments made to recover a vehicle, or records showing that a car was never returned, can strengthen a claim, though the settlement also contemplates that some information may be confirmed through city towing databases.
How to submit and what comes next
Claims must be submitted by August 12 using the process described in the settlement materials distributed to potential class members. Forms may be available online or by mail, and applicants are expected to certify that their statements are accurate to the best of their knowledge. Late submissions are unlikely to be accepted, so owners who suspect they were affected should act promptly to gather records and complete the required paperwork.
After the filing deadline, a settlement administrator will review claims, confirm eligibility, and calculate individual payments. If the number of approved claims is higher than anticipated, some awards could be prorated to keep total payouts within the settlement fund. Approved payments will be issued only after the court grants final approval and any appeals are resolved.
For Chicago drivers, the settlement offers limited but tangible relief for years of flawed towing practices. It does not erase the broader financial and personal disruptions caused when a car disappears without warning, but it does acknowledge that the city’s abandoned-vehicle program fell short of constitutional standards and provides a structured path for affected owners to seek compensation before the August 12 deadline.
