In April of 2010, we sued the Division of Motor Vehicles for telling thousands of motorists that their license and registration were to be suspended due to unpaid fines without providing any information about the alleged offense, the penalty, or even the date that the offense supposedly took place.

These notices violated basic principles of due process and in some cases were especially unhelpful. Our plaintiff, for example, received a “notice of action” from the DMV that his license would soon be suspended. The notice indicated that the “date of incident” was “00/00/0000,” that the reason for the suspension is that he was “not entitled to lic. issue,” and that the fee he owed was “$0.00.”

We successfully settled this case and ensured that all license suspension notices contain specific language about the driver’s right to a hearing to contest the suspension, as well as information about the hearing procedures.

This isn’t the only time we have raised concerns about regulatory lapses. This February, we successfully challenged the DMV’s implementation of an uninsured motorist database. In that case, the DMV had proposed no regulations whatsoever to address key issues over implementation of the database, which was designed to compile information from insurance companies about the identities of insured drivers and information from the DMV about registered motor vehicles.

Learn more about our work to protect due process here.