On January 10, 2018, two Philadelphia residents convicted for possession of small amounts of drugs filed this class lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. The plaintiffs sued three secretaries of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and the governor of Pennsylvania because they believed a criminal state statute was unconstitutional. This statute automatically suspended a person's drivers' licenses in tandem with the conviction of a drug offense. Represented by Equal Justice Under Law, the plaintiffs sought a declaration that the statute was unconstitutional under the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. Specifically, they claimed that the statute targeted drug offenders as a disfavored class of persons without a rational basis; that the process of suspending their driver’s licenses was not sufficient to satisfy Due Process; and that the statute abridged their substantive Due Process rights to travel on interstate roadways. They also sought injunctive relief to enjoin state officials from implementing the statute.

The plaintiffs sought class certification on behalf of all individuals whose Pennsylvania driver’s licenses were suspended or would be suspended due to conviction of a drug offense. They also sought preliminary injunctive relief to immediately stop the Pennsylvania government from enforcing the statute while the litigation proceeded. The plaintiffs filed both of these motions filed the day after this action was initiated.

The defendants moved to dismiss the case, or in the alternative to strike the class action motion, on April 16, 2018. The court granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss on September 25, 2018. The court dismissed the original complaint with prejudice, preventing the plaintiffs from amending their complaint. Judge Cynthia Rufe found that there was a rational basis for the Pennsylvania legislature’s discrimination against drug offenders by suspending their licenses, which negated the Equal Protection claim. She also ruled against the procedural and substantive Due Process claims, stating that the criminal process which convicted the plaintiffs was sufficient process. The statute did not deny the plaintiffs the right to interstate travel—just the right to a Pennsylvania driver’s license, which was not a fundamental right. Judge Rufe concluded that the plaintiffs had raised meritorious policy arguments against the statute, but that the court was limited to only striking down unconstitutional statutes, not unwise ones.

This ended the action and the case is now closed.

Nathan Santoscoy - 02/06/2019


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