Thomas et al v. Haslam et al

Filing 113

MEMORANDUM Signed by District Judge Aleta A. Trauger on 7/2/18. (DOCKET TEXT SUMMARY ONLY-ATTORNEYS MUST OPEN THE PDF AND READ THE ORDER.)(dt)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
MIDDLE DISTRICT OF TENNESSEE
NASHVILLE DIVISION
JAMES THOMAS and DAVID HIXSON,
Plaintiffs,
v.
BILL HASLAM, Governor of Tennessee,
in his official capacity; DAVID W.
PURKEY, Commissioner for the
Department of Safety and Homeland
Security, in his official capacity; and
HERBERT SLATERY, III, Attorney
General and Reporter, in his official
capacity,
Defendants.

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Case No. 3:17-cv-00005
Judge Aleta A. Trauger

MEMORANDUM
Before the court are a Motion for Summary Judgment (Docket No. 61) filed by the sole
remaining defendant in this case, the Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Safety and
Homeland Security (“TDSHS”), David W. Purkey, as well as a Motion for Summary Judgment
(Docket No. 37) filed by the plaintiffs, James Thomas and David Hixson. For the reasons set
forth herein and in the court’s preliminary Memorandum of March 26, 2018 (Docket No. 93)
(“First Memorandum” 1), the plaintiffs’ Motion will be granted and Purkey’s Motion will be
denied.
I. BACKGROUND AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
A person convicted of a crime in Tennessee is typically made liable, to the government,
for various sums of money related to his prosecution. Some of the defendant’s debt may reflect
fines imposed as part of his sentence, but Tennessee also holds a convicted defendant liable for
1

See Appendix.

additional, often substantial, amounts in the form of costs assessed against him and taxes
imposed on litigants by the Tennessee General Assembly. See Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-35104(c)(1); Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-25-123(a); Tenn. Code Ann. § 67-4-602(a). If the defendant
does not pay these fines, costs, and litigation taxes—also known as “court debt”—then local
authorities can attempt to collect on the debt using the ordinary tools available to judgment
creditors, such as garnishment of wages or execution on property. Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-24105(a); Tenn. R. Civ. P. 69.05–.07; see Tenn. Op. Att’y Gen. No. 06-135 (Aug. 21, 2006).
Sometimes those tools may be effective; sometimes they may not. In particular, when a
defendant has little or no income or assets, garnishment and execution will be of little use,
because no tool is sufficient to collect from resources that do not exist. The fact that it is difficult
to collect debts from very poor debtors is a reality faced by people and entities, both public and
private, in a wide array of circumstances; indeed, it is a problem as old, presumably, as debt
itself. 2
Failure to pay court debt, however, has consequences that failing to pay other debt does
not. In particular, TDSHS, by statute, revokes the driver’s license of any person who, like
Thomas and Hixson, has failed to pay court debt for a year or more, unless that person is granted
a form of discretionary relief by a court. See Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-24-105(b). The details of the
plaintiffs’ individual cases, as well as Tennessee’s system for administering court debt, can be
found in the First Memorandum. In short, Thomas and Hixson both live in severe poverty and
both owe court debt related to past criminal convictions. Thomas is totally and permanently

2

See, e.g., Code of Theodosius 4.20.1 (Clyde Pharr, trans.) (acknowledging inability to collect debt from
a person whose “fortunes . . . have been swept away by robbery, overwhelmed perhaps by shipwreck or
fire, or shattered by some misfortune and loss produced by the onset of an overwhelming force”), quoted
in Hon. Theodor C. Albert, The Insolvency Law of Ancient Rome, 28 Cal. Bankr. J. 365, 386 (2006); A.
H. Feller, Moratory Legislation: A Comparative Study, 46 Harv. L. Rev. 1061, 1062 (1933) (discussing
debt moratoria under classic Greek Law and under the Code of Justinian).

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disabled. Hixson has spent time in recent years living in a homeless shelter after a period of
incarceration. Each man struggles to afford the basic necessities of life and is unable to pay the
court debt assessed against him. Because they failed to pay their court debt for over a year,
Thomas and Hixson have both had their driver’s licenses revoked by TDSHS.
In contrast, a Tennessee driver with a criminal record identical to Thomas’s or
Hixson’s—but with the material resources to pay his court debt—could have avoided revocation
simply by making the payments that the plaintiffs cannot. The plaintiffs have challenged this
scheme—not because they believe that they should be released from the debt that they owe or
because they dispute the government’s right to impose aggressive sanctions on those who owe
court debt that they can but refuse to pay—but because Tennessee’s system has the actual effect
of imposing a harsher punishment on indigent defendants than on non-indigent defendants based
solely on their economic circumstances. A non-indigent defendant has a choice: pay or lose his
license. Drivers like Thomas and Hixson, they argue, have no such choice. The plaintiffs
challenge this differential treatment as unconstitutional pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
Thomas and Hixson filed their class action Complaint on January 4, 2017. (Docket No.
1.) Shortly thereafter, they filed a motion asking the court to certify a class defined as follows:
All persons whose Tennessee driver’s licenses have been or will be revoked
pursuant to Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-24-105(b), and who, at the time of the
revocation, cannot or could not pay Court Debt due to their financial
circumstances.
(Docket No. 6 at 2.) The court granted that motion on March 26, 2018, and Thomas and Hixson
now represent a statewide class of similarly situated plaintiffs. (Docket No. 94.) That class
challenges the constitutionality of Tennessee’s court debt-based revocation scheme on three
grounds: first, for violation of criminal defendants’ due process and equal protection rights by
the “mandatory revocation of people’s driver’s licenses because they are too poor to pay Court
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Debt without any inquiry into their ability to pay” (Docket No. 1 ¶ 100); second, for violation of
their due process right to notice and a hearing on whether they can pay their court debt (Id. ¶
101); and, third, for violation of equal protection based on Tennessee’s policy of revoking the
licenses of court debtors and not other similarly situated debtors (Id. ¶ 102). Purkey filed a
Motion to Dismiss (Docket No. 23) and a Motion for Summary Judgment (Docket No. 61),
arguing that (1) the court was barred from considering the plaintiffs’ claims under the RookerFeldman doctrine and (2) Purkey was entitled to summary judgment on the merits. The plaintiffs
also filed a Motion for Summary Judgment. (Docket No. 37.) In the First Memorandum and the
accompanying Order, the court denied the Motion to Dismiss, resolved most of the issues
underlying the Motions for Summary Judgment, and ordered supplemental briefing on a few
outstanding evidentiary matters. (Docket Nos. 93 & 94.) That briefing having been completed,
the court is prepared to rule on whether either party is entitled to summary judgment.
II. LEGAL STANDARD
Rule 56 requires the court to grant a motion for summary judgment if “the movant shows
that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a
matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). To win summary judgment as to the claim of an adverse
party, a moving defendant must show that there is no genuine issue of material fact as to at least
one essential element of the plaintiff’s claim. Once the moving defendant makes his initial
showing, the burden shifts to the plaintiff to provide evidence beyond the pleadings, “set[ting]
forth specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial.” Moldowan v. City of Warren,
578 F.3d 351, 374 (6th Cir. 2009); see also Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322-23
(1986). Conversely, to win summary judgment as to its own claims, a moving plaintiff must
demonstrate that no genuine issue of material fact exists as to all essential elements of her

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claims. “In evaluating the evidence, the court must draw all inferences in the light most favorable
to the non-moving party.” Moldowan, 578 F.3d at 374 (citing Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v.
Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587 (1986)).
At this stage, “the judge’s function is not . . . to weigh the evidence and determine the
truth of the matter, but to determine whether there is a genuine issue for trial.” Id. (quoting
Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 249 (1986)). But “[t]he mere existence of a
scintilla of evidence in support of the [non-moving party’s] position will be insufficient,” and the
party’s proof must be more than “merely colorable.” Anderson, 477 U.S. at 249. An issue of fact
is “genuine” only if a reasonable jury could find for the non-moving party. Moldowan, 578 F.3d
at 374 (citing Anderson, 477 U.S. at 252).
III. ANALYSIS
A. Issues Resolved in the First Memorandum
In the First Memorandum and the accompanying Order, the court denied Purkey’s
Motion to Dismiss but concluded that some outstanding factual and evidentiary issues stood in
the way of resolving the Motions for Summary Judgment. The court, however, did rule on a
number of underlying legal issues key to the case. Specifically, the court held as follows 3:
1. The plaintiffs’ claims are not barred by the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, because the
plaintiffs challenge only TDSHS’s imposition of one particular post-judgment
collection mechanism, not any aspect of the plaintiffs’ convictions or the validity
of their court debt. See Todd v. Weltman, Weinberg & Reis Co., L.P.A., 434 F.3d
432, 437 (6th Cir. 2006). (First Memorandum at 18–24.)

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The court, moreover, expressly incorporates, in its entirety, the analysis of the First Memorandum into
its reasoning here. See Appendix.

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2. Under a long and well-established line of Supreme Court precedents, a statute that
penalizes or withholds relief from a defendant in a criminal case, based solely on
his nonpayment of a particular sum of money and without providing for an
exception if he is willing but unable to pay, is the constitutional equivalent of a
statute that specifically imposes a harsher sanction on indigent defendants than on
non-indigent defendants. See Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U.S. 12 (1956); Douglas v.
California, 372 U.S. 353 (1963); Roberts v. LaVallee, 389 U.S. 40 (1967);
Williams v. Illinois, 399 U.S. 235 (1970); Tate v. Short, 401 U.S. 395 (1971);
Mayer v. City of Chicago, 404 U.S. 189 (1971); Bearden v. Georgia, 461 U.S.
660 (1983). In other words, the Supreme Court has held that the Constitution
“addresses itself to actualities,” Griffin, 351 U.S. at 22 (Frankfurter, J., concurring
in judgment), and, therefore, is not blind to the commonsense fact that an
ultimatum following the formula of “the money or your _____” is a different
proposition for someone who has the money than for someone who does not.
(First Memorandum at 25–30, 37–38.)
3. The Supreme Court has held that the Griffin line of cases implicates both Due
Process and Equal Protection principles in ways that defy an easy application of
the Court’s more general precedents involving either constitutional guarantee
alone. See Bearden, 461 U.S. at 665–66. Accordingly, the Court has warned
against resorting to the “easy slogans” and “pigeonhole analysis” associated with
the rote sorting of cases into those involving either strict scrutiny or rational basis
scrutiny. Id.at 666. (First Memorandum at 30–34.)

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4. Nevertheless, the law of the Sixth Circuit is that distinctions based on economic
circumstances are subject only to rational basis review unless they involve a
fundamental right. See Molina-Crespo v. U.S. Merit Sys. Prot. Bd., 547 F.3d 651,
660 (6th Cir. 2008) (citing San Antonio Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1,
29 (1973)). Furthermore, the Sixth Circuit has held that, while the rights to interand intrastate travel are fundamental rights, the right to drive a motor vehicle is
not. See League of United Latin Am. Citizens v. Bredesen, 500 F.3d 523, 534 (6th
Cir. 2007) (citing Saenz v. Roe, 526 U.S. 489, 500 (1999); Johnson v. City of
Cincinnati, 310 F.3d 484, 494–98 (6th Cir. 2002)). Accordingly, this court is
bound to consider this case under rational basis review, which asks only whether
the challenged policy is rationally related to a legitimate government purpose. See
Midkiff v. Adams Cty. Reg’l Water Dist., 409 F.3d 758, 770 (6th Cir. 2005). (First
Memorandum at 36.)
5. The Sixth Circuit has recognized, however, that the application of rational basis
review to distinctions based on indigence may call for a more searching inquiry if
the challenged scheme is one that not only treats indigent people more harshly
than the non-indigent, but also does so in a way that threatens to exacerbate the
indigents’ poverty. See Johnson v. Bredesen, 624 F.3d 742, 749 (6th Cir. 2010)
(discussing James v. Strange, 407 U.S. 128 (1972)). In other words, if a statute
treats the rich better than the poor in a way that will affirmatively make the poor
poorer, then the court should—though still not departing from the boundaries of
rational basis review—take extra care to make sure that the minimum
requirements of rationality are met. (First Memorandum at 33–34.)

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6. The State of Tennessee, its courts, and its local governments have a legitimate
interest in collecting court debt. See Sickles v. Campbell Cty., Ky., 501 F.3d 726,
731 (6th Cir. 2007) (noting government interests in “sharing the costs of
incarceration and furthering offender accountability”). While that interest may be
reframed and subdivided in many ways, the core premise is that, once the
government lawfully imposes a debt that is itself supported by a legitimate
purpose, then the government also has a legitimate interest in encouraging
payment of that debt. (First Memorandum at 36 & n.7.)
7. A scheme that revoked the driver’s licenses of non-indigent court debtors after
one year of nonpayment would pass rational basis review, because the threat of
revocation would plausibly serve as a method for coercing those people into
paying their debts. (First Memorandum at 36–37.) Under the Griffin line of cases,
however, the court must specifically consider whether the scheme’s lack of an
indigence exception is itself rational. Revocation would not be an effective
mechanism for coercing payment from a truly indigent debtor, because no person
can be threatened or coerced into paying money that he does not have and cannot
get. (Id. at 37.) The numbers bear that ineffectiveness out. From July 1, 2012, to
June 1, 2016, TDSHS revoked 146,211 driver’s licenses for failure to pay fines,
costs and/or litigation taxes; only 10,750 of those people—about 7%—had their
licenses reinstated. (Docket No. 64 ¶¶ 107–08.) If Tennessee’s revocation law
were capable of coercing people into paying their debts in order to get their
licenses back, it would be doing so. The overwhelming majority of the time, it is
not.

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8. Simply being ineffective does not typically cause a law to fail rational basis
review, which is highly deferential to the legislative prerogative to choose the
means through which the state will pursue its legitimate objectives. However, the
Supreme Court has made clear that, “even in the ordinary . . . case calling for the
most deferential of standards,” a law may be struck down if its substance is “so
discontinuous with the reasons offered for it” that any pretense of rationality
cannot be sustained. Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620, 632 (1996); see also
Cleveland Bd. of Educ. v. LaFleur, 414 U.S. 632, 653 (1974) (Powell, J.,
concurring in the result) (arguing that policy would fail rational basis review
because it is “either counterproductive or irrationally overinclusive”). The court’s
review includes considering whether, “in practical effect,” the law “simply does
not operate so as rationally to further the” legitimate purpose professed. U.S.
Dep’t of Agric. v. Moreno, 413 U.S. 528, 537 (1973). (First Memorandum at 41.)
9. Ultimately, the court need not determine if the driver’s license revocation law
would fail rational basis review based on its sheer ineffectiveness alone, because,
as applied to indigent drivers, the law is not merely ineffective; it is powerfully
counterproductive. If a person has no resources to pay a debt, he cannot be
threatened or cajoled into paying it; he may, however, become able to pay it in the
future. But taking his driver’s license away sabotages that prospect. For one thing,
the lack of a driver’s license substantially limits one’s ability to obtain and
maintain employment. Even aside from the effect on employment, however, the
inability to drive introduces new obstacles, risks, and costs to a wide array of life
activities, as the former driver is forced into a daily ordeal of logistical triage to

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compensate for his inadequate transportation. In short, losing one’s driver’s
license simultaneously makes the burdens of life more expensive and renders the
prospect of amassing the resources needed to overcome those burdens more
remote. (Id. at 39–41, 47–51.)
10. Because driving is necessary for so many important life activities, some
Tennesseans whose licenses have been revoked continue to drive, despite the
state’s revocation of their privileges. Driving on a revoked license is a
misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in jail and a fine of up to $500 for
the first offense and up to 11 months and 29 days in jail and a fine of up to $2,500
for subsequent offenses. Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 40-35-111(e)(1)–(2), 55-50-504(a)
(1)–(2). As a result, a license revocation based on court debt from a single
conviction may begin a cycle of subsequent convictions and mounting court debt
that renders the driver increasingly unable to amass the resources necessary to get
his license back. His first conviction—of trespass, for example, like Thomas’s—
creates a court debt; that debt leads to a license revocation; the revocation leads to
another conviction, this time for driving on a revoked license; the new conviction
creates more debt; and the cycle begins again, with the driver, who was already
indigent, only deeper in the red to the government and less likely ever to have a
driver’s license again. This propensity to create a debt spiral further exacerbates
the counterproductive nature of Tennessee’s scheme, as applied to indigent
drivers. Not only is the law ineffective at collecting debt; not only is it
counterproductive with regard to existing debt; but, in at least some cases, it

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affirmatively leaves more unpayable debt in its wake. (First Memorandum at 40–
41.)
11. Based on the foregoing, the plaintiffs have stated a plausible theory of
constitutional protection and constitutional injury, because they have been
deprived of equal protection and due process by a law that lacks a rational basis
for furthering any legitimate government objective. (First Memorandum at 46.)
12. Some of the supporting facts that the plaintiffs sought to introduce, however, were
beyond the scope of judicial notice. The briefing of the parties failed to resolve
the question of whether all of those facts were appropriate for consideration on a
motion for summary judgment. The court, accordingly, held the motions for
summary judgment in abeyance with regard to the plaintiffs’ Count I and ordered
further briefing on the underlying factual and evidentiary issues. (Id. at 51–58.)
13. With regard to Count II, which argues that members of the class were denied due
process with regard to the deprivation of their driver’s licenses, the court
concluded that (1) there were disputed issues of fact with regard to the timing of
the notice and effective dates related to the underlying revocations and (2) the
extent of process due was likely to be effected, in significant part, by whether the
plaintiffs successfully demonstrated the right to an indigence exception at issue in
Count I. The court, accordingly, held the motions for summary judgment in
abeyance with regard to Count II as well. (Id. at 63–68.)
14. With regard to Count III, the court held that the plaintiffs had, again, stated a
plausible theory of constitutional protection, but that the court’s consideration of
that claim would benefit from the requested additional briefing. Specifically, the

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court held that, pursuant to the Supreme Court’s holding in James v. Strange, a
state’s uniquely harsh treatment of a specific class of indigent criminal defendant
debtors cannot be carried out in “such discriminatory fashion,” relative to other
debtors, that it “blight[s] . . . the hopes of indigents for self-sufficiency and selfrespect.” 407 U.S. at 141–42. The degree to which Tennessee’s scheme violates
that rule depends on the same factual considerations at issue under Count I. (First
Memorandum at 58–63.)
The parties have now filed the requested supplemental briefing, leaving the motions for summary
judgment fully ripe and pending before the court.
B. Remaining Factual and Evidentiary Issues
1. Newly Agreed-Upon Facts
This court’s Local Rules require that a party filing a motion for summary judgment
support that motion with a “separate, concise statement of the material facts as to which the
moving party contends there is no genuine issue for trial.” Local R. 56.01(b). The movant must
support his assertion that a fact is undisputed “by specific citation to the record.” Id. The
nonmoving party must then “respond to each fact set forth by the movant by either (i) agreeing
that the fact is undisputed; (ii) agreeing that the fact is undisputed for the purpose of ruling on the
motion for summary judgment only; or (iii) demonstrating that the fact is disputed.” Local R.
56.01(c). If the nonmoving party contends that a particular fact is disputed, then the nonmoving
party’s assertion, like the movant’s, “must be supported by specific citation to the record.” Id.
In support of their motion for summary judgment, the plaintiffs posited a number of
allegedly undisputed facts tending to show the centrality of driving to life and economic selfsufficiency in Tennessee. Some were based on tabulations of census data, while others cited to a

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2011 Brookings Institution report entitled Missed Opportunity: Transit and Jobs in Metropolitan
America (“Brookings Report”). Purkey responded to these facts, not by conceding them or citing
to portions of the record showing them to be disputed, but simply by objecting to them on
evidentiary grounds. As the court explained in the First Memorandum, Purkey’s responses
(1) were premised on a misunderstanding of the movant’s admissibility burden under Federal
Rule of Civil Procedure 56(c)(1)–(2), which considers the admissibility of a fact at trial, not
merely the admissibility of it in the form presented at the motion stage, and (2) arguably failed to
conform to Local Rule 56.01(c), because Purkey did not indicate whether he actually disputed
the facts and did not cite to the record in support of his responses. (First Memorandum at 54–55
& n.15.) Some of his underlying evidentiary objections, however, did raise colorable legal issues
regarding whether the plaintiffs should be permitted to rely on the relevant facts in support of
their motion for summary judgment. (Id.)
In order to better hone in on the areas of actual disagreement between the parties, the
court ordered Purkey and the plaintiffs to confer and attempt to ascertain which of the objectedto facts are actually disputed. To their credit, the parties have done so and, as the court
instructed, have filed additional statements of undisputed facts, as well as a few modified
proposed statements of undisputed facts and responses in opposition thereto. (See Docket No.
97.)
In particular, it is now undisputed, for purposes of summary judgment, that, according to
U.S. Census Bureau data:
•

92.5% of the people who work in the Chattanooga metropolitan area drive to
work;

•

94.6% of the people who work in the Clarksville metropolitan area drive to work;

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•

93.1% of the people who work in the Cleveland metropolitan area drive to work;

•

93.4% of the people who work in the Jackson metropolitan area drive to work;

•

93.8% of the people who work in the Knoxville metropolitan area drive to work;

•

93.5% of the people who work in the Memphis metropolitan area drive to work;

•

92.4% of the people who work in the Nashville metropolitan area drive to work;
and

•

Altogether, 93.4% of workers who reside in Tennessee drive to work.

(Docket No. 97 at 4–6.)
Purkey has also agreed, for purposes of summary judgment, to a few additional general
postulates regarding the role of driving in Tennessee, 4 namely that:
•

“For most adult residents of Tennessee, the ability to drive is an important aspect
of daily life, such as for accessing food, shelter, work, education, medical
treatment, and family.” (Id. at 2.)

•

“Many indigent people who owe Court Debt and whose licenses have been
revoked under the Statute still need to drive in order to get to work, school, or
medical appointments.” (Id. at 6–7.)

•

“Even in cities with some public transportation, for many individuals, the public
transportation offered is often inconvenient as a practical matter to enable them to
travel to and from work.”(Id. at 3–4.)

These more general stipulations differ little, if at all, from what the court has already indicated it
can consider as a matter of judicial notice. The parties’ agreement on those premises, however—

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Purkey does reiterate his hearsay objections with regard to these assertions. The formulations here,
however, are so broad and undeniable that there is no need to turn to any of the underlying, purportedly
inadmissible sources to accept them as undisputed.

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along with Purkey’s now having conceded a substantial amount of quantitative evidence
regarding the importance of driving to employment in Tennessee—confirms that there is little
remaining room for dispute with regard to the plaintiffs’ proposition that, in light of the actual
realities of economic life in Tennessee, the loss of one’s ability to drive is substantially
deleterious to a person’s capacity for economic self-sufficiency.
2. Facts Related to the Brookings Report
The parties do continue to disagree with regard to whether the plaintiffs can rely on facts
that can be found in the Brookings Report. Purkey initially objected to the plaintiffs’ reliance on
facts from the Brookings Report as improper because the Report, itself, is hearsay. As the court
explained in the First Memorandum, however, the determinative issue regarding whether a fact
can be considered in support of a motion for summary judgment is not whether it is presented,
alongside the motion, in its final admissible form, but whether the fact can be presented in
admissible form at trial. See Mangum v. Repp, 674 F. App’x 531, 536–37 (6th Cir. 2017)
(quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c), advisory committee’s note to 2010 amendment); Mount Vernon
Fire Ins. Co. v. Liem Constr., Inc., No. 3:16-CV-00689, 2017 WL 1489082, at *3 (M.D. Tenn.
April 26, 2017) (Crenshaw, J.); Wilson v. Stein Mart, Inc., No. 3:15-CV-01271, 2016 WL
4680008, at *2 (M.D. Tenn. Sept. 7, 2016) (Nixon, S.J.); Jeffrey W. Stempel et al., 11-56
Moore’s Federal Practice - Civil § 56.91 (2018); see also Maurer v. Indep. Town, 870 F.3d 380,
384 (5th Cir. 2017) (“At the summary judgment stage, evidence need not be authenticated or
otherwise presented in an admissible form. After a 2010 revision to Rule 56, materials cited to
support or dispute a fact need only be capable of being presented in a form that would be
admissible in evidence.” (citations and internal quotation marks omitted)); Romero v. Nev. Dep’t
of Corr., 673 F. App’x 641, 644 (9th Cir. 2016) (noting that “Rule 56 was amended in 2010 to

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eliminate the unequivocal requirement that evidence submitted at summary judgment must be
authenticated” and instead “requires that such evidence ‘would be admissible in evidence’ at
trial” (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c)(4)); Gannon Int’l, Ltd. v. Blocker, 684 F.3d 785, 793 (8th
Cir. 2012) (noting that, if a fact is objected to on evidentiary grounds on a motion for summary
judgment, “the burden is on the proponent of the evidence to show that the material is admissible
as presented or to explain the admissible form that is anticipated” (emphasis added)).
The court ordered the plaintiffs to “file a supplemental brief, accompanied, as necessary,
by supplemental affidavits and supplemental statements of undisputed fact, regarding the
evidence that they anticipate presenting at trial on the necessity of driving in Tennessee, as well
as the admissible forms in which they anticipate offering that evidence.” (Docket No. 94 at 2–3.)
In support of their supplemental briefing, the plaintiffs have introduced a 28 U.S.C. §
1746 Declaration of Brookings fellow Adie Tomer, one of the authors of the Brookings Report
and the head of Brookings’ Metropolitan Policy Initiative (“Tomer Declaration”). (Docket No.
108-1.) Tomer explains the methodology of the Brookings Report both generally and in relation
to its Tennessee-specific conclusions. (Id. ¶¶ 6–15.) He also declares that, although a number of
years have passed since the Brookings Report was compiled, he has personally continued to
monitor public transportation trends, including those in Tennessee:
In my work, I keep current on transportation trends in metropolitan areas
throughout the United States. Based on that work, it appears (although it is not
certain) that there may have been some moderate increase in access to transit in
Memphis since the Report was issued, although such access in any event remains
well below 50%. Aside from that, I have no reason to believe that the current (i.e.,
as of 2018) state of affairs as to the matters set forth in the preceding paragraph is
materially different from what it was in 2011, and every reason to believe that it is
not.
(Id. ¶ 16.)

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The plaintiffs identify four specific factual assertions for which they seek to rely, in
whole or in part, on Tomer’s research and analysis that first appeared in the Brookings Report:
1. 90 minutes is a reasonable maximum for an individual’s one-way commuting
time to or from work.
2. Even in cities with some public transportation, for many individuals, the
public transportation offered is often insufficient as a practical matter to
enable them to travel to and from work in a reasonable amount of time.
3. In Memphis, Nashville, and Knoxville, 72% to 75% of jobs are not reasonably
accessible by public transportation.
4. In Nashville, Knoxville, and Chattanooga, more than two thirds of workingage residents lack access to public transportation.
(Docket No. 107 at 2–3 (citations omitted).) For the purposes of this opinion, the court will refer
to those assertions as Tomer Conclusions 1 through 4.
Tomer Conclusion 1. With regard to the first statement, the court finds that the concept
of a “reasonable maximum for an individual’s one-way commuting time” is unnecessary to
deciding the issues in this case and that the statement is, therefore, not material to the issues
underlying the Motions for Summary Judgment. The possibility of workers suffering lengthy
commuting times due to their revocations is relevant to the plaintiffs’ constitutional theory, but
drawing a particular line between what would be a reasonable commute and what would not is
simply adding a layer of formality and complexity where none is necessary. Cf. Reese v. CNH
Am. LLC, 694 F.3d 681, 686 (6th Cir. 2012) (“[T]he reasonableness inquiry is a vexing one.”);
United States v. Marriott, 225 F.3d 660 (table), 2000 WL 1033006, at *1 (6th Cir. July 21, 2000)
(“[T]he term ‘reasonable’ is always difficult to define with absolute precision . . . .”). On a
motion for summary judgment, “[f]acts are ‘material’ only if establishment thereof might affect
the outcome of the lawsuit under governing substantive law.” Rodgers v. Monumental Life Ins.
Co., 289 F.3d 442, 448 (6th Cir. 2002) (citing Anderson, 477 U.S. at 248). The constitutional
17

theories on which the plaintiffs rely do not require any particular finding about what is or is not a
reasonable commute, and, indeed, it is not altogether clear what “reasonableness,” as a factual
matter, would mean here. Tomer Conclusion 1, therefore, is not material under Rule 56, and the
court is not required to otherwise consider its admissibility.
Tomer Conclusion 2. The second statement that the plaintiffs have offered differs from
what Purkey has conceded only in referring to public transit’s being “insufficient as a practical
matter . . . to travel to and from work in a reasonable amount of time” as opposed to
“inconvenient as a practical matter.” This slight difference in wording, however, has no bearing
on the court’s analysis. The court has already taken ample judicial notice of the limitations of
public transportation in Tennessee, and there is no need to turn to an expert to realize that, at
some point, inconvenience reaches a level where it becomes tantamount to insufficiency. Where
that line should be drawn is, like the question of what constitutes a “reasonable” commute, too
abstract and undefined an inquiry to bear on the fundamental constitutional questions presented
here. The court, accordingly, will disregard Tomer Conclusion 2, as well, as immaterial.
Tomer Conclusion 3. The plaintiffs’ third assertion builds on the first’s discussion of the
reasonableness of a 90-minute commute. In this instance, however, the plaintiffs have offered
more than an assertion of reasonableness for its own sake: “In Memphis, Nashville, and
Knoxville, 72% to 75% of jobs are not reasonably accessible by public transportation.” Here,
then, the discussion of reasonableness serves a particular descriptive purpose:
In establishing our model and presenting our data, we used 90 minutes as the
cutoff for a “reasonable” amount of time for a one-way commute to work. Or, to
put it differently, if an individual could not get to work via transit in an overall
time (including, e.g., walking from the bus stop to the office) of 90 minutes or
less, we counted that individual as not having a job that was “reasonably available
via transit” from where s/he lived.

18

(Docket No. 108-3 ¶ 10.) While the court does not need to accept Tomer’s premise that 90
minutes demarcates a reasonable commute from an unreasonable one, Tomer’s explanation does
allow the court to consider Tomer Conclusion 3 in terms of its purely factual content.
Specifically, Conclusion 3 can simply be reformulated to claim that “[i]n Memphis, Nashville,
and Knoxville, 72% to 75% of jobs are not [accessible within 90 minutes] by public
transportation.” That assertion plainly meets the threshold of materiality, while avoiding an
immaterial and unnecessary detour down the path of defining what is reasonable.
Purkey objects to the court’s consideration of the Tomer Conclusions, first, by reiterating
that the Brookings Report is hearsay. As the court held in the First Memorandum, however, the
question is not whether the Brookings Report, as a document, is hearsay—which it undisputedly
is—but whether facts derived from its underlying analysis can be presented in admissible form in
this case. Although the Report is not admissible, it also is no bar to Tomer’s testifying to what he
learned during the process of its creation. A fact that appears as hearsay in one document is not
somehow barred from ever being uttered again. Moreover, while it is true that many of the facts
in the Tomer Declaration are based on Tomer’s review of documents that would, themselves, be
hearsay, an expert’s reliance on otherwise inadmissible facts is expressly permitted by the Rules
of Evidence as long as “experts in [the witness’s] particular field would reasonably rely on those
kinds of facts or data in forming an opinion.” Fed. R. Evid. 703. 5
Purkey objects to the Tomer Declaration itself as untimely under Federal Rule of Civil
Procedure 6(c)(2), which requires that “[a]ny affidavit supporting a motion must be served with
the motion.” The more specific provisions of Rule 56, however, expressly contemplate that a

5

Purkey also objects that the Brookings Report is not a proper expert report under Federal Rule of
Evidence 702. The plaintiffs, however, concede that they are not seeking to have the Report accepted as a
Rule 702 report. Rather, the Brookings Report was simply the 2011 memorialization of certain work that
Tomer himself, with the help of his colleagues, performed, and about which he could testify today.

19

court may grant a party the chance to supplement the record in support of a fact offered pursuant
to a summary judgment motion:
(e) Failing to Properly Support or Address a Fact. If a party fails to properly
support an assertion of fact or fails to properly address another party’s assertion of
fact as required by Rule 56(c), the court may:
(1) give an opportunity to properly support or address the fact;
(2) consider the fact undisputed for purposes of the motion;
(3) grant summary judgment if the motion and supporting materials—
including the facts considered undisputed—show that the movant is
entitled to it; or
(4) issue any other appropriate order.
The plaintiffs’ offering of the Tomer Declaration was in direct response to an order of the court.
Purkey has provided no basis for concluding that the court’s broad power to address unresolved
factual issues pursuant to Rule 56 is somehow negated by the general provisions of Rule 6(c)(2).
The plaintiffs’ introduction of the Tomer Declaration, therefore, was timely.
Finally, Purkey takes issue with the fact that the plaintiffs have only introduced a
declaration from Tomer, but not from the other authors of the Brookings Report. Again, Purkey’s
focus on the Report qua Report misses what the plaintiffs are—and are not—seeking to put
before the court. They are not seeking to introduce the entirety of the Report as admissible,
undisputed evidence. They have asserted a few specific facts to which Tomer declares he is
capable of testifying, based on his own individual knowledge. They have, moreover, provided
biographical evidence of Tomer’s substantial expertise in transit issues, and Purkey has
identified no basis for doubting that Tomer would be a qualified expert at trial. There is simply
no basis for requiring him to be accompanied by his colleagues in asserting facts to which he,
personally, can attest.

20

In the court’s Order directing the parties to confer and, if necessary, submit supplemental
briefing, the court strongly encouraged Purkey to lodge any factual objections he had to the
plaintiffs’ claims, even if he lodged evidentiary objections as well:
If Purkey responds to any fact solely by raising evidentiary objections or
objecting to the form of the plaintiffs’ statement, the court will construe Purkey’s
response as relying solely on the stated objection to defeat the court’s reliance on
the fact asserted and will take the veracity of the fact as conceded pursuant to
Local R. 56.01(g).
(Docket No. 94 at 3.) Purkey has not disputed Tomer Conclusion 3 on any factual grounds,
choosing, instead, to stand solely on his evidentiary objections. Because those objections fail, the
court will take it to be conceded that, in Memphis, Nashville, and Knoxville, 72% to 75% of jobs
are not accessible by public transportation within 90 minutes.
Tomer Conclusion 4. Purkey’s response to Tomer Conclusion 4 is essentially the same
as to Tomer Conclusion 3; he focuses almost entirely on the admissibility of the Brookings
Report itself, despite the plaintiffs’ having conceded that inadmissibility and proffered a fleshand-blood witness in support of their proffered facts. Accordingly, the court will also take it as
conceded that, in Nashville, Knoxville, and Chattanooga, more than two thirds of working-age
residents lack access to public transportation.
C. Counts I & III: Tennessee’s Revocation Scheme Does Not Survive Rational Basis Review
The court has already held that revoking the driver’s licenses of indigent court debtors
appears to be counterproductive to the legitimate purpose of collecting on the underlying debt,
and that, at some point, a policy becomes so manifestly counterproductive that it fails even the
deferential standard of rational basis review. The only outstanding question is whether the
undisputed facts show that that is the case here. In light, in particular, of the now-conceded
census tabulations suggesting that 92% or more of the workers in each of the state’s major

21

metropolitan areas drive to work, the court concludes that the plaintiffs have met their burden. 6
Life in Tennessee is a prime example of the fact that, as the Supreme Court has observed,
“driving an automobile [is] a virtual necessity for most Americans.” Wooley v. Maynard, 430
U.S. 705, 715, (1977). There is simply no room to doubt that losing the right to drive imposes a
major economic hardship on a Tennessean, particularly if he is already indigent.
There is nothing inherently unconstitutional about imposing a harsh sanction, of course,
as long as the government has a rational basis for doing so. Accordingly, nothing about the
court’s ruling suggests that Tennessee cannot revoke a person’s license because he drove
dangerously or showed himself to be incompetent behind the wheel. See Tenn. Code Ann. § 5550-501(a)(1), (3), (6). Nothing suggests that the state cannot revoke a license because a person
drove drunk. See Tenn. Code Ann. § 55-50-501(a)(2). Those are rational reasons to take a
person’s driving privileges away. Collecting debt from an indigent debtor, on the other hand, is
simply not a rational basis for revoking a license. No rational creditor wants his debtor to be
sidelined from productive economic life. No rational creditor wants his debtor to be less able to
hold a job or cover his other, competing living expenses. A rational creditor might want the
benefit of the threat of a license revocation, but nothing that the plaintiffs have argued would
deny the state that threat. The state can still use the specter of revocation to encourage payment
of court debt; it simply must afford the debtor the opportunity to demonstrate, first, that the only
reason he has failed to pay is that he simply cannot.
Purkey or local authorities may complain that there is some expense associated with
affording a debtor the opportunity to demonstrate his indigence. That is true, but it is no more
true than in any of the other situations covered by the Griffin cases. The need to determine the

6

Indeed, the evidence on this point is so overwhelming that the court’s conclusion would be the same
even if it excluded all four Tomer Conclusions.

22

indigence of court debtors, moreover, would fit into a preexisting system where such
determinations are wholly routine. Even beyond Griffin and its progeny, indigence
determinations are already a pervasive and unavoidable feature of the criminal justice system.
See, e.g., Gagnon v. Scarpelli, 411 U.S. 778 (1973) (acknowledging right to indigent defense in
some probation and parole revocation hearings); Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 473–74
(1967) (acknowledging right to indigent defense during a custodial interrogation); Gideon vs.
Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 344–45 (1963) (acknowledging right to indigent defense at trial).
Determining a person’s indigence is something that Tennessee courts do thousands of times a
year, often in staggering volumes and at a breakneck pace. See Tenn. Admin. Office of the
Courts, Tennessee’s Indigent Defense Fund: A Report to the 107th Tennessee General Assembly
11–12 (2011). 7 The limited expense of adding one more stage where indigence matters is not
enough to render a manifestly irrational legislative scheme rational.
Moreover, insofar as expense alone could justify withholding an indigence determination,
that argument would have little relevance to Tennessee’s scheme, because, as Purkey has
repeatedly reminded the court, Tennessee drivers facing revocation for unpaid court debt already
have established avenues through which they can seek discretionary relief—meaning that the
resources needed to consider a debtor’s claim have already been made available. See Tenn. Code
Ann. § 40-24-102 (“The several courts in which a cause is finally adjudged are authorized, either
before or after final judgment, for good cause, to release the defendants, or any one (1) or more
of them, from the whole or any part of fines or forfeitures accruing to the county or state.”);
Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-24-104(a) (“If the defendant . . . is unable to pay the fine . . . the court . . .
may enter any order that it could have entered under § 40-24-101, or may reduce the fine to an

7

Available at http://www.tsc.state.tn.us/sites/default/files/docs/aoc_indigent_defense_fund_report.pdf.

23

amount that the defendant is able to pay . . . .”); Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-24-105(h) (“The court is
vested with the authority and discretion to order the issuance of a restricted driver license for the
purposes specified in subdivision (b)(3)(A).”); Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-25-123(b) (“[T]he
presiding judge of a court of general sessions may suspend the court costs and the litigation
tax . . . , for any indigent criminal defendant, as in the presiding judge’s opinion the equities of
the case require.”). 8 When seeking that discretionary relief, moreover, a debtor could make the
same indigence arguments that he would make under a scheme satisfying Griffin. The only
difference between a Griffin-compliant scheme and what Tennessee already provides is that,
under the current law, a court can conclude that a debtor’s sole reason for nonpayment is his
indigence and yet still allow the revocation to go forward. 9 See State v. Black, 897 S.W.2d 680,
684 (Tenn. 1995); Waters v. Ray, No. M2008-02086-COA-R3-CV, 2009 WL 5173718, at *5
(Tenn. Ct. App. Dec. 29, 2009); State v. Lafever, No. M2003-00506-CCA-R3CD, 2004 WL
193060, at *7 (Tenn. Crim. App. Jan. 30, 2004). Purkey has identified no reason why a scheme
with less discretion would somehow pose some significantly greater administrative burden.
“Under rational basis review, the governmental policy at issue ‘will be afforded a strong
presumption of validity and must be upheld as long as there is a rational relationship between the
disparity of treatment and some legitimate government purpose.’” Midkiff, 409 F.3d at 770
(quoting Hadix v. Johnson, 230 F.3d 840, 843 (6th Cir. 2000)). As the Supreme Court has made
clear, the actual effect of attaching a price tag to a particular outcome under our criminal justice
8

Emphasis added throughout.

9

Similarly, Purkey has conceded, repeatedly, that a person facing a driver’s license revocation in
Tennessee is entitled to a hearing on the revocation, at least eventually. (See, e.g., Docket No. 88 at 19
(“[A]n individual whose driver’s license has been suspended or revoked by the Department has the right
to a contested case hearing before an administrative law judge.”); Docket No. 110 at 5 (“[W]hen
requested, a driver has an absolute right to a contested case hearing as a matter of law.”)). The issue raised
by Count I, then, is not whether the government must expend the resources necessary to allow a person to
challenge his revocation. The issue is what grounds are sufficient for the debtor to prevail.

24

system is that the system treats indigent and non-indigent defendants differently. Even if such
disparate treatment can sometimes be defended as rational, see Johnson, 624 F.3d at 749, no
presumption of rationality can stretch far enough to countenance the disparate treatment of
indigent and non-indigent defendants when (1) the only goal of the challenged mechanism is
ensuring payment of a sum of money and (2) the harsher sanction doled out to the indigent
defendant is one that makes paying that sum substantially more difficult.
The Sixth Circuit has acknowledged that even a highly deferential standard of review like
rational basis scrutiny may call for a somewhat “heightened” inquiry, if the law at issue targets
indigent criminal debtors in a way that threatens to exacerbate their preexisting poverty. 10 See
Johnson, 624 F.3d at 749 (discussing Strange, 407 U.S. at 135). The Supreme Court has recently
acknowledged a principle that might explain such an approach, observing that its admittedly few
cases striking down laws as failing rational basis review share “a common thread . . . that the
laws at issue lack any purpose other than a ‘bare . . . desire to harm a politically unpopular
group.’” Trump v. Hawaii, No. 17-965, 585 U.S. ___, slip op. at 33 (June 26, 2018) (quoting
Moreno, 413 U.S. at 534). That combination—a politically unpopular group and a law
affirmatively and unjustifiably inflicting harm on them—is undeniably present here. It is difficult
to imagine a group more politically unpopular than criminal defendants or less able to protect
itself politically than the very poor. Purkey has repeatedly argued that, because those living in
poverty have never been formally recognized as a suspect class, the court must ignore such
considerations. The Supreme Court’s recent pronouncements should put that argument to rest.
See Trump, slip op. at 33 (citing Romer, 517 U. S. at 632 (striking down law targeting gays and

10

The court notes, however, that the law at issue here is so manifestly irrational, that it would fail
regardless of whether such a heightened review were called for.

25

lesbians under rational basis review); Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Ctr., Inc., 473 U.S. 432, 448–
50 (1985) (striking down law targeting the intellectually disabled under rational basis review)).
Indeed, the Supreme Court’s recent formulation could hardly have more closely mirrored
Judge Moore’s argument, in her Johnson v. Bredesen dissent, that the statute at issue in that
case—which, like this one, penalized indigent criminal debtors for their inability to satisfy their
debts—was unconstitutional because “[t]he attempt to incentivize payments that an individual is
simply incapable of making . . . , particularly when there are other collection methods available,
advances no purpose and embodies nothing more than an attempt to exercise unbridled power
over a clearly powerless group.” Johnson, 624 F.3d at 757–58 (Moore, J., dissenting). The
Johnson majority’s only bulwark against Judge Moore’s reasoning and the governing Supreme
Court case law was to respond that the challenged statute was principally directed at those
debtors who could pay, and that, while indigent debtors may have been swept into the same
scheme, the law at issue at least avoided the especially constitutionally troubling step of further
damaging their self-sufficiency. See Johnson, 624 F.3d at 748–49. That argument is unavailable
here, where the law is overwhelmingly applied to people on whom it demonstrably has not
worked and where the mechanism at issue is one that imposes a profound additional economic
hardship. The court, accordingly, will grant summary judgment to the plaintiffs on Count I.
As the court observed in the First Memorandum, the analysis under Count III hinges on
much the same facts as Count I. If a driver’s license revocation is a powerful threat to basic selfsufficiency, then the state’s scheme likely runs afoul of James v. Strange; if it is not, then the
scheme does not. The undisputed facts have shown that a driver’s license revocation is, indeed,
such a threat. The Kansas scheme at issue in Strange was held to be unconstitutional because it
singled out debtors who owed money to the government related to their criminal prosecutions

26

and imposed on them uniquely harsh collection mechanisms in “such discriminatory fashion”
that it “blight[ed]” the “hopes of indigents for self-sufficiency and self-respect.” 407 U.S. at
142–43. That is exactly what Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-24-105(b), by failing to have an exception
for indigence, does as well. The court, accordingly, will grant summary judgment to the plaintiffs
as to Count III.
D. Count II: A Driver Facing Revocation for Nonpayment of Court Debt is Entitled to a
Pre-Revocation Hearing on His Ability to Pay
A driver’s license, once issued, is “not to be taken away without that procedural due
process required by the Fourteenth Amendment.” Bell v. Burson, 402 U.S. 535, 539 (1971)
(citing Sniadach v. Family Fin. Corp., 395 U.S. 337 (1969); Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U.S. 254
(1970)). Because the plaintiffs were entitled to the opportunity to defeat their revocations by
demonstrating their indigence, and they received none, their rights to procedural due process
have been violated. That alone would warrant a grant of summary judgment on Count II. The
question still remains, however, of what process was due to them. Determining what process a
person is entitled to in a particular situation requires the consideration of a number of factors:
[1] the private interest that will be affected by the official action; [2] the risk of an
erroneous deprivation[;] . . . [3] the probable value, if any, of additional or
substitute procedural safeguards; and [4] the Government’s interest, including the
function involved and the fiscal and administrative burdens that the additional or
substitute procedural requirement would entail.
Shoemaker v. City of Howell, 795 F.3d 553, 559 (6th Cir. 2015) (quoting Mathews v. Eldridge,
424 U.S. 319, 335 (1976)). The Supreme Court has made clear that a driver’s license is an
interest of sufficient importance that a pre-deprivation hearing may sometimes be required but
that it is not so important that that will always be the case. Compare Bell, 402 U.S. at 539, with
Dixon v. Love, 431 U.S. 105, 115 (1977). Whether a pre-deprivation hearing is necessary, then,
is likely to depend upon the latter three factors. “‘[I]t is fundamental[,]’ however, ‘that except in
27

emergency situations . . . due process requires that when a State seeks to terminate an interest
such as that here involved [a driver’s license], it must afford notice and opportunity for hearing
appropriate to the nature of the case before the termination becomes effective.’” Fowler v.
Johnson, No. CV 17-11441, 2017 WL 6379676, at *10 (E.D. Mich. Dec. 14, 2017) (quoting
Bell, 402 U.S. at 542)).
The court holds that the Eldridge factors strongly support notice and a right to assert
one’s indigence prior to revocation here. As the court explained in the First Memorandum, there
is every reason to think that a large number of the individuals who face revocation under section
40-24-105(b) are indigent. (First Memorandum at 72.) Affording a debtor the opportunity to
establish his indigence prior to revocation, therefore, is likely necessary to avoid a large number
of erroneous deprivations. Because section 40-24-105(b) revocations are not safety-related,
moreover, the government has relatively little interest in avoiding the slight delay necessary for
such a process. See Dixon, 431 U.S. at 114–15 (emphasizing importance of safety rationale in
holding that post-deprivation hearings are sufficient). Indeed, a purely post-deprivation indigence
process might create a greater administrative burden, because it would require TDSHS to quickly
reverse many revocations shortly after they were imposed—whereas a pre-deprivation
determination would allow TDSHS to avoid performing unwarranted revocations altogether.
Governments have identified a wide array of mechanisms through which such
determinations might be made.

One option, of course—although probably not the most

expeditious one—would be to hold a full indigence hearing, before a court, for each debtor
seeking an exception. See, e.g., Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-14-202(b) (providing that, in the context
of appointment of counsel, “[w]henever an accused informs the court that the accused is
financially unable to obtain the assistance of counsel, it is the duty of the court to conduct a full

28

and complete hearing as to the financial ability of the accused to obtain the assistance of counsel
and, thereafter, make a finding as to the indigency of the accused.”); but see David Louis Raybin,
9 Tenn. Prac. Crim. Prac. & Procedure § 5:7 (“The mechanics of determining indigency vary
from court to court . . . .”). In the alternative, however, a court may simply ask for an indigence
affidavit, and embark on a further inquiry only if the affidavit is facially inadequate or is
opposed. See, e.g., Tex. R. App. P. 20.1 (“A party who filed a Statement of Inability to Afford
Payment of Court Costs in the trial court is not required to pay costs in the appellate court unless
the trial court overruled the party’s claim of indigence in an order that complies with Texas Rule
of Civil Procedure 145.”); Tex. R. Civ. P. 145(d) (“The clerk may refuse to file a Statement that
is not sworn to before a notary or made under penalty of perjury. No other defect is a ground for
refusing to file a Statement or requiring the party to pay costs. If a defect or omission in a
Statement is material, the court—on its own motion or on motion of the clerk or any party—may
direct the declarant to correct or clarify the Statement.”); Tex. R. Civ. P. 145(f)(1) (“The clerk or
any party may move to require the declarant to pay costs only if the motion contains sworn
evidence, not merely on information or belief . . . that the Statement was materially false when it
was made; or . . . that because of changed circumstances, the Statement is no longer true in
material respects.”). Moreover, where, as here, an agency action is involved, it may not be
necessary for a court to make an initial indigence determination at all, as a process for making
such determinations can be put in place at the administrative level. See W. Va. Code Ann. § 17C5A-3(e), (j)(1) (discussing agency process for determining indigence with regard to certain fees
related to driver’s license restoration, including promulgation of “criteria for determining
eligibility of indigent offenders, and any necessary application forms”).

29

As the Supreme Court has observed, when a state’s existing procedures are held to
violate due process, the state’s “alternative methods of compliance are several” and its “area of
choice is wide.” Bell, 402 U.S. at 543. Tennessee’s scheme currently requires revocation with no
consideration of indigence and, therefore, violates the Constitution and will continue to do so
unless altered or supplemented by additional procedures. The state, of course, is under no
obligation to replace its current scheme if the relevant decision makers conclude that other
mechanisms for debt collection are preferable. See id. (“Indeed, Georgia may elect to abandon its
present scheme completely and pursue one of the various alternatives in force in other States.”).
Insofar as the state may wish to pursue a modified system of revocation, however, the court will
not unduly restrict the options available. The court can require the state to comply with the
Constitution, but it cannot, at least at this stage, force it to choose one mechanism for doing so
over another. Nor will the court venture into pre-judging the constitutionality of processes that
do not yet exist.
The court, accordingly, will grant the plaintiffs summary judgment on Count II and hold
that a driver facing revocation for nonpayment of court debt is entitled to a pre-revocation notice
and determination related to his indigence. The court will not, however, unnecessarily narrow the
potentially permissible options for complying with that edict.
E. Remedy
The plaintiffs have requested that the court grant the following relief: 11
b.

c.

11

Declare that the Statute [Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-24-105(b)] violates the
Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment
to the United States Constitution;
Enjoin Defendants from revoking driver’s licenses pursuant to the Statute
and enjoin Defendants to (i) reinstate all driver’s licenses that have been
revoked pursuant to the Statute; (ii) waive all reinstatement fees for people

Item ‘a’ of this list, certification of the class, has already been granted.

30

whose driver’s licenses were revoked pursuant to the Statute; (iii) notify
all persons whose licenses were revoked of their reinstatement; (iv) and
provide an accounting of all reinstatements made;
d.

Award litigation costs and reasonable attorney’s fees, as provided by 42
U.S.C. § 1988; and

e.

Order such other and further relief as the Court deems just and proper.

(Docket No. 1 at 17–18.) With regard to the requested declaratory relief, the plaintiffs’ right to
the relief requested is apparent. The same is true with regard to their right to have revocations
under Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-24-105(b) enjoined going forward. The statute is mandatory in
operation and fails to provide the required substantive and procedural safeguards needed to
protect indigent debtors; its application, therefore, must be enjoined, at least until some process
is enacted to grant the rights to which debtors are entitled.
Less clear, however, is how the court should treat the drivers whose licenses have already
been revoked. The Complaint asks that those licenses simply be reinstated. It is not apparent to
the court, however, that every person under a revocation would or should have an automatic right
to drive again, even if his revocation is lifted. Some such drivers may face other revocations or
suspensions on other grounds. Others may simply be overdue for a license renewal. At this stage,
moreover, the court simply lacks a record regarding the process of identifying the affected
drivers, lifting their revocations, and allowing them to receive their licenses again. The court,
accordingly, will order Purkey to submit a plan, within 60 days, for lifting the revocations of
drivers whose licenses were revoked under Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-24-105(b) and providing an
appropriate process for reinstatement. In the meantime, the court will order Purkey and his
agency not to prevent any driver who seeks to have his revocation lifted from doing so based
solely on his failure to have paid his court debt or his failure to pay reinstatement fees. Purkey is

31

encouraged to consult with the plaintiffs in crafting the plan for lifting revocations, and the
plaintiffs will be afforded the opportunity to respond to the plan he files with the court.
IV. CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, Purkey’s Motion for Summary Judgment (Docket No. 61) will
be denied, and the plaintiffs’ Motion for Summary Judgment (Docket No. 36) will be granted.
The court will grant judgment in favor of the plaintiff class and order Purkey to submit a plan for
bringing TDSHS into compliance with the court’s judgment.
An appropriate order will enter.
ENTER this 2nd day of July 2018.

______________________________
ALETA A. TRAUGER
United States District Judge

32

Appendix

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
MIDDLE DISTRICT OF TENNESSEE
NASHVILLE DIVISION
JAMES THOMAS and DAVID HIXSON,
Plaintiffs,
v.
BILL HASLAM, Governor of Tennessee,
in his official capacity; DAVID W.
PURKEY, Commissioner for the
Department of Safety and Homeland
Security, in his official capacity; and
HERBERY SLATERY, III, Attorney
General and Reporter, in his official
capacity,
Defendants.

)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)

Case No. 3:17-cv-00005
Judge Aleta A. Trauger

MEMORANDUM
Pending before the court are a Motion to Dismiss (Docket No. 23) and Motion for
Summary Judgment (Docket No. 61) filed by the sole remaining defendant in this matter, David
W. Purkey, the Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security
(“TDSHS”), as well as a Renewed Motion for Class Certification (Docket No. 36) and a Motion
for Summary Judgment (Docket No. 37) filed by the plaintiffs, James Thomas and David
Hixson. For the reasons set forth herein, the Motion to Dismiss will be denied and the Motion for
Class Certification will be granted. The Motions for Summary Judgment will be held in
abeyance pending supplemental briefing, as directed in the accompanying order.
I. BACKGROUND AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
Thomas and Hixson are among the thousands of Tennesseans who owe fines, costs, or
litigation taxes related to their passage through the state’s criminal justice system. (See Docket
No. 40 ¶ 43.) By statute, TDSHS revokes the driver’s license of any person who, like Thomas

and Hixson, has failed to pay those fines, costs, or litigation taxes for a year or more, unless that
person is granted a form of discretionary relief by a court. See Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-24-105(b).
Thomas and Hixson sue on behalf of themselves and a not fully known number of similarly
situated Tennesseans who, they argue, have had their right to drive taken away solely based on
the fact that they are indigent and therefore cannot pay the fines, costs, and litigation taxes
imposed on them.
A. “Court Debt”
Thomas and Hixson characterize this case as about “court debt,” a somewhat opaque term
that does not itself appear in any of the statutes at issue. Although Purkey takes particular issue
with the term, the specific terminology that one uses to discuss the issue is of fairly little
importance. A person who passes through the criminal justice system may incur a number of
different payment obligations, assessed in different amounts for different reasons, and “court
debt” is merely a shorthand for the particular payment obligations at issue here. For the purposes
of this opinion, “court debt” will refer to fines, costs, and litigation taxes assessed against a
defendant who either (1) pleads guilty to a misdemeanor or felony, (2) is convicted of a
misdemeanor or felony following trial, or (3) agrees to incur liability for fines, costs and/or
litigation taxes based on an agreement with a prosecutor for the charges brought against the
defendant to be dismissed “on costs.” (See Docket No. 64 ¶ 9.)
1. Fines
A person convicted of a felony or misdemeanor in Tennessee may be sentenced to
“[p]ayment of a fine either alone or in addition to any other sentence authorized by” the penal
laws of the state. Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-35-104(c)(1). “[T]he defendant’s ability to pay the fine
is a factor in the establishment of the fine,” but “it is not a controlling factor.” State v. Butler,

2

108 S.W.3d 845, 854 (Tenn. 2003) (citing Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-35-207(a)(7)). The court
imposing a fine is permitted to choose from a number of options regarding the timeline for
payment:
When any court of this state . . . imposes a fine upon an individual, the court may
direct as follows:
(1)

That the defendant pay the entire amount at the time sentence is
pronounced;

(2)

That the defendant pay the entire amount at some later date;

(3)

That the defendant pay the fine in specified portions or installments at
designated periodic intervals and that the portions be remitted to a
designated official, who shall report to the court in the event of any failure
to comply with the order; or

(4)

Where the defendant is sentenced to a period of probation as well as a
fine, that payment of the fine be a condition of the sentence.

Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-24-101(a). A court that imposes a fine retains jurisdiction and is
empowered to release the fine, in whole or in part, “for good cause.” Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-24102; see also Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-24-104(a) (permitting court to waive all or portion of fine or
revise payment schedule based on defendant’s inability to pay). Purkey admits that, depending
on the case, fines “can range from $50 to multiple thousands of dollars.” (Docket No. 64 ¶ 12;
see also Docket No. 40 ¶ 11 (stipulating same).)
2. Court Costs
Tennessee requires that, generally speaking, “[a] defendant convicted of a criminal
offense shall pay all the costs that have accrued in the cause.” Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-25-123(a).
“Costs” are defined to include “all costs accruing under existing laws on behalf of the state or
county, as the case may be, for the faithful prosecution and safekeeping of the defendant,
including the cost of boarding juries and that of the jailer,” Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-25-133, as

3

well as “all costs incident to the arrest and safekeeping of the defendant, before and after
conviction, due and incident to the prosecution and conviction, and incident to the carrying of the
judgment or sentence of the court into effect,” Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-25-104.
The procedures related to court costs vary, depending on the court in which a verdict is
entered. Some, but not all, misdemeanor prosecutions are resolved in general sessions court. See
Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-1-109 (explaining general sessions jurisdiction over certain misdemeanor
matters). “[T]he presiding judge of a court of general sessions may suspend the court costs . . .
for any indigent criminal defendant, as in the presiding judge’s opinion the equities of the case
require.” Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-25-123. The Tennessee Supreme Court has held that, even after
a finding of indigency, “the decision of whether to grant a waiver of costs still rests within the
court’s discretion.” State v. Black, 897 S.W.2d 680, 684 (Tenn. 1995); see also Waters v. Ray,
No. M2008-02086-COA-R3-CV, 2009 WL 5173718, at *5 (Tenn. Ct. App. Dec. 29, 2009)
(endorsing holding of Black).
Felonies, as well as the misdemeanors not resolved in general sessions, are tried or
otherwise resolved in criminal courts or circuit courts. See Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 40-1-108, 16-10102. The statutory terms pursuant to which a person in criminal or circuit court may seek relief
from costs have been recently amended, with the amendments having gone into effect on January
1, 2018. See 2017 Tenn. Pub. Acts, ch. 412 (S.B. 802). A person who is “unable to pay all of the
assessed litigation taxes, court costs, and fines but is able to pay some of them” may apply to the
court of his conviction for a payment plan that would expressly shield him from the revocation of
his driver’s license:
A person who is unable to pay all of the assessed litigation taxes, court costs, and
fines but is able to pay some of them may apply to the court having original
jurisdiction over the offense for an order setting up a payment plan for such taxes,
costs, and fines. If the person and court agree to such a payment plan, the court
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shall so order and such order shall have the effect of staying the revocation of the
license pursuant to this subsection (b). The order staying the revocation of license
shall remain in effect for as long as the person is current and in compliance with
the payment plan.
Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-24-105(b)(4)(A). If the person is granted a payment plan and fails to make
payments thereunder “for three (3) consecutive months without good cause, the court may
revoke the order and notify the clerk.” Id. A version of that payment plan provision existed prior
to the January 1, 2018 amendment. See Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-24-105(b)(4) (2017).
The 2018 amendment added an additional subsection providing that a person who is
indigent “may . . . apply for the waiver of any outstanding court costs and fines.” Tenn. Code
Ann. § 40-24-105(b)(4)(B). A person seeking a waiver must provide an affidavit of indigency
and pay a $50 fee, “subject to the discretion of the court after consideration of the person’s
ability to pay.” Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-24-105(b)(4)(B)(i)–(ii). “After consideration of the
affidavit of indigency and the payment of any fee that may be required . . . , the court may waive
any outstanding court costs and fines.” Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-24-105(b)(4)(C). Because this
provision is fairly new, it has not been widely construed. The court notes, however, that its
waiver provision appears to be permissive in nature, using “may” instead of “shall” or similar
language. In response to the plaintiffs’ assertion that the statute, as amended, makes the decision
to offer relief entirely discretionary for the court, Purkey admits that “the text of Tenn. Code
Ann. § 40-24-105(b) . . . speaks for itself.” (Docket No. 64 ¶ 51.)
3. Litigation Tax
Tennessee’s constitution grants the General Assembly a number of specific powers of
taxation, including the “power to tax . . . privileges.” Tenn. Const. art. II, § 28. Pursuant to that
power, the state levies “privilege tax[es] on litigation” in various amounts, depending on the type
of case at issue. Tenn. Code Ann. § 67-4-602. For example, “[t]here is levied a privilege tax on
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litigation of seventeen dollars and seventy-five cents ($17.75) in all civil cases in this state in
general sessions court, when not exercising state court jurisdiction,” and a “a privilege tax on
litigation of thirteen dollars and seventy-five cents ($13.75) in all civil cases in this state in the
court of appeals or the supreme court.” Tenn. Code Ann. § 67-4-602(c), (d). In criminal cases,
“[t]here is levied a privilege tax on litigation instituted in this state, of twenty-nine dollars and
fifty cents ($29.50) on all criminal charges, upon conviction or by order.” Tenn. Code Ann. § 674-602(a).
Just as the amount of the tax varies between different types of cases, so too does the issue
of when the litigation tax becomes due. See, e.g., Tenn. Code Ann. § 67-4-603(a)(1) (directing
the clerk to collect tax “[u]pon the commencement of an original civil action, from the plaintiff,
except when such action is brought pursuant to a pauper’s oath”); (a)(3) (directing the clerk to
collect tax “[u]pon the filing in any civil action of an appeal, or of an appeal in the nature of a
writ of error or certiorari, from one court to another, from the appellant, except when such appeal
is brought pursuant to a pauper’s oath”). In a criminal case, the tax is due “[u]pon a finding of
guilt, plea of guilty, or submission to fine in a criminal action from the defendant.” Tenn. Code
Ann. § 67-4-603(a)(2).
The collection of litigation taxes is delegated to “[t]he clerks of the various courts” in
which litigation takes place. Tenn. Code Ann. § 67-4-603(a). The clerk then has an obligation to
remit the state litigation tax to Tennessee’s department of revenue. If the clerk fails to transmit
the tax collected, the amount improperly withheld “shall be a debt of the clerk.” Tenn. Code
Ann. § 67-4-605(a)(1).
Counties and municipalities are also given authority to levy certain “local litigation
tax[es]” devoted to specific, statutorily defined purposes, including building or upgrading the

6

jails and workhouses, Tenn. Code Ann. § 67-4-601(b)(1); purchasing and maintaining hardware
and software related to record keeping, Tenn. Code Ann. § 67-4-601(b)(7)(B); providing security
to courthouses, Tenn. Code Ann. § 67-4-601(b)(6); and “substance abuse prevention purposes,”
Tenn. Code Ann. § 67-4-601(h).
Tennessee’s statutory scheme contemplates that, in some instances, a court may grant a
litigant some manner of relief from litigation taxes. The precise circumstances of when that relief
should or will be granted, however, are not set forth in the relevant statute:
If the judge of any court suspends, releases, waives, remits or orders the clerk of
the court not to collect any privilege tax on litigation, or in any other manner
releases any party from liability for any privilege tax on litigation, the clerk of the
court shall immediately report such suspension, release, waiver, remission, or
order to not collect such tax, to the department in such manner as shall be
prescribed by the department, and the commissioner or the commissioner’s
delegate shall immediately, upon receipt of such a report from any clerk of a
court, present such information to the board of judicial conduct, which court shall
take appropriate action pursuant to title 17, chapter 5. The commissioner or the
commissioner’s delegate shall also report such information to the council on
pensions and insurance.
Tenn. Code Ann. § 67-4-605(c). Purkey admits that, depending on the case, “litigation taxes and
court costs can range from about $200 at the low end to more than $10,000.” (Docket No. 64 ¶
11; see also Docket No. 40 ¶ 11 (stipulating same).)
B. Mechanisms for Collecting Court Debt
If an individual fails to pay fines, court costs, or litigation taxes, the court and state have a
number of options. First, the state or court can resort to the ordinary tools of collection available
to other litigants in the state’s courts. “[A] fine may be collected in the same manner as a
judgment in a civil action.” Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-24-105(a). The same is true for costs and
litigation taxes: “The district attorney general or the county or municipal attorney, as applicable,
may, in that person’s discretion, and shall, upon order of the court, institute proceedings to

7

collect the fine, costs and litigation taxes as a civil judgment.” Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-24-105(c).
The collection tools related to civil judgments remain available for all three types of court debt
after the defendant’s sentence is complete and the sentencing court loses its original jurisdiction:
If any fine, costs or litigation taxes assessed against the defendant in a criminal
case remain in default when the defendant is released from the sentence imposed,
the sentence expires or the criminal court otherwise loses jurisdiction over the
defendant, the sentencing judge, clerk or district attorney general may have the
amount remaining in default converted to a civil judgment pursuant to the
Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure. The judgment may be enforced as is
provided in this section or in any other manner authorized by law for a civil
judgment.
Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-24-105(f). Tennessee affords a number of tools to judgment creditors in
civil actions, namely garnishment of wages or other sources of income, Tenn. R. Civ. P. 69.05,
execution on realty, Tenn. R. Civ. P. 69.07, and execution on personalty, Tenn. R. Civ. P. 69.06.
See also Tenn. Op. Att’y Gen. No. 06-135 (Aug. 21, 2006) (discussing application of Rule 69
collection mechanisms in criminal cases).
Neither the court nor the state, moreover, is forced to rely purely on its own personnel or
attention to effect collection. “After a fine, costs, or litigation taxes have been in default for at
least six (6) months, the district attorney general or criminal or general sessions court clerk may
retain an agent to collect, or institute proceedings to collect, or establish an in-house collection
procedure to collect, fines, costs and litigation taxes.” Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-24-105(d)(1).
Similarly, “[t]he governing body of any municipality may by ordinance authorize the
employment of a collection agency to collect fines and costs assessed by the municipal court
where the fines and costs have not been collected within sixty (60) days after they were due.”
Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-24-105(e)(1).
If traditional collection methods are insufficient, more coercive options are available, in
particular with regard to fines. Prior to 2007, Tennessee statutes did not expressly contemplate
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that a person could be held in contempt for failure to pay a fine. (Docket No. 64 ¶¶ 18–19.) That
year, the General Assembly adopted a provision stating that the court that imposes a fine also has
the option of holding a person who has failed to pay in “contempt upon a finding by the court
that the defendant has the present ability to pay the fine and willfully refuses to pay.” Tenn. Code
Ann. § 40-24-105.
C. Revocation of Drivers’ Licenses for Nonpayment of Court Debt
At issue in this case, however, is one particular consequence of the failure to pay court
debt: the revocation of the debtor’s driver’s license. The State of Tennessee generally prohibits
drivers from using its highways without a license. Tenn. Code Ann. § 55-50-301(a)(1). That
licensure scheme is administered by the TDSHS pursuant to Tennessee’s Uniform Classified and
Commercial Driver License Act, Tenn. Code Ann. § 55-50-201 et seq. An applicant for a
Tennessee driver’s license must furnish certain required information confirming his eligibility
and submit to an examination, including “an actual demonstration of ability to exercise ordinary
and reasonable control in the operation of a motor vehicle.” Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 55-50-321, 5550-322(a)(1)(A). In certain statutorily prescribed situations, however, an individual who has
previously obtained a valid driver’s license may have the associated privileges rescinded,
through revocation, suspension, or cancellation of the license. See, e.g., Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 5550-501, 55-50-502(a) & (b).
Prior to 2011, a person’s failure to pay fines, costs, and litigation taxes had no bearing on
the possible revocation of a Tennessee driver’s license. (Docket No. 64 ¶¶ 14, 16–17.) That year,
the Tennessee General Assembly enacted the provision that is now codified as Tenn. Code Ann.
§ 40-24-105(b)(1):
A license issued under title 55 for any operator or chauffeur shall be revoked by
the commissioner of safety if the licensee has not paid all litigation taxes, court
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costs, and fines assessed as a result of disposition of any offense under the
criminal laws of this state within one (1) year of the date of disposition of the
offense. The license shall remain revoked until such time as the person whose
license has been revoked provides proof to the commissioner of safety that all
litigation taxes, court costs, and fines have been paid.
Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-24-105(b)(1). Purkey admits that, from July 1, 2012, to June 1, 2016,
TDSHS revoked 146,211 driver’s licenses for failure to pay fines, costs and/or litigation taxes.
(Docket No. 64 ¶ 107.) Over the same period, only 10,750 people whose licenses were revoked
for non-payment of fines, costs, or litigation taxes pursuant to section 40-24-105(b)—about 7%
of the total number—had their licenses reinstated. (Id. ¶ 108; see also Docket No. 40 ¶¶ 43–44
(stipulating to statistics).)
A driver facing the revocation of his license pursuant to Tenn. Code Ann. 40-24105(b)(1) may seek a single, 180-day stay of the revocation from the court having original
jurisdiction over the underlying offense. Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-24-105(b)(3)(A). The statute
characterizes this time-limited stay as a “hardship exception.” Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-24105(b)(3)(B). Pursuant to the statute:
Grounds for finding of hardship are limited to travel necessary for: (i)
Employment; (ii) School; (iii) Religious worship; (iv) Participation in a recovery
court, which includes drug courts under the Drug Court Treatment Act of 2003,
compiled in title 16, chapter 22; DUI courts; mental health courts; and veterans
treatment courts; (v) Serious illness of the person or an immediate family
member; or (vi) Other reasons or destinations as determined by the court.
Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-24-105(b)(3)(A). The amendments going into effect in January 2018 also
added a subsection permitting a person whose license was revoked for nonpayment of court debt
to apply to the trial court for the issuance of a restricted license for the purposes of engaging in
the types of driving identified in the hardship exception, with the license issued under the new
subsection not being limited to 180 days. Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-24-105(h). The issuance of a
restricted license under the new provision, however, is within the “authority and discretion” of
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the court. Id. (See also Docket No. 40 ¶ 38 (stipulating that relief under § 40-24-105(h) is
discretionary).) A driver who obtains an order permitting him to receive a restricted license
pursuant to section 40-24-105(h) must pay a $65 fee to TDSHS to obtain the license. A section
40-24-105(h) license is valid for one year, after which the driver may seek renewal. In contrast,
an ordinary driver’s license is issued for eight years and costs $28. (Docket No. 64 ¶¶ 55–57.)
Because litigation taxes, court costs, and fines are assessed at the local level, but drivers
are licensed at the state level, the administration of section 40-24-105(b) requires coordination
between the respective units of government. Pursuant to section 40-24-105(b)(2), “[t]he clerk of
the court ordering disposition of an offense shall notify the commissioner of safety when an
offender has litigation taxes, court costs, and fines that remain unpaid after one (1) year from the
disposition of the offense,” at which point the commissioner is required by statute to revoke the
license. An individual may be treated as having a revoked license, even if he was not licensed to
drive by the State of Tennessee as an initial matter; TDSHS simply assigns such a person a
driver’s license number and classifies the corresponding “license” as revoked. (Docket No. 64 ¶
31.)
Purkey admits that, when his office receives notification from a clerk of court that an
individual qualifies for revocation of his license, “the Department revokes a person’s driver’s
license on the same day that it receives notification of non-payment from the court.” (Docket No.
64 ¶ 28.) However, he draws a distinction between when a license is “effective” and when the
“status” of the debtor’s license is changed: “[W]hile revocation is effective as of the date that
notification is [sent] 1 to the driver by the Department, the Department does not change the status
of the driver’s license for a period of 10 days in order to allow the driver to receive notification

1

Purkey uses the word “set” here, but the court presumes that this is a typographical error.

11

from the Department.” (Id.; see also Docket No. 62-4 (Declaration of Randi Cortazar) ¶ 2
(“While revocations are effective as of the date the notification is [sent] to the driver, the
Department does not change the status of the driver’s license for a period of 10 days in order to
allow the driver to receive notification from the Department”).) Purkey admits that TDSHS
“does not send pre-revocation notices to the people whose licenses will be revoked pursuant to
Tenn. Code. Ann. § 40-24-105(b) for failure to pay their restitution, litigation taxes, fines, and/or
court costs” but maintains that TDSHS “sends out proposed notices 2 of suspension or revocation
the day information is received from the court.” (Docket No. 64 ¶ 34 (quoting Docket No. 39-2
(E-mail from Jenny C. Taylor to Joshua Van Kirk).)
A driver whose license has been revoked is required to pay “[a] sixty-five-dollar
restoration fee . . . , unless otherwise specified by law, for each and every offense committed that
provides for the revocation . . . of driving privileges.” Tenn. Code Ann. § 55-12-129(b). TDSHS
is permitted to adopt payment plans for restoration fees in excess of a certain amount set by
Purkey. Tenn. Code Ann. § 55-12-129(g)(1). TDSHS currently permits payment plans only for
drivers “whose reinstatement fee totals more than two hundred dollars ($200).” Tenn. Comp. R.
& Regs. 1340-02-05-.02.
For the first offense, driving on a revoked license is a Class B Misdemeanor, punishable
by up to six months in jail, a fine of up to $500, or both. Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 40-35-111(e)(2),
55-50-504(a)(1). For second and subsequent offenses, driving on a revoked license is a Class A
Misdemeanor, punishable by up to 11 months and 29 days in jail, a fine of up to $2,500, or both.
Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 40-35-111(e)(1), 55-50-504(a)(2). Purkey concedes that a person’s
conviction for driving on a revoked license may lead to the imposition of additional fines, costs,
and litigation taxes. (Docket No. 64 ¶ 111.)
2

It is not entirely clear what Purkey means by this “proposed notice.”

12

D. Circumstances of the Plaintiffs’ Revocations
1. Thomas
James Thomas is a 48-year-old resident of Nashville. He has multiple serious disabilities
and his only income consists of Supplemental Security Income (“SSI”) and Supplemental
Nutrition Assistance Program (“SNAP”) benefits. (Docket No. 64 ¶ 60.) In 2013, Thomas was
charged with criminal trespass in Davidson County after taking shelter under a bridge during the
rain while homeless. (Id. ¶ 64.) Thomas represented himself pro se, pled guilty, and was given a
thirty-day suspended sentence and assessed $289.70 in court costs. Purkey concedes, for the
purposes of summary judgment, that, on the day of his guilty plea, Thomas went to the clerk’s
office and advised the clerk that he was unable to pay the court costs because he was homeless
and had no money. (Id. ¶ 66.)
For the three years following his guilty plea, Thomas did not hear anything further about
his court debt. (Docket No. 64 ¶ 67.) The Financial Responsibility Section of TDSHS had issued
a letter, dated December 2, 2014, to Thomas at a Nashville address informing him:
Pursuant to [Tenn. Code Ann.] § 40-24-105, your motor vehicle driver license,
driving privileges, and privilege to obtain a license in the state of Tennessee are
revoked for failure to pay litigation taxes, court costs, and fines assessed by the
court in DAVIDSON COUNTY. You are to mail your Tennessee Driver License
to the address given at the end of this notice, or surrender it at any office of the
Tennessee Highway Patrol or Driver Services Center in Tennessee.
(Docket No. 62-5.) For purposes of summary judgment, however, Purkey concedes that Thomas
never received written notice of his revocation. (Docket No. 89 ¶ 11.) In October 2016, Thomas
sought to apply for a Tennessee driver’s license, only to learn that he was prevented from doing
so by a license revocation related to his unpaid costs. (Id. ¶ 61.) Purkey admits, for summary
judgment purposes, that Thomas “currently survives on very limited subsistence income for
people who are totally and permanently disabled” and “cannot afford to pay the $289.70 in Court
13

Debt, the $65 reinstatement fee, and the additional application fee necessary to regain his driving
privileges.” (Id. ¶ 71.)
2. Hixson
David Hixson is a 50-year-old resident of Nashville. When he filed this case, he was
living in a homeless shelter. Thereafter, Hixson moved into private housing, but he was unable to
make his rental payments and, as of the time he filed his statement of undisputed material facts,
was living in a tent. (Id. ¶¶ 74–76.) His driver’s license was revoked in 2014 for failure to pay
court debt related, at least in part, to a criminal conviction in Washington County. 3 Purkey
admits, for summary judgment purposes, that, when Hixson accrued the court debt, he was
incarcerated and unable to pay. (Id. ¶ 77.) TDSHS revocation notice letters appear to have been
generated and issued for Hixson on two occasions (Docket Nos. 62-6 & -7), although Purkey
concedes, for purposes of summary judgment, that Hixson never received those letters (Docket
No. 89 ¶ 10).
Hixson now works part-time as a vehicle emissions inspector, but he struggles to afford
basic necessities. (Docket No. 64 ¶ 81.) Hixson claims that he is generally qualified to work as a
motorcycle mechanic, but he cannot do so due to his lack of a driver’s license. (Id. ¶¶ 82–85.) He
identifies a total of $2,583.80 of court debt, for which he remains liable, in addition to the fees he
would be required to pay to have his license reinstated. (Id. ¶ 88.)
E. Procedural History
Thomas and Hixson filed their Complaint in this matter on January 4, 2017, naming
Purkey, as well as Tennessee’s Governor and Attorney General, as defendants in their official
3

The parties devote a substantial amount of time and effort to arguing over the details of Hixson’s
criminal record and the circumstances in which he accrued his court debt and faced a revocation. None of
those disagreements, however, negates the fundamental allegations of his claim, namely that he is
indigent and that his license was revoked for nonpayment of court debt. The court, accordingly, will not
pass further judgment on any of those contested background facts here.

14

capacities. (Docket No. 1.) Thomas and Hixson seek to represent a class defined as “[a]ll persons
whose Tennessee driver’s licenses have been or will be revoked pursuant to the Statute [Tenn.
Code Ann. § 40-24-105(b)] and who, at the time of the revocation, cannot or could not pay Court
Debt due to their financial circumstances.” (Id. ¶ 93.) They plead three causes of action under 42
U.S.C. § 1983: first, for violation of due process and equal protection rights by the “mandatory
revocation of people’s driver’s licenses because they are too poor to pay Court Debt without any
inquiry into their ability to pay” (Id. ¶ 100); second, for violation of their due process right to
notice and a hearing on whether they can pay their court debt (Id. ¶ 101); and third, for violation
of equal protection based on Tennessee’s policy of revoking the licenses of court debtors and not
other debtors (Id. ¶ 102).
Purkey filed a Motion to Dismiss and Defer Issues Related to Class Certification on
March 3, 2017. (Docket No. 23.) Thomas and Hixson filed a Renewed Motion for Class
Certification (Docket No. 36) and a Motion for Summary Judgment (Docket No. 37) on August
18, 2017. On October 10, 2016, the named defendants other than Purkey were dismissed without
prejudice upon the agreement of the parties. (Docket No. 55.) Purkey filed a Motion for
Summary Judgment on November 6, 2017 (Docket No. 61), which repeats and adds to the
arguments raised in his motion to dismiss.

II. LEGAL STANDARD
A. Motion to Dismiss
In deciding a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6), the court
will “construe the complaint in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, accept its allegations as
true, and draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the plaintiff.” Directv, Inc. v. Treesh, 487

15

F.3d 471, 476 (6th Cir. 2007); Inge v. Rock Fin. Corp., 281 F.3d 613, 619 (6th Cir. 2002). The
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure require only that a plaintiff provide “a short and plain statement
of the claim that will give the defendant fair notice of what the plaintiff’s claim is and the
grounds upon which it rests.” Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 47 (1957). The court must
determine only whether “the claimant is entitled to offer evidence to support the claims,” not
whether the plaintiff can ultimately prove the facts alleged. Swierkiewicz v. Sorema N.A., 534
U.S. 506, 511 (2002) (quoting Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 236 (1974)).
The complaint’s allegations, however, “must be enough to raise a right to relief above the
speculative level.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007). To establish the “facial
plausibility” required to “unlock the doors of discovery,” the plaintiff cannot rely on “legal
conclusions” or “[t]hreadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action,” but, instead, the
plaintiff must plead “factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that
the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678-79
(2009). “[O]nly a complaint that states a plausible claim for relief survives a motion to dismiss.”
Id. at 679; Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556.
B. Motion for Summary Judgment
Rule 56 requires the court to grant a motion for summary judgment if “the movant shows
that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a
matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). To win summary judgment as to the claim of an adverse
party, a moving defendant must show that there is no genuine issue of material fact as to at least
one essential element of the plaintiff’s claim. Once the moving defendant makes its initial
showing, the burden shifts to the plaintiff to provide evidence beyond the pleadings, “set[ting]
forth specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial.” Moldowan v. City of Warren,

16

578 F.3d 351, 374 (6th Cir. 2009); see also Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322-23
(1986). “In evaluating the evidence, the court must draw all inferences in the light most
favorable to the non-moving party.” Moldowan, 578 F.3d at 374 (citing Matsushita Elec. Indus.
Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587 (1986)).
At this stage, “the judge’s function is not . . . to weigh the evidence and determine the
truth of the matter, but to determine whether there is a genuine issue for trial.” Id. (quoting
Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 249 (1986)). But “[t]he mere existence of a
scintilla of evidence in support of the [non-moving party’s] position will be insufficient,” and the
party’s proof must be more than “merely colorable.” Anderson, 477 U.S. at 249. An issue of fact
is “genuine” only if a reasonable jury could find for the non-moving party. Moldowan, 578 F.3d
at 374 (citing Anderson, 477 U.S. at 252).
C. Motion to Certify Class
The principal purpose of class actions is to achieve efficiency and economy of litigation,
both with respect to the parties and the courts. Gen. Tel. Co. v. Falcon, 457 U.S. 147, 159,
(1982). The Supreme Court has observed that, as an exception to the usual rule that litigation is
conducted by and on behalf of individual named parties, “[c]lass relief is ‘peculiarly appropriate’
when the ‘issues involved are common to the class as a whole’ and when they ‘turn on questions
of law applicable in the same manner to each member of the class.’” Id. at 155 (quoting Califano
v. Yamasaki, 442 U.S. 682, 701 (1979)). The Court directs that, before certifying a class, district
courts must conduct a “rigorous analysis” of the prerequisites of Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of
Civil Procedure. Falcon, 457 U.S. at 161. The Sixth Circuit has stated that district courts have
broad discretion in deciding whether to certify a class, but that courts must exercise that

17

discretion within the framework of Rule 23. Coleman v. Gen. Motors Acceptance Corp., 296
F.3d 443, 446 (6th Cir. 2002); In re Am. Med. Sys., Inc., 75 F.3d 1069, 1079 (6th Cir. 1996).
Although a court considering class certification may not inquire into the merits of the
underlying claim, a class action may not be certified merely on the basis of its designation as
such in the pleadings. See Eisen v. Carlisle & Jacquelin, 417 U.S. 156, 178 (1974); In re Am.
Med. Sys., Inc., 75 F.3d at 1079. In evaluating whether class certification is appropriate, “it may
be necessary for the court to probe behind the pleadings,” as the issues concerning whether it is
appropriate to certify a class are often “enmeshed” within the legal and factual considerations
raised by the litigation. Falcon, 457 U.S. at 160; see also In re Am. Med. Sys., Inc., 75 F.3d at
1079; Weathers v. Peters Realty Corp., 499 F.2d 1197, 1200 (6th Cir. 1974). Moreover, the party
seeking class certification bears the burden of establishing that the requisites are met. See Alkire
v. Irving, 330 F.3d 802, 820 (6th Cir. 2003); Senter v. Gen. Motors Corp., 532 F.2d 511, 522 (6th
Cir. 1976).
III. ANALYSIS
A. Rooker-Feldman
Purkey argues first that, pursuant to the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, this court lacks subject
matter jurisdiction over the claims in this case. He argues that Thomas and Hixson are basically
seeking relief from the underlying state court judgments against them, which amounts to an
impermissible intrusion on the state court process. Thomas and Hixson counter that they do not
challenge any state court judgment, but rather TDSHS’s revocation of their driver’s licenses
alone. Thomas and Hixson contend that they do not seek to set their court debt aside or challenge
any aspect of their convictions. Rather, they are challenging only a specific statutory

18

consequence of their continuing inability to pay the amounts assessed against them, as
administered by TDSHS.
The Rooker-Feldman doctrine is derived from two Supreme Court cases, Rooker v.
Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413 (1923), and District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman,
460 U.S. 462 (1983). Rooker-Feldman, as a principle, stands for the proposition that a federal
district court lacks subject matter jurisdiction to conduct an appellate review of a state court
decision. Pittman v. Cuyahoga Cty. Dep’t of Children and Family Servs., 241 F. App’x 285, 287
(6th Cir. 2007). By the same token, a federal court cannot issue injunctive relief that would, as a
practical matter, amount to an exercise of the interjurisdictional appellate function that RookerFeldman forbids. See Lawrence v. Welch, 531 F.3d 364, 371–72 (6th Cir. 2008) (“[C]laims
seeking injunctive relief are barred by Rooker-Feldman if they necessarily require the federal
court to determine that a state court judgment was erroneously entered.”).
However, the Rooker-Feldman doctrine is “not a panacea to be applied whenever state
court decisions and federal court decisions potentially or actually overlap.” McCormick v.
Braverman, 451 F.3d 382, 395 (6th Cir. 2006); see also Givens v. Homecomings Fin., 278 F.
App’x 607, 609 (6th Cir. 2008) (referring to the “narrow range of cases” implicated by RookerFeldman). The Supreme Court has stated that Rooker-Feldman “is confined to cases of the kind
from which the doctrine acquired its name: cases brought by state-court losers complaining of
injuries caused by state-court judgments rendered before the district court proceedings
commenced and inviting district court review and rejection of those judgments.” Exxon Mobil
Corp. v. Saudi Basic Indus. Corp., 544 U.S. 280, 284 (2005). The Sixth Circuit, accordingly, has
“distinguished between plaintiffs who bring an impermissible attack on a state court judgment—
situations in which Rooker-Feldman applies—and plaintiffs who assert independent claims

19

before the district court—situations in which Rooker-Feldman does not apply.” Pittman, 241 F.
App’x at 287.
In making this distinction, the court must look to “the source of the injury the plaintiff
alleges in the federal complaint. If the source of the injury is the state court decision,” then the
Rooker-Feldman doctrine prevents the federal court from deciding the case. McCormick, 451
F.3d at 393. “If,” however, “there is some other source of injury, such as a third party’s actions,
then the plaintiff asserts an independent claim.” Id. The court must decide whether it is being
called on to consider whether the state court judgment “in and of [itself] violate[s] the federal
Constitution or federal law,” or whether the complaining party bases its argument on some
unlawful action or policy outside the four corners of that judgment. Id. at 392. “The appropriate
inquiry is not whether the district court would be required to ‘overrule’ in some technical way
the state court judgment, but is instead whether the constitutional claim presented by the plaintiff
is so intertwined with the state court proceedings that a federal court review of the claim would
necessarily constitute a review of the state court’s decision, such that a federal court decision in
the plaintiff’s favor would call the state court decision into question.” Pancake v. McCowan, 64
F. App’x 464, 466 (6th Cir. 2003).
Under Rooker-Feldman, this court cannot penetrate the closed circle between the litigants
and the court in a state case. But “sometimes a state-court judgment gives rise to a new
problem . . . and that . . . new problem can get federal review without impermissible examination
of the initial state-court decision.” Market. v. City of Garden City, Kan., No. 16-3293, 2017 WL
6388812, at *3 (10th Cir. Dec. 14, 2017). The reality of our legally complex, multi-jurisdictional
system is that the judgment of a court may be the catalyst of a complex and far-reaching array of
events and consequences that go well beyond what the court itself decided. A court entering a

20

money judgment in one jurisdiction may be creating the basis for collection proceedings a
thousand miles away, involving assets, rules, obligations, and interests that appear nowhere in
the court’s reasoning or judgment. See Condaire, Inc. v. Allied Piping, Inc., 286 F.3d 353, 356
(6th Cir. 2002) (discussing procedures for collecting judgment entered in one federal district
against property in another federal district pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1963). A judgment of guilt in
a criminal trial may give rise to collateral consequences that neither the defendant nor the court
foresaw because the statutory basis for those consequences had not even been enacted at the time
of the conviction. See Doe v. Bredesen, 507 F.3d 998, 1007 (6th Cir. 2007) (upholding
retroactive application of Tennessee’s sexual offender registration requirements). Court A’s
criminal verdict may play a role in Court B’s parental rights case or Agency C’s decision on
whether to grant a license. See, e.g., Tenn. Code Ann. § 36-1-113(g)(6) (establishing basis for
termination of parental rights based on incarceration under a sentence of ten or more years);
Tenn. Code Ann. § 68-140-311(a)(1)(E) (providing for denial of emergency medical services
licensure based on conviction of a crime of moral turpitude). In other words, a judgment may
echo throughout the life of a litigant, in ways foreseeable or unforeseeable, far beyond the facial
terms of the judgment itself. Rooker-Feldman protects the judgment, but not necessarily its farreaching consequences.
Several courts have considered Rooker-Feldman in the context of judgment collection
mechanisms and have generally held that the doctrine poses no obstacle to federal jurisdiction, as
long as the plaintiff raises “a challenge to the manner of collecting on the state-court judgment,”
rather than a “claim . . . contingent upon the invalidity of the underlying debt.” Moore v.
Idealease of Wilmington, 465 F. Supp. 2d 484, 490 (E.D.N.C. 2006) (emphasis added) (citing
Todd v. Weltman, Weinberg & Reis Co., L.P.A., 434 F.3d 432, 437 (6th Cir. 2006); Senftle v.

21

Landau, 390 F. Supp. 2d 463, 469 (D. Md. 2005); Wyles v. Excalibur I, LLC, No. 052798JRTJJG, 2006 WL 2583200, at *2 (D. Minn. Sept. 7, 2006)); see also Hageman v. Barton,
817 F.3d 611, 614–16 (8th Cir. 2016) (“Through his federal complaint, [plaintiff] seeks relief
from neither the Missouri judgment nor the Illinois garnishment order. Rather, he alleges
statutory violations seeking statutory penalties based on [defendant’s] actions in the process of
obtaining the judgment and order. [Therefore,] Rooker-Feldman does not apply, and we may
exercise jurisdiction over [plaintiff’s] federal claims.”); Moran v. Greene & Cooper Attorneys
LLP, 43 F. Supp. 3d 907, 911–12 (S.D. Ind. 2014) (“Plaintiff does not challenge the validity of
the state court judgment against him—neither its amount nor the methods used by the creditor to
obtain it. . . . [W]e could find that Defendant violated the statute without ‘reviewing’ the state
court judgment, and [the] Rooker-Feldman doctrine therefore presents no impediment to our
exercise of jurisdiction.”); Ness v. Gurstel Chargo, P.A., 933 F. Supp. 2d 1156, 1162–63 (D.
Minn. 2013) (“These allegations appear to attack Defendants’ debt-collection practices rather
than the state-court judgments, so for the purposes of deciding this motion, the Court determines
that Rooker-Feldman does not bar these . . . claims.”); Meyer v. Debt Recovery Sols. of Ohio,
Inc., No. 1:10CV363, 2010 WL 3515663, at *4 (N.D. Ohio Sept. 2, 2010) (holding that RookerFeldman did not apply “[b]ecause the plaintiffs challenged the manner of collection rather than
the underlying debt”).
The Sixth Circuit addressed the issue in Todd v. Weltman, Weinberg & Reis Co., in which
a judgment debtor filed suit under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act based on the judgment
creditor’s filing of an allegedly false affidavit under Ohio’s garnishment statute. 434 F.2d at 437.
The Sixth Circuit concluded that Rooker-Feldman did not bar jurisdiction, because the plaintiff
“d[id] not complain of injuries caused by this state court judgment, as the plaintiffs did in Rooker

22

and Feldman,” but rather raised “an independent federal claim that Plaintiff was injured by” the
defendant’s collection activities. Id. at 437. The same principle would apply to permit
jurisdiction here. Fundamental to Rooker-Feldman is the question of whether the federal courts
are being asked, either actually or practically, to exercise an appellate function. “Where federal
relief can only be predicated upon a conviction that the state court was wrong, it is difficult to
conceive the federal proceeding as, in substance, anything other than a prohibited appeal of the
state-court judgment.” Catz v. Chalker, 142 F.3d 279, 293 (6th Cir. 1998) (quoting Keene Corp.
v. Cass, 908 F.2d 293, 296–97 (8th Cir. 1990)). Neither Thomas nor Hixson argues that
Tennessee state courts committed error either in entering their convictions or in assessing fines,
costs, or litigation taxes against them. Nor do Thomas and Hixson challenge the relevant courts’
or prosecutors’ rights to enforce that debt against them through the various ordinary collection
mechanisms that the law makes available to creditors. Thomas and Hixson seek only one thing:
that the state not take away their lawful ability to drive based on the fact that they cannot
currently pay the amounts they owe. Their challenge is to one inherently post-judgment coercive
tool used in the state’s collection regime—not to any judgment itself. 4
To bolster his Rooker-Feldman argument, Purkey points to the various statutory bases
pursuant to which an individual facing court debt can ask a relevant court, within its discretion,
4

Purkey urges the court to follow the lead of two district courts that applied Rooker-Feldman to bar pro
se plaintiffs’ claims challenging their driver’s license revocations or suspensions. King v. Creed, No.
1:14-CV-0165, 2016 WL 204492, at *2–3 (N.D.N.Y. Jan. 15, 2016); Normandeau v. City of Phoenix, 516
F. Supp. 2d 1054, 1064 (D. Ariz. 2005). Purkey cites these cases for the proposition that Rooker-Feldman
bars suits challenging revocations that have a “causal relationship” to state-court judgments. (Docket No.
88 at 7 (quoting McKithen v. Brown, 481 F.3d 89, 98 (2d Cir. 2007)).) Insofar as those cases are based on
such a rule, it is plainly incompatible with the Sixth Circuit’s recognition, in Todd, that suits based on a
judgment creditor’s collection efforts are permissible as long as they do not challenge the original
judgment. 434 F.2d at 437. The Supreme Court, moreover, has stated unambiguously that a causal
connection is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for applying Rooker-Feldman, writing that the
doctrine reaches “cases [1] brought by state-court losers [2] complaining of injuries caused by state-court
judgments [3] rendered before the district court proceedings commenced and [4] inviting district court
review and rejection of those judgments.” Exxon, 544 U.S. at 284 (emphasis added).

23

for some form of relief from his debt or some consideration of his indigency. See Tenn. Code
Ann. §§ 40, 24-102, 40-25-123(b), 40-24-102, 40-24-105(h), 67-4-605(c). Because such avenues
are available, Purkey argues, the plaintiffs’ claims are the equivalent of a direct challenge to the
state courts’ failure to grant the relevant relief. Rooker-Feldman, however, insulates actual state
court judgments, not hypothetical ones. See Exxon, 544 U.S. at 284 (noting that Rooker-Feldman
applies only to judgments actually “rendered before the district court proceedings commenced”).
Thomas and Hixson are not challenging any judgment made pursuant to the cited statutes, nor
are they even arguing that they are entitled to have fines, costs, or litigation taxes waived.
Thomas and Hixson seek relief from one specific statutory consequence of their failure to pay—
the revocation of their licenses—that took effect long after the fines, costs, or litigation taxes
were imposed, based on a fact—their nonpayment after one year—that was not, nor could have
been, adjudicated in the original criminal proceedings.
Purkey argues, in essence, that as long as Tennessee state law permits the plaintiffs to
raise the issue of their indigence to a court in some form, pursuant to some standard, then
Rooker-Feldman wholly shields state and local agencies from any federal suit based on those
agencies’ actions related to nonpayment. The narrow protections of Rooker-Feldman require no
such result. What Thomas and Hixson have raised is clearly a challenge to the operation of a
supplemental statutory mechanism for seeking to coerce or encourage the payment of their
debts—not any actual feature of the judgments against them or the debts in and of themselves.
The court, accordingly, will not grant summary judgment or dismissal based on the RookerFeldman doctrine.

24

B. Constitutionality of Applying Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-24-105(b) to Indigent Debtors
To prevail on a claim under § 1983, a plaintiff must prove two elements: (1) that he was
deprived of a right secured by the Constitution or laws of the United States; and (2) that the
deprivation was caused by a person acting under color of law. Robertson v. Lucas, 753 F.3d 606,
614 (6th Cir. 2014). In both his motion to dismiss and his motion for summary judgment, Purkey
argues that Thomas and Hixson cannot prevail, because they cannot establish any constitutional
violation related to the section 40-24-105(b) revocation scheme. In response and in support of
their own motion for summary judgment, Thomas and Hixson argue that section 40-24-105(b) is
unconstitutional under a straightforward application of a number of Supreme Court cases,
starting with Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U.S. 12 (1956). See also Williams v. Illinois, 399 U.S. 235
(1970); Tate v. Short, 401 U.S. 395 (1971); Mayer v. City of Chicago, 404 U.S. 189 (1971);
James v. Strange, 407 U.S. 128 (1972); Bearden v. Georgia, 461 U.S. 660 (1983). Purkey argues
that the state’s scheme is subject only to rational basis review, which it survives. See Midkiff v.
Adams Cty. Reg’l Water Dist., 409 F.3d 758, 770 (6th Cir. 2005) (“Under rational basis review,
the governmental policy at issue will be afforded a strong presumption of validity and must be
upheld as long as there is a rational relationship between the disparity of treatment and some
legitimate government purpose.” (citations & internal quotation marks omitted)).
1. Count I
a. The Griffin Cases
Starting with Griffin, and continuing through several cases decided over the ensuing
decades, the Supreme Court set forth certain core protections due to indigent persons—primarily
criminal defendants—under the constitutional guarantees of due process and equal protection. In
Griffin, the Supreme Court, through divided opinions, held that the State of Illinois had violated

25

both the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment by failing to
furnish trial transcripts to criminal defendants who needed the transcripts to obtain appellate
review of their convictions but were unable to afford the required fees. Justice Black, writing the
lead opinion, explained that, although Illinois’ requirements, on their face, applied equally to all
criminal appellants, their effect was “to deny adequate appellate review to the poor while
granting such review to all others,” which, the full majority agreed, was impermissible under the
Constitution. Griffin, 351 U.S. at 13.
There are aspects of the analysis in Griffin—though not, necessarily, its holding—that
seem to pose a challenge in terms of reconciling the case with the rules that govern constitutional
cases today. Now, every law student is encouraged to learn the ordinary formula for considering
a challenge under the Equal Protection Clause: “If a protected class or fundamental right is
involved, [the court] must apply strict scrutiny, but where no suspect class or fundamental right
is implicated, this Court must apply rational basis review.” Midkiff, 409 F.3d at 770 (citing Hadix
v. Johnson, 230 F.3d 840, 843 (6th Cir. 2000)). The Griffin Court, however, did not explain its
holding in terms of either “rational basis” or “strict scrutiny,” presumably because those rubrics
had not yet taken the firm hold they now possess over so much constitutional litigation. See
Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, 136 S. Ct. 2292, 2327 (2016) (Thomas, J., dissenting)
(observing that “[o]nly in the 1960’s did the Court begin in earnest to speak of ‘strict scrutiny’
versus reviewing legislation for mere rationality, and to develop the contours of these tests”).
Rather, Justice Black explained the Court’s holding as an extension of the basic principle, dating
in its roots at least back to the Magna Carta, that “due process and equal protection both call for
procedures in criminal trials which allow no invidious discriminations between persons and
different groups of persons.” Griffin, 351 U.S. at 16–17.

26

Justice Black stressed that Illinois’ scheme offended the Constitution, even though the
Constitution itself did not require Illinois to provide any appellate courts at all. Id. at 18 (citing
McKane v. Durston, 153 U.S. 684, 687–88 (1894)). Justice Frankfurter’s opinion completing the
majority echoed Justice Black in the relevant respects, observing that “[l]aw addresses itself to
actualities,” and “[i]t does not face actuality to suggest that Illinois affords every convicted
person, financially competent or not, the opportunity to take an appeal,” if indigent persons do
not have a mechanism to receive an adequate transcript. Id. at 22 (Frankfurter, J., concurring in
judgment). Accordingly, “when a State deems it wise and just that convictions be susceptible to
review by an appellate court, it cannot by force of its exactions draw a line which precludes
convicted indigent persons . . . from securing such a review merely by disabling them from
bringing” an effective notice of appeal. Id. at 23.
In the years following Griffin, the Supreme Court decided several cases expanding that
case’s principle to secure additional rights to indigents working their way through the criminal
justice system. See, e.g., Douglas v. California, 372 U.S. 353, 357–58 (1963) (holding that
indigent defendants are entitled to counsel on their first direct appeal); Roberts v. LaVallee, 389
U.S. 40, 42 (1967) (holding that indigent defendants are entitled to a free transcript of the
preliminary hearing for use at trial). In Williams v. Illinois, the Court extended the logic of
Griffin to hold that a court could not increase an indigent defendant’s imprisonment past his
maximum sentence, based solely on his inability to pay fines arising out of his conviction. 399
U.S. at 242. In so doing, the Court stressed that a statute’s lack of an exception for indigent
persons was the equivalent of improperly imposing a greater punishment based solely on an
individual’s inability to pay:
Since only a convicted person with access to funds can avoid the increased
imprisonment, the Illinois statute in operative effect exposes only indigents to the
27

risk of imprisonment beyond the statutory maximum. By making the maximum
confinement contingent upon one’s ability to pay, the State has visited different
consequences on two categories of persons since the result is to make
incarceration in excess of the statutory maximum applicable only to those without
the requisite resources to satisfy the money portion of the judgment.
Id. The Court stressed that its holding did not render the state “powerless to enforce judgments
against those financially unable to pay a fine,” but rather merely required it to avail itself of the
“numerous alternatives” on which it could rely to enforce the convicted person’s debts without
unconstitutionally imposing a greater maximum sentence on the indigent than the non-indigent.
Id. at 244. The purpose of Griffin, the Williams Court explained, was not to eliminate costs and
fees, but to “to alleviate discrimination against those who are unable to meet the costs of
litigation in the administration of criminal justice.” Id. at 241.
In Tate v. Short, the Court considered whether the rule set out in Williams applied to a
debtor who, unable to pay the fines he had accumulated for traffic offenses, had been committed
by a court to service at a municipal farm where he would work “to satisfy the fines at the rate of
five dollars for each day.” 401 U.S. at 397. The court ordering him to the farm had original
jurisdiction over only offenses for which there was no possibility of confinement, but it had been
granted the authority to order confinement based on failure to pay fines. Id. at 396 n.2. The
Supreme Court concluded that, “[a]lthough the instant case involves offenses punishable by fines
only, petitioner’s imprisonment for nonpayment constitutes precisely the same unconstitutional
discrimination [as in Williams] since, like Williams, petitioner was subjected to imprisonment
solely because of his indigency.” Id. at 397–98. Again, the Court emphasized that the
constitutional defect was not in the act of imposing a consequence on nonpayment, but in the fact
that applying that consequence to a truly indigent person had the practical effect of imposing
greater punishment based on the economic status of the violator. Id. at 401 (“We emphasize that

28

our holding today does not suggest any constitutional infirmity in imprisonment of a defendant
with the means to pay a fine who refuses or neglects to do so.”).
In Mayer v. City of Chicago, the Court considered whether the Griffin right to an
adequate appellate record applied in cases where the defendant faced only the threat of a fine,
rather than imprisonment. The defendant in Mayer “urge[d]” the Court to adopt a “distinction to
set this case apart from Griffin and its progeny”: namely, “that the defendants in all the transcript
cases previously decided . . . were sentenced to some term of confinement,” whereas the accused
in Mayer was “not subject to imprisonment, but only a fine.” 404 U.S. at 196. The Court rejected
any suggestion that the rights set forth in Griffin and subsequent cases were at all contingent on a
person’s facing the threat of incarceration:
This argument misconceives the principle of Griffin . . . . [I]ts principle is a flat
prohibition against pricing indigent defendants out of as effective an appeal as
would be available to others able to pay their own way. The invidiousness of the
discrimination that exists when criminal procedures are made available only to
those who can pay is not erased by any differences in the sentences that may be
imposed.
404 U.S. at 196–97. The Court explained that the basis for its holdings since Griffin was that
refusing to allow an exception for the indigent was, as a constitutional matter, no different from
adopting an “unreasoned distinction” punishing indigents more severely than non-indigents for
reasons unrelated to their guilt or culpability. Id. at 193 (quoting Rinaldi v. Yeager, 384 U.S. 305,
310 (1966)). “The size of the defendant’s pocketbook,” the Court wrote, “bears no . . .
relationship to his guilt or innocence”—and therefore could not form the basis for denying the
right to appeal. Id. at 196.
Finally, in Bearden v. Georgia, the Court held that Georgia could not revoke an
individual’s probation for failure to pay a fine or make restitution without first finding that the
probationer was responsible for that failure or that alternative forms of punishment were
29

inadequate. 461 U.S. at 672–73. The Court explained that “depriv[ing] the probationer of his
conditional freedom simply because, through no fault of his own, he [could not] pay the fine”
was “contrary to the fundamental fairness required by the Fourteenth Amendment.” Id. The
Bearden Court took the opportunity to consider the Williams line of cases in the context of
developments in the law emphasizing the now-commonplace tiered system of judicial review of
state actions, noting that “[t]he parties, following the framework of Williams and Tate, have
argued the question primarily in terms of equal protection, and debate vigorously whether strict
scrutiny or rational basis is the appropriate standard of review.” Id. at 665. The Court, however,
noted that the considerations at issue occupied a place in the Court’s constitutional case law
where “[d]ue process and equal protection principles converge” and required a more searching
analysis:
Whether analyzed in terms of equal protection or due process, the issue cannot be
resolved by resort to easy slogans or pigeonhole analysis, but rather requires a
careful inquiry into such factors as “the nature of the individual interest affected,
the extent to which it is affected, the rationality of the connection between
legislative means and purpose, [and] the existence of alternative means for
effectuating the purpose . . . .”
Id. at 666–67 (quoting Williams, 399 U.S. at 260 (Harlan, J., concurring)).
b. Johnson v. Bredesen
The Sixth Circuit gave substantial consideration to the Griffin line of cases in Johnson v.
Bredesen, in which the court held that Tennessee’s law requiring felons to pay child support and
restitution before having their voting rights restored did not offend constitutional principles,
despite lacking an indigence exception. 624 F.3d 742, 750 (6th Cir. 2010). The majority opinion
in Johnson faulted Griffin and Williams for “fail[ing] to articulate a precise standard of review,”
but ultimately concluded that the Griffin line of cases was inapposite because those cases
“concerned fundamental interests”—namely, physical liberty and access to the courts—that
30

made the laws at issue “subject to heightened scrutiny.” Id. at 749. Because the Johnson court
considered the felons’ re-enfranchisement interests non-fundamental and because “a class of less
wealthy individuals is not a suspect class,” Molina-Crespo v. U.S. Merit Sys. Prot. Bd., 547 F.3d
651, 660 (6th Cir. 2008) (citing San Antonio Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1, 29
(1973)), the court applied only rational basis review.
Johnson v. Bredesen is the law of this circuit, and the court will apply it here. The court
pauses to note, however, that the simple tiers-of-scrutiny analysis that the Sixth Circuit
considered adequate in Johnson cannot simply be substituted for a consideration of the full line
of Griffin cases without losing quite a bit in the translation. As the court will explain, one must
be careful not to read Johnson in a way that (1) directly contradicts Bearden, (2) misstates the
basis of the rights set forth in the earlier Griffin cases, or (3) loses a level of nuance that, as even
the Johnson majority itself acknowledged, applies in cases where the statute at issue not only
affects indigents but threatens to exacerbate their indigency. The court’s application of Johnson
then, will be one that strives to read its holding in harmony with, rather than as a repudiation of,
the Supreme Court cases that preceded it.
The parties in Bearden “debate[d] vigorously whether strict scrutiny or rational basis
[was] the appropriate standard of review,” but the Court rejected those arguments on the ground
that such “easy slogans” and “pigeonhole analysis” were insufficient to the “careful analysis”
required by the overlap of the due process and equal protection interests at issue under Griffin.
Bearden, 461 U.S. at 665–66. Fitting the principles underlying Griffin into the simple categories
sufficient for an ordinary equal protection case, the Court wrote, was a task “too Procrustean to
be rationally accomplished.” Id. at 667 n.8 (quoting North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 723
(1969)). The Sixth Circuit, in Johnson, acknowledges these statements but nevertheless applies

31

its own gloss on Bearden, assuring the reader that, whatever the Supreme Court said, what it
meant was that the Court was applying heightened scrutiny because the fundamental right to
physical liberty was at issue. 624 F.3d at 749. It is difficult for this court to see how Bearden
supports such a reading. In any event, it is sufficient to say that the Sixth Circuit’s conclusion
was that the nature of the rights at issue in Bearden and Johnson justified the differing analyses,
but that Bearden remained and remains good law. 5
Moreover, the Johnson majority’s contention that the puzzle of the Griffin cases can be
solved by noting that those cases involved “fundamental interests”— freedom from confinement
and access to courts—seems, at first, to be difficult to square with the precedents themselves. In
Mayer v. City of Chicago, the Supreme Court, considering a scheme involving fines only,
expressly considered and rejected the argument that the rule of Griffin was premised on a threat
to the defendant’s physical liberty. 404 U.S. at 196–97. To the contrary, the Court explained that
its holdings arose from the premise that imposing a harsher punishment on a person due to his
indigence amounted to relying on an “‘unreasoned distinction’ proscribed by the Fourteenth
Amendment.” 404 U.S. at 193, 196 (quoting Rinaldi, 384 U.S. at 310); see also M.L.B. v. S.L.J.,
519 U.S. 102, 111 (1996) (“Griffin’s principle has not been confined to cases in which
imprisonment is at stake.”). On the other end of the spectrum, the possibility that the Griffin
cases are about freedom from physical restraint and access to the courts is belied by the fact that
the Supreme Court has expressly declined to apply them in some cases where those interests
5

Purkey seems to suggest that the reasoning set forth, in Griffin through Bearden, was rendered obsolete
by the Supreme Court’s brief analysis of those cases in M.L.B. v. S.L.J., 519 U.S. 102 (1996). In M.L.B.,
the Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of a Mississippi scheme that premised a parent’s
appeal of the termination of her parental rights on her payment of over $2,000 in record preparation fees.
Id. at 106. In striking down Mississippi’s scheme, the Court did indeed use the language of “fundamental
interest[s].” Id. at 113. The analysis in M.L.B., however, was expressly premised on the fact that the
proceeding at issue, unlike those in the Griffin cases and here, was neither criminal nor quasi-criminal in
nature. Id. at 112–13. The Court stressed that it “has not extended Griffin to the broad array of civil
cases,” id. at 116, which Thomas and Hixson do not dispute.

32

were implicated. See United States v. MacCollum, 426 U.S. 317, 328–29 (1976) (holding that
Griffin does not apply in cases involving an indigent person’s right to obtain a transcript to assist
him in obtaining collateral relief); Ross v. Moffitt, 417 U.S. 600, 618 (1974) (holding that Griffin
does not grant a right to appointed counsel in a discretionary appeal). Whatever principle is at
work in Griffin, then, it is clearly less simple than determining whether access to courts or a risk
of confinement is directly implicated, even if that distinction was sufficient to resolve the issue
presented by Johnson.
Ultimately, even the Johnson majority opinion concedes that more is going on in its talk
of “fundamental interests” than a binary question of whether the statute at issue impinges on
something that the courts have identified as a “fundamental right” under the Constitution. At one
point, the Johnson court is called on to distinguish James v. Strange, 407 U.S. 128, which the
court will discuss in more detail with regard to Count III below. The law at issue in that case,
like this one, involved the collection of court-related debt from people who had faced criminal
charges. The Court invalidated the Strange scheme under what appeared to be rational basis
review, although the Johnson court construed the Strange opinion as having set a higher bar than
was required for Tennessee’s re-enfranchisement statute. The Johnson court, rather, concluded
that the analysis in Strange did not apply to Johnson because Strange involved a scheme that, by
further impoverishing already-indigent debtors, endangered “the hopes of indigents for selfsufficiency and self-respect,” whereas Johnson involved a “mere ‘statutory benefit.’” Johnson,
624 F.3d at 749 (quoting Strange, 407 U.S. at 135; Harvey v. Brewer, 605 F.3d 1067, 1079 (9th
Cir. 2010).). But self-sufficiency and self-respect have never been recognized by the Sixth
Circuit or the Supreme Court as fundamental rights in a constitutional sense. Cf. Cutshall v.
Sundquist, 193 F.3d 466, 479 (6th Cir. 1999) (recognizing the lack of cases recognizing a

33

constitutional “general right to private employment”). Under Johnson then, an at least somewhat
elevated version of rational basis review would seem to be required in a case where a scheme
was alleged to discriminatorily endanger an indigent person’s basic subsistence and capacity for
self-sufficiency.
The tiered system of scrutinies has its advantages and, for a large portion of constitutional
cases, is sufficient to resolve the questions at hand. The problem is that this is one area of law
where the Supreme Court has said, in no uncertain terms, that a different set of tools is called for.
Ignoring those holdings in favor of a two-sizes-fit-all approach does not afford the Supreme
Court’s cases the precedential weight to which they are entitled. As much as Purkey may argue
that the standard, tiered framework is inescapable and unbending, the reality is that the
jurisprudence of the Supreme Court says otherwise. In Bearden and elsewhere, the Supreme
Court has recognized that, in select areas, “more is involved . . . than the abstract question
whether [the challenged law] discriminates against a suspect class, or whether [the matter at
issue] is a fundamental right.” Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 223 (1982). While this court has no
appetite for inventing new areas for departure from the standard framework, it also sees no
ground for ignoring the exceptions that the Supreme Court has already established.
c. Section 40-24-105(b)’s Lack of an Indigence Exception
Those caveats aside, Purkey is correct that Johnson calls on us to consider whether
section 40-24-105(b) bears on a fundamental interest and apply rational basis review if it does
not. The Sixth Circuit has held that “there is no fundamental right to drive a motor vehicle”
under the Constitution. Duncan v. Cone, No. 00-5705, 2000 WL 1828089, at *2 (6th Cir. Dec. 7,
2000). The use of a motor vehicle is, however, closely tied to the exercise of rights that have
been found to give rise to heightened constitutional protection. It is well settled that “the

34

Supreme Court has recognized a protected right to interstate travel.” League of United Latin Am.
Citizens v. Bredesen, 500 F.3d 523, 534 (6th Cir. 2007) (citing Saenz v. Roe, 526 U.S. 489, 500
(1999)). The Sixth Circuit, moreover, has gone a step further and “has recognized a protected
right to intrastate travel, i.e., ‘a right to travel locally through public spaces and roadways.’” Id.
(quoting Johnson v. City of Cincinnati, 310 F.3d 484, 494–98 (6th Cir. 2002)); see also Fowler v.
Johnson, No. CV 17-11441, 2017 WL 6379676, at *8 (E.D. Mich. Dec. 14, 2017). That right, as
recognized in this circuit, does not generally prohibit the state from denying “a single mode of
transportation,” such as driving, to an individual. Fowler, 2017 WL 6379676, at *8 (collecting
cases.) A law may “implicate[] the right to travel,” however, “when it actually deters travel,
when impeding travel is its primary objective, or when it uses a classification that serves to
penalize the exercise of the right.” League of United Latin Am. Citizens, 500 F.3d at 535 (citing
Attorney Gen. of N.Y. v. Soto-Lopez, 476 U.S. 898, 903 (1986)). The Sixth Circuit has
demonstrated a willingness to consider laws governing the right to drive under that rubric, to
determine whether “[s]omething more than a negligible or minimal impact on the right to travel”
exists, thereby potentially triggering a heightened level of scrutiny. Id. (citing State of Kansas v.
United States, 16 F.3d 436, 442 (D.C. Cir. 1994)). Attention to modes of transport would seem to
be particularly important where, as here, the legal matter at issue, by definition, involves people
with especially limited resources. A right to intrastate travel that assumes that a homeless person
who cannot afford to pay court costs can simply hop into a cab or summon an Uber or a Lyft on
a regular basis 6 would not seem to be a right that recognizes the specific solicitude afforded to
indigent persons in the criminal justice system under Griffin, Williams, Tate, Mayer, and
Bearden.
6

Nor can we assume that an adequate system of public transportation exists and is available. Indeed,
Purkey concedes that there are parts of Tennessee that public transportation fails to reach altogether.
(Docket No. 40 ¶ 42.)

35

Consistently with the Sixth Circuit’s prior decisions, the court will not consider the
state’s license revocation system as subject to heightened scrutiny merely because it bears, in
some way, on a person’s ability to use the roads. At the same time, however, the court notes that,
as the degree of the burden imposed increases, a scheme that hinges on taking away one’s right
to drive gets closer and closer to the rights to which the Constitution affords special protection.
Moreover, as the court will discuss below, the right at issue here bears substantially on the
debtor’s interest in self-sufficiency, which the Sixth Circuit recognized, in Johnson, to justify an
at least somewhat more searching standard of review. Purkey’s contention that Johnson
mandates the application of ordinary rational basis review here, therefore, is questionable.
Nevertheless, even if only the lowest standard of judicial review applies, this court cannot
conclude, categorically, that section 40-24-105(b) passes constitutional muster. “Under rational
basis review, a law is upheld so long as it is rationally related to a legitimate government
purpose. There is a strong presumption of constitutionality and the regulation will be upheld so
long as its goal is permissible and the means by which it is designed to achieve that goal are
rational.” Liberty Coins, LLC v. Goodman, 748 F.3d 682, 694 (6th Cir. 2014) (citing Nat’l Ass’n
for Advancement of Psychoanalysis v. Cal. Bd. of Psychology, 228 F.3d 1043, 1050 (9th Cir.
2000)). Thomas and Hixson do not dispute that collecting fees, costs, and taxes from those who
can actually pay them is, generally speaking, a legitimate government purpose. 7 See Sickles v.
Campbell Cty., Ky., 501 F.3d 726, 731 (6th Cir. 2007) (“[T]he government’s interests—sharing
the

costs

of

incarceration

and

furthering

7

offender

accountability—are

Purkey identifies a total of seven legitimate purposes related to the state’s scheme, one of which is
inapplicable to this analysis because it involves only restitution, which, both parties now agree, is not a
basis for revocation of a driver’s license. Each of the six remaining interests is, in one way or another,
simply a reformulation or component of the state’s interest in assessing and enforcing fines, costs, and
litigation taxes. (See Docket No. 63-1 at 24–25.) Because the legitimacy of the state’s interest is
conceded, there is no need to dwell on the many ways that that interest can be restated, subdivided, and
characterized.

36

substantial . . . .”). Moreover, if Tennessee’s revocation scheme applied only to those debtors
capable of paying but unwilling to do so, one could imagine the rational relationship that might
exist between the threat of license revocation and the legitimate interest of collecting court debt.
That connection, though, falls apart where indigent debtors are concerned. Visiting a harsh
consequence on “someone who through no fault of his own is unable to make” the payment
sought “will not make [payment] suddenly forthcoming.” Bearden, 461 U.S. at 670. No person
can be threatened or coerced into paying money that he does not have and cannot get.
As the Griffin cases demonstrate, before the court applies any level of scrutiny, it must
take the preliminary analytic step of defining precisely what “the law” that is being challenged is.
Under Griffin and its progeny, the answer is clear: this court is bound to consider Tenn. Code
Ann. § 40-24-105(b) as the equivalent of a statute that imposes a harsher sanction on indigent
debtors than their non-indigent peers. See Griffin, 351 U.S. at 13 (“There is no meaningful
distinction between a rule which would deny the poor the right to defend themselves in a trial
court and one which effectively denies the poor an adequate appellate review accorded to all who
have money enough to pay the costs in advance. ”); Williams, 399 U.S. at 242 (“Since only a
convicted person with access to funds can avoid the increased imprisonment, the Illinois statute
in operative effect exposes only indigents to the risk of imprisonment beyond the statutory
maximum. By making the maximum confinement contingent upon one’s ability to pay, the State
has visited different consequences on two categories of persons since the result is to make
incarceration in excess of the statutory maximum applicable only to those without the requisite
resources to satisfy the money portion of the judgment.”); Mayer , 404 U.S. at 193 (reaffirming
that Griffin established a prohibition on laws that, in practical effect, created an “unreasoned
distinction[]” between the indigent and non-indigent).

37

In other words, if the scheme at issue affords no adequate exception based on indigence,
Griffin and the cases applying it instruct this court to consider that scheme as the constitutional
equivalent of the state’s “us[ing,] as the sole justification for” its action, “the poverty of” the
defendant. Bearden, 461 U.S. at 671. The court must “address[] itself to actualities,” Griffin, 351
U.S. at 22, and treat section 40-24-105(b) as what it, as a practical matter, is: a law that
guarantees that an indigent person will lose his license while giving a non-indigent person the
opportunity not to. That the law is “nondiscriminatory on its face” does not negate the fact that
imposing a payment obligation on the indigent “may be grossly discriminatory in its operation.” 8
Williams, 399 U.S. at 242 (quoting Griffin, 351 U.S. at 17 n.11). Such a distinction poses
constitutional problems, the Supreme Court has stressed, not merely because it might, in some
instances, bear on a fundamental right, but because the distinction itself is “unreasoned.” Mayer,
404 U.S. at 193 (quoting Rinaldi , 384 U.S. at 310).
The Johnson court grappled with this question and concluded that the differential
treatment of indigent prospective voters was permissible in relation to the state’s goal of ensuring
payment of child support and restitution generally. The court wrote that “[t]he legislature may
have been concerned, for instance, that a specific exemption for indigent felons would provide an
incentive to conceal assets and would result in the state being unable to compel payments from
some non-indigent felons.” 624 F.3d at 748. The Johnson majority reasoned that, although the
lack of an indigence exception rendered the statute arguably overbroad, that overbreadth was not
fatal due to the low level of scrutiny that applied. “That the state used a shotgun instead of a rifle
to accomplish its legitimate end,” the court wrote, “is of no moment under rational basis review.”
Id.
8

The court notes, however, that the issue of facial neutrality regarding indigence is something of a red
herring here. If a statute imposes a sanction on a person for not paying a sum of money, the statute is not,
in any meaningful way, neutral on the question of how much money the person has.

38

A far different calculus prevails, however, when the privilege lost is the ability to operate
a car on the state’s roadways. Unlike the power to vote, the ability to drive is crucial to the
debtor’s ability to actually establish the economic self-sufficiency that is necessary to be able to
pay the relevant debt. It does not require reams of expert testimony to understand that an
individual who cannot drive is at an extraordinary disadvantage in both earning and maintaining
material resources. “[D]riving an automobile” is “a virtual necessity for most Americans.”
Wooley v. Maynard, 430 U.S. 705, 715 (1977). Thomas and Hixson have previewed substantial
evidence to that effect, much of which Purkey has objected to on evidentiary, rather than factual,
grounds. Even solely on the basis of the undisputed facts and the basic features of life of which
the court can take judicial notice, however, the substantial economic disadvantages associated
with being unable lawfully to drive are apparent. 9
Most obviously, being unable to drive in Tennessee limits the jobs available to a person
and makes holding a job difficult once the person has it. “Automobile travel . . . is a basic,
pervasive, and often necessary mode of transportation to and from one’s home [and] workplace.”
Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 662 (1979). Some jobs require a person to drive as part of his
duties, and even those jobs that do not themselves involve driving generally require the
employee to be somewhere, reliably, on time.
The damage that the lack of a driver’s license does to one’s employment prospects is just
the beginning. Being unable to drive is the equivalent of a recurring tax or penalty on engaging
in the wholly lawful ordinary activities of life—a tax or penalty that someone who was convicted
of the same offense, but was able to pay his initial court debt, would never be obligated to pay.
When the State of Tennessee takes away a person’s right to drive, that person does not, suddenly

9

Again, Tennessee is not New York City or Chicago, where public transportation is so ubiquitous that
many people do not own cars and some never even learn to drive.

39

and conveniently, stop having to go to medical appointments, stop having to report to court
dates, or stop having to venture into the world to obtain food and necessities. Maybe public
transportation will work for some of those activities some of the time, and maybe it will not.
Purkey has offered nothing that would permit the court to conclude that public transportation can
adequately fill the void left by the loss of a license, and indeed he stipulates, at a minimum, that
“[p]ublic transportation is not available in some parts of Tennessee.”(Docket No. 40 ¶ 42.)
Similarly, while some individuals with revoked licenses may be able to rely on family or
charitable assistance for some purposes, there is no reason to conclude that such options will be
available or adequate in most cases. What, then, is a person on a revoked license to do? The
lawful options are simple: he can simply forgo the life activities, no matter how important, for
which he cannot obtain adequate transportation, or he can incur additional transportation
expenses—making himself that much less likely ever to satisfy his court debt.
Of course, an indigent person with a revoked license has another option, besides
accepting the practical limitations that the state has placed on him: he can, faced with the need to
navigate the world and no feasible, affordable, and legal option for doing so, break the law and
drive. The court very deliberately uses “can” here, not “may” or “should,” but it would simply be
willful blindness to ignore the fact that some debtors with revoked licenses will be tempted to
disregard the revocation, at least for pressing needs. By defying his license revocation, however,
the indigent debtor puts himself at the risk of incurring more fines, more court costs, and more
litigation taxes that will be likely to render the restoration of his rights an even more improbable
proposition. See Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 40-35-111(e), 55-50-504(a) (criminalizing and imposing
fines on driving on a revoked license). If the purpose of such a scheme were simply to lock
indigent defendants into an endless cycle of greater and greater debt, it could be said to serve that

40

purpose well. But Purkey, to his credit, does not assert that the State of Tennessee or his
Department has any legitimate interest in building inescapable debt traps for indigent
Tennesseans. Purkey, rather, claims that his Department’s policies are in furtherance of debt
collection. Toward that end, it is hard to say the policies are rationally calculated.
Purkey may respond that rational basis review permits even arguably counterproductive
policies a presumption of constitutionality. Nothing about the case law, however, suggests that
the Constitution’s tolerance for legislative or administrative self-sabotage is limitless. Cf.
Cleveland Bd. of Educ. v. LaFleur, 414 U.S. 632, 653 (1974) (Powell, J., concurring in the
result) (arguing that policy would fail rational basis review because it is “either
counterproductive or irrationally overinclusive”). The Supreme Court has made clear that, “even
in the ordinary equal protection case calling for the most deferential of standards,” a law may be
struck down if its substance is “so discontinuous with the reasons offered for it” that any pretense
of rationality cannot be sustained. Romer, 517 U.S. at 632. That review includes considering
whether, “in practical effect, the challenged classification simply does not operate so as
rationally to further the” legitimate purpose professed. U. S. Dep’t of Agric. v. Moreno, 413 U.S.
528, 537 (1973). There is reason to believe that taking away a driver’s license is not merely out
of proportion to the underlying purpose of ensuring payment, but affirmatively destructive of that
end—so much so that whether section 40-24-105(b) can lay any claim to rationality is open to
serious question.
The court finds itself returning to the Sixth Circuit’s reminder that, under rational basis
review, a state is free to “use[] a shotgun instead of a rifle to accomplish its legitimate end.” 624
F.3d at 748. The Sixth Circuit invoked that colorful aphorism to demonstrate that the state is free
to resort to policies that are imprecise and overbroad. But the question unavoidably arises: Is it

41

actually always rational to reach for the metaphorical shotgun, no matter the task at hand? This
court previously suggested that taking a person’s driver’s license away to try to make him more
likely to pay a fine is more like using a shotgun to treat a broken arm. Maybe it is more like
using the shotgun to shoot oneself in the foot. However one wants to think about it, the aspect of
the Sixth Circuit’s metaphor that is easy to miss is that, while the state is not required to use the
best tool for the job, it still has to use a tool for the job. There is substantial reason to doubt that
applying section 40-24-105(b) to indigent debtors makes any sense at all as a tool for collecting
court debt.
Section 40-24-105(b), moreover, presents more than a garden variety case of overbreadth.
Johnson, unlike this case, involved a sanction, disenfranchisement, that was initially imposed on
all convicted felons, with no option to buy one’s way into an exception. See 624 F.3d at 745
(citing Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-29-202(b)–(c)). When a disenfranchised felon completed his
sentence, he had the right to apply for re-enfranchisement, a process that again applied generally
to the entire eligible population. Id. Two of the requirements for re-enfranchisement, however,
were payment of restitution and child support obligations. Id. The scheme at issue in Johnson,
then, was one that truly was targeted at all qualifying felons with outstanding payment
obligations, and it sanctioned those who failed to pay only by forestalling their relief from a
preexisting sanction that they had suffered. See Johnson, 624 F.3d at 751 (“First, and most
fundamentally, the re-enfranchisement law at issue does not deny or abridge any rights; it only
restores them.”).
Section 40-24-105(b), on the other hand, imposes a wholly new sanction and is
exclusively targeted at defendants who have failed to pay their court debt for an entire year—that
is to say, a group particularly likely to consist, in substantial part, of defendants who, like

42

Thomas and Hixson, have suffered from a longstanding, persistent inability to pay. And the
undisputed facts suggest that that longstanding, persistent inability usually continues after
revocation. Purkey admits that, from July 1, 2012, to June 1, 2016, his agency revoked over
146,000 driver’s licenses for failure to pay fines, costs and/or litigation taxes. It restored fewer
than 11,000. (Docket No. 64 ¶¶ 107–08.) In other words, well over 92% of the people whose
driver’s licenses were revoked turned out not, in fact, to be people who could be coerced into
payment. Can it really be said, then, that section 40-24-105(b) is a collection mechanism that,
through its overbreadth, sweeps in some indigent people? The numbers would suggest that, to the
contrary, taking away the driver’s licenses of indigent people is the core of what the statute
does. 10
Admittedly, the General Assembly has taken some recent steps to allow courts, in their
discretion, to afford relief to defendants facing greater court debt than they can pay. Absent some
actually articulated standard explaining when—if ever—a defendant is entitled to that relief,
those mechanisms are inadequate for vindicating the constitutional interests here. The Griffin
line of cases does not simply guarantee indigent defendants, in the relevant situations, the
opportunity to appeal generally to the broad discretion of their sentencing court to alleviate their
burden. Rather, the Court set forth certain situations in which a qualifying indigent is, as a matter
of law, entitled to an exception from bearing a certain negative consequence that he could and
would avoid if he were able to pay. 11 See, e.g., Mayer, 404 U.S. at 198 (“We conclude that

10

Purkey would presumably respond that the success of section 40-24-105(b) is shown not by the small
number of people who paid their debt after revocation, but by the people who, out of fear of losing their
licenses, paid before a year was up. But those people, by definition, were capable of paying, unlike the
debtors at issue here. They could just as easily be coerced by a mechanism with an exception for indigent
debtors like Thomas and Hixson.
11

Indeed, it appears that the complaining parties in at least some of the post-Griffin cases may have
already been denied just that kind of discretionary relief. See Williams, 399 U.S. at 237 (noting that

43

appellant cannot be denied a ‘record of sufficient completeness' to permit proper consideration of
his claims.” (emphasis added)). The only statute that offers anything comparable to that type of
definite relief is the provision regarding the 180-day hardship exception. See Tenn. Code Ann. §
40-24-105(b)(3)(A) (“An order to stay the revocation of the license shall be granted if the court
finds that the person would experience hardship from the revocation of the license and that other
means of transportation are not readily available to the person.”) & -105(b)(3)(B) (“The court
may enter a one-time stay for a period of not longer than one hundred and eighty (180) days.”).
That provision, however, is expressly time-limited and not primarily focused on addressing
indigence.
Every other opportunity for relief is left entirely to the discretion of the court. See Tenn.
Code Ann. § 40-24-102 (“The several courts in which a cause is finally adjudged are authorized,
either before or after final judgment, for good cause, to release the defendants, or any one (1) or
more of them, from the whole or any part of fines or forfeitures accruing to the county or state.”);
Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-24-104(a) (“If the defendant . . . is unable to pay the fine . . . the court . . .
may enter any order that it could have entered under § 40-24-101, or may reduce the fine to an
amount that the defendant is able to pay . . . .”); Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-24-105(h) (“The court is
vested with the authority and discretion to order the issuance of a restricted driver license for the
purposes specified in subdivision (b)(3)(A).”); Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-25-123(b) (“[T]he

Williams “petitioned the sentencing judge to vacate that portion of the order requiring that he remain
imprisoned upon expiration of his one year sentence because of nonpayment of the fine and court costs”
and quoting a portion of the sentencing court’s decision including discussion of prudential concerns),
reversing People v. Williams, 41 Ill. 2d 511, 513 (1969) (noting, in case below, that the relevant
sentencing statute provided that “the court may further order that upon non-payment of such fine, the
offender may be imprisoned until the fine is paid” (emphasis added)); Bearden, 461 U.S. at 663, 673–74
(discussing parole hearing afforded in Bearden case), reversing Bearden v. State, 288 S.E.2d 662, 663
(1982) (explaining that a trial court’s revocation decision was reviewable, under Georgia law, only for
abuse of discretion).

44

presiding judge of a court of general sessions may suspend the court costs and the litigation
tax . . . , for any indigent criminal defendant, as in the presiding judge’s opinion the equities of
the case require.”). 12 Most of those mechanisms, moreover, are not targeted at the specific issue
of driver’s license revocations, but rather deal with the general assessment of fines, costs, and
litigation taxes. Accordingly, a court’s exercise of its discretion may, and may well, be guided by
factors wholly apart from the debtor’s indigence or his need to drive.
Tennessee courts have made clear that, when a court is, by statute, given discretion to
grant a debtor relief from a particular type of court debt, that discretion includes the authority to
deny relief, despite the debtor’s indigence. See Black, 897 S.W.2d at 683 (upholding denial of
waiver of costs for indigent defendant); State v. Lafever, No. M2003-00506-CCA-R3CD, 2004
WL 193060, at *7 (Tenn. Crim. App. Jan. 30, 2004) (applying Black to discretion to waive
fines). For example, the state courts have upheld the denial of a waiver of fines to a person who
was earlier found to be indigent, based purely on the speculative possibility that, “[b]y the time
[he was] required to begin paying the fines, his financial circumstances may have altered
significantly, for instance, through an inheritance.” Lafever, 2004 WL 193060, at *7; see also
State v. Ryan, No. E2013-02135-CCA-R3CD, 2014 WL 3611508, at *7 (Tenn. Crim. App. July
22, 2014) (affirming assessment of court costs against defendant who was found, twice, to be
indigent, as within the court’s discretion). Thomas and Hixson do not seek to deprive Tennessee
courts of their discretion regarding what a defendant should owe. They simply argue that, when
it comes to one particularly harsh consequence of nonpayment, they are entitled to a more
definite right to protection based on their indigence. Because Tennessee’s discretionary relief
statutes provide no definite right to relief from revocation based on inability to pay, they are no

12

Emphasis added throughout.

45

substitute for the type of protection required by the Griffin cases. The state cannot replace a right
to relief with an opportunity merely to throw oneself upon the mercy of the court.
If the General Assembly concluded that the state should revoke the driver’s license of
every person convicted of a felony or misdemeanor, then the Griffin line of cases would provide
no obstacle. However, because Tennessee has “deem[ed] it wise and just that” some convicted
persons be permitted to retain their licenses, “it cannot by force of its exactions draw a line” that
imposes a greater sanction on a convicted person based solely on his indigence. Griffin, 351 U.S.
at 23 (Frankfurter, J., concurring in judgment). Griffin and the cases applying it have “made clear
that,” at least in criminal and quasi-criminal settings, “differences in access to the instruments
needed to vindicate legal rights, when based upon the financial situation of the defendant, are
repugnant to the Constitution.” LaVallee, 389 U.S at 42. Nothing about the rational basis
framework or Johnson itself relieves Tennessee from the “basic command that justice be applied
equally to all persons.” Williams, 399 U.S. at 241. Accordingly, Purkey’s Motion to Dismiss,
which is premised on the argument that the plaintiffs’ arguments fail as a matter of law, will be
denied as to Count I.
d. Evidentiary Basis for Granting Summary Judgment
Simply concluding that Purkey is not entitled to dismissal of the plaintiffs’ claims as a
matter of law leaves open the question of whether either party is entitled to summary judgment.
Thomas and Hixson have set forth a sound theory of the constitutional protection to which they
are entitled, based on longstanding Supreme Court precedents and well-recognized principles
regarding the solicitude owed to indigent people in the criminal justice system. Whether that
theory justifies the holding they seek, however, depends on the facts. Purkey reminds the court
repeatedly—and correctly—that constitutional case law has recognized no fundamental right to

46

drive a motor vehicle. Conceding as much, the plaintiffs have not framed their challenge as about
the right to drive in the abstract, but about the practical effect of losing that right on other,
sometimes profoundly important interests. Specifically, the plaintiffs argue that, in Tennessee,
losing one’s license has substantial destructive effects on both (1) a person’s ability to obtain
basic self-sufficiency and (2) the government’s ability to recoup its debts. The court, therefore,
must survey the undisputed facts before it to determine if the plaintiffs have so conclusively
established that premise—or Purkey so conclusively refuted it—that summary judgment would
be proper.
i. Judicial Notice of Importance of Driving in Tennessee. The plaintiffs first urge the
court to take judicial notice, generally, of the centrality of motor vehicle travel to life in
Tennessee. As the court has already discussed, taking at least some judicial notice to that effect is
proper. Rule 201 of the Federal Rules of Evidence permits a court, either by motion of a party or
on its own motion, to “judicially notice a fact that is not subject to reasonable dispute because it”
either “(1) is generally known within the trial court’s territorial jurisdiction; or (2) can be
accurately and readily determined from sources whose accuracy cannot reasonably be
questioned.” Judicial notice permits a court to acknowledge certain indisputable foundational
facts about life in a jurisdiction, such as the region’s geography, see Tucker v. Outwater, 118
F.3d 930, 935 (2d Cir. 1997), its recurring weather conditions, see Stephan v. Transp. Ins. Co.,
140 F. App’x 340, 341 (3d Cir. 2005), or widely known demographic facts about its workforce,
see Caulfield v. Bd. of Educ. of City of N.Y., 486 F. Supp. 862, 885 (E.D.N.Y. 1979), aff’d, 632
F.2d 999 (2d Cir. 1980). Where appropriate, judicial notice may extend to indisputable realities
of an area’s economic life—for example, that a state or region lacks a certain industry, see
United States v. Ramirez, 910 F.2d 1069, 1071 (2d Cir. 1990), or that a particular consumer good

47

is widely available, see United States v. Various Articles of Obscene Merch., Schedule No. 2102,
709 F.2d 132, 137 (2d Cir. 1983).
By the same principle, a court is permitted to take judicial notice of commonly known
and indisputable facts about a city or region’s transportation infrastructure. See, e.g., Witter v.
Delta Air Lines, Inc., 138 F.3d 1366, 1370 (11th Cir. 1998) (taking judicial notice that “Atlanta
is home to Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport, one of the busiest airports in the country”).
Indeed, as Thomas and Hixson point out, courts have, where appropriate, specifically taken
judicial notice of the necessity of motor vehicle travel for certain work or life activities. See
Southerland v. St. Croix Taxicab Ass’n, 315 F.2d 364, 367 (3d Cir. 1963) (“The District Court
was entitled to take judicial notice of the fact, as do we, that the Alexander Hamilton Airport is
located in a rural part of St. Croix, some miles from the hotels and towns of the island and that it
is served by no regular public transportation facilities.”); United States v. Lopez, No. 05-CR-593,
2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 26170, at *13 n.14 (E.D. Pa. Mar. 26, 2007) (“The Court takes judicial
notice that the motel in question is in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, approximately 20 miles
outside of Philadelphia, in an area that is not readily served by public transportation and is
otherwise generally inaccessible without a car.”); cf. Susman v. N. Star Tr. Co., 30 N.E.3d 622,
628 (Ill. App. Ct. 2015) (“This court, which is located in Chicago, Cook County, may take
judicial notice of the fact that Lake County is adjacent to Cook County and that many people
commute every day from Lake County to work in Chicago.”). Of particular relevance to this
case, the Supreme Court itself appears to have had little hesitation in observing that
“[a]utomobile travel . . . is a basic, pervasive, and often necessary mode of transportation,”
Prouse, 440 U.S. at 662, or in referring to driving as “a virtual necessity for most Americans.”
Wooley, 430 U.S. at 715.

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“[C]aution must be used” in taking judicial notice under Rule 201, in part because
judicial notice can have the effect of “depriv[ing] a party of the opportunity to use rebuttal
evidence, cross-examination, and argument to attack” the assertion at issue. Countrywide
Home[] Loans, Inc. v. McDermott, 426 B.R. 267, 273 (N.D. Ohio 2010) (quoting Am. Prairie
Constr. Co. v. Hoich, 560 F.3d 780, 796 (8th Cir. 2009)). The court notes, however, that no such
deprivation of the chance to refute a judicially noticed fact has taken place here. Indeed, Purkey
has been given ample opportunity to dispute the importance of driving to life in Tennessee, and,
while he has raised a number of evidentiary objections, he has offered little to nothing that would
undermine the plaintiffs’ factual premise. For example, in their Statement of Undisputed
Material Facts, Thomas and Hixson, citing third-party research, posit that, “[i]n Memphis,
Nashville, and Knoxville, 72% to 75% of jobs are not reasonably accessible by public
transportation.” (Docket No. 64 ¶ 95.) Purkey, in response, objects on the basis of hearsay but
does not deny the fact asserted. (Id.) Thomas and Hixson add that, “[i]n Nashville, Knoxville,
and Chattanooga, more than two thirds of working-age residents lack access to public
transportation.” (Id. ¶ 96.) Again, Purkey raises only a hearsay objection, with neither a denial of
the plaintiffs’ factual assertion nor any proffered reason to doubt its general accuracy. (Id.)
Thomas and Hixson then claim that “93.4% of Tennessee residents drive to work.” (Id. ¶ 97.)
This time, Purkey raises two evidentiary objections—but again, he makes no quarrel with the
facts. (Id.) This pattern continues for several pages, with Purkey objecting even to such
undeniably common sense statements as “Many indigent people who owe Court Debt and whose
licenses have been revoked under the Statute still need to drive in order to get to work, school, or
medical appointments.” (Id. ¶ 106; see id. ¶¶ 94–106.) Any factual basis for Purkey’s resistance
to the plaintiffs’ positions, however, is conspicuously absent.

49

None of this is to give short shrift to Purkey’s evidentiary objections—which the court
will address in more detail below—but to note that, if Purkey has any ground on which he
actually disputes the importance of driving in Tennessee, he has had ample opportunity to raise
it. Therefore, while the court will exercise the level of caution appropriate under Rule 201, it will
do so while noting that Purkey and his counsel have certainly not been blindsided by this issue,
nor have they been deprived of chances to make a case to the contrary.
With the foregoing principles in mind, the court takes judicial notice of the following.
First, the court judicially notices that the public transportation available in Tennessee is widely
insufficient to provide an adequate substitute for access to private motor vehicle transportation.
Second, the court judicially notices that the services, businesses, homes, and workplaces
throughout Tennessee are so geographically diffuse that navigating life in the state wholly on
foot is impracticable for all but perhaps a few Tennesseans. Third, the court judicially notices
that a number of obstacles prevent non-motorized transportation, such as bicycles, from
providing an adequate alternative to driving in Tennessee, including (1) the aforementioned
geographically diffuse pattern of development; (2) the need to travel on interstates and highways;
(3) safety concerns associated with using non-motorized travel in areas without paths dedicated
to that purpose; (4) the lack of such dedicated paths on numerous important roads within the
state; and (5) the fact that many Tennesseans face physical limitations that would not prevent
them from driving but that would sharply limit their use of a bicycle or other human-powered
mode of transportation.
Based on its judicial notice of these aforementioned facts, the court concludes that it is
beyond dispute that, at least as a general proposition, the cities, towns, and communities of
Tennessee are pervasively structured around the use of motor vehicles. Anyone who doubts that

50

premise is welcome to attempt to run a day’s worth of errands in a rural Tennessee county with
no car and very little money. The centrality of motor vehicle travel is, moreover, not solely a
rural problem. Even the relatively dense city of Nashville, where the court sits, is deeply reliant
on motor vehicle transport. If any city in this jurisdiction could be expected to be reasonably
navigable without driving, it would be Nashville—and the court takes judicial notice that, to the
contrary, Nashville is a city where motor vehicle travel is an essential part of ordinary life,
particularly for anyone seeking to maintain or build economic self-sufficiency.
There are, of course, limits to what the court can judicially notice. The court cannot, for
example, take judicial notice of the more specific statistical claims offered by Thomas and
Hixson, nor can the court ascribe absolute universality to the general facts of which the court has
taken judicial notice. There is no reason, however, for the court to engage in the preposterous
fiction that the question of whether driving is central to life in Tennessee is shrouded in mystery.
This is a state of roads, not footpaths—and those roads, for the most part, are filled with private
and commercial vehicles, not bicycles and public buses. The court is permitted to acknowledge
as much.
ii. Stipulations. Indeed, the parties’ stipulations—though worded cautiously—support the
court’s conclusion. Purkey stipulates, for example, that, “[f]or many adult residents of
Tennessee, the ability to drive is an important aspect of daily life.” (Docket No. 40 ¶ 41.) He
further stipulates that “[p]ublic transportation is not available in some parts of Tennessee.” (Id. ¶
42). Although those stipulations, in a vacuum, may be frustratingly vague and euphemistic, the
court’s permissible consideration of background facts about life in the state brings the agreedupon premises more sharply into focus. No testimony is required for the court to understand that
driving is “an important aspect of daily life,” because it is how Tennesseans get to work, school,

51

supermarkets, doctors’ offices, hospitals, religious services, job interviews, charitable
organizations, polling places, and community activities, among other destinations. Nor is
testimony required for the court to know that the “some parts of Tennessee” without public
transportation include more than the bottom of the Cumberland River or the top of Mount Le
Conte. The areas without public transportation, or with wholly inadequate public transportation,
include the homes of many Tennesseans whose rights and desires to engage in the activities of
life are no less than those of Tennesseans in the state’s city centers. The parties’ stipulations,
accordingly, support a holding that the loss of one’s driver’s license works a substantial hardship
on the former license holder’s capacity for self-sufficiency, such that a license revocation would
be counterproductive to fostering an indigent debtor’s ability to pay his debts.
iii. Census Data and Brookings Institution Report. The stipulations and judicial notice
available provide a great deal of support for the general conclusion that driving is central to
everyday life and personal self-sufficiency in Tennessee. General conclusions, however, can only
take the court so far. Thomas and Hixson have offered a number of more detailed supporting
facts, to which Purkey objects primarily, if not exclusively, on evidentiary grounds. The court,
therefore, must consider the degree to which it can consider those supporting facts on the
motions for summary judgment.
Thomas and Hixson have offered the declaration of one of their attorneys, Edward
Krugman, purporting to authenticate and summarize supporting evidence from (1) a 2011
Brookings Institution report entitled Missed Opportunity: Transit and Jobs in Metropolitan
America (“Brookings Report”) 13; and (2) census data regarding the percentage of Tennessee

13

Available at https://www.brookings.edu/research/missed-opportunity-transit-and-jobs-in-metropolitanamerica/.

52

residents who commute to work. 14 (Docket No. 43.) Purkey objects to both sources on the
grounds that Krugman, as an attorney for the plaintiffs, is not an appropriate authenticating
witness and that the Brookings Report and the census figures are hearsay.
Purkey is correct that, insofar as there is a reasonable dispute about the authenticity or
credibility of sources, a lawyer for one of the parties would not be an appropriate witness on the
matter—at least if that lawyer also planned to appear at trial. See Tenn. Sup. Ct. R. 8, RPC 3.7
(forbidding an attorney to be both advocate and witness at trial unless pursuant to a particular
exception); see also Local R. 83.01(e)(4) (“The standard of professional conduct of the members
of the bar of this Court shall include the current Tennessee Code of Professional Responsibility,
Tenn. Sup. Ct. R. 8.”). That does not mean, however, that Krugman is forbidden from noting the
existence of the census data and Brookings Report. The court is capable of taking judicial notice
of the fact that “http://www.brookings.edu” and “http://www.census.gov” are the URLs of,
respectively, the Brookings Institution and the U.S. Census Bureau, and the sources that
Krugman has cited are available on those websites. Krugman’s citation to those sources,
therefore, is no different from merely mentioning them in a brief and poses no problem under the
Rules of Professional Conduct.
The permissibility of Krugman’s declaration, of course, does not resolve Purkey’s
hearsay objections, and, indeed, the plaintiffs concede that at least the Brookings Report is
hearsay. Purkey is mistaken, however, that a hearsay objection is enough to categorically insulate
him from addressing the facts at issue. Purkey relies on the Sixth Circuit’s decision in Sperle v.
Michigan Department of Corrections for the proposition that “[a] party opposing a motion for

14

Available at U.S. Census Bureau, Commuting (Journey to Work),
https://www.census.gov/topics/employment/commuting/data.html. The court notes that the URL for
accessing commuter data has apparently changed since these motions were originally briefed, but this
URL appears, at least as of late March 2018, to contain the same or similar figures.

53

summary judgment cannot use hearsay or other inadmissible evidence to create a genuine issue
of material fact.” 297 F.3d 483, 495 (6th Cir. 2002) (citing Weberg v. Franks, 229 F.3d 514, 526
n.13 (6th Cir. 2000)). Sperle, however, was not decided under the current version of Rule 56. As
the Sixth Circuit has more recently explained, the appropriate focus under Rule 56, as since
amended, is on the admissibility of a fact at trial, not necessarily the admissibility of the fact in
the specific form presented at the time of the summary judgment motion:
As amended in 2010, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56 provides that parties
asserting a genuinely disputed fact need only “cit[e] to particular parts of
materials in the record.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c)(1)(A). It then permits a party to
“object that the material cited to support or dispute a fact cannot be presented in a
form that would be admissible in evidence.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c)(2). Once an
objection is properly made, the proponent must “show that the material is
admissible as presented or . . . explain the admissible form that is anticipated.”
Mangum v. Repp, 674 F. App’x 531, 536–37 (6th Cir. 2017) (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c),
advisory committee’s note to 2010 amendment); see also Mount Vernon Fire Ins. Co. v. Liem
Constr., Inc., No. 3:16-CV-00689, 2017 WL 1489082, at *3 (M.D. Tenn. April 26, 2017)
(Crenshaw, J.) (acknowledging that the court, on a summary judgment motion, may consider
evidence presented in hearsay form if the evidence can be reduced to admissible form at trial);
Wilson v. Stein Mart, Inc., No. 3:15-CV-01271, 2016 WL 4680008, at *2 (M.D. Tenn. Sept. 7,
2016) (Nixon, S.J.) (same); Jeffrey W. Stempel et al., 11-56 Moore’s Federal Practice - Civil §
56.91 (2018) (“Although the substance or content of the evidence submitted to support or dispute
a fact on summary judgment must be admissible . . . , the material may be presented in a form
that would not, in itself, be admissible at trial.”); Charles Alan Wright & Arthur R. Miller et al.,
10A Fed. Prac. & Proc. Civ. § 2721 (4th ed.) (“The court and the parties have great flexibility
with regard to the evidence that may be used in a Rule 56 proceeding.”); cf. Celotex, 477 U.S. at

54

324 (“We do not mean that the nonmoving party must produce evidence in a form that would be
admissible at trial in order to avoid summary judgment.”).
Purkey’s objections premised on the fact that the Brookings Report is hearsay are not
objections that the facts therein “cannot be presented in a form that would be admissible in
evidence,” as required by Rule 56(c)(2). 15 The court notes, however, that lodging a simple
hearsay objection is consistent with the ordinary practice of most litigants in this district.
Addressing evidentiary objections on summary judgment through such a procedure is frequently
sufficient, either because the ultimate evidentiary issue at trial is obvious or because reliance on
the specific fact at issue is unnecessary for resolution of the relevant motion. The pending
summary judgment motions, however, do not yield such an easy resolution. Accordingly, the
court is inclined to hold those motions in abeyance with regard to Count I, pending either (1) a
more cooperative effort between the parties at reaching reasonable, agreed-upon stipulations
regarding the underlying facts or (2) the filing of supplemental briefs on whether the facts cited
by the plaintiffs and found in the Brookings Report, or some rough equivalent or substitute, can
be presented in a form that would be admissible at trial.
Thomas and Hixson do not, after all, ask the court to accept the entire Brookings Report,
in toto, as indisputable. Rather, they identify a few simple aspects of the authors’ conclusions—
mostly straightforward statistical claims about Tennessee communities—that are relevant to this

15

As Thomas and Hixson note, it is debatable whether Purkey’s practice of lodging evidentiary objections
alone, without addressing the facts asserted, follows the letter of the court’s local rules. Under Rule
56.01(c), “[a]ny party opposing the motion for summary judgment must respond to each fact set forth by
the movant by either (i) agreeing that the fact is undisputed; (ii) agreeing that the fact is undisputed for
the purpose of ruling on the motion for summary judgment only; or (iii) demonstrating that the fact is
disputed.” Local R. 56.01(c) (emphasis added). Moreover, “[e]ach disputed fact must be supported by
specific citation to the record.” Id. Purkey, however, has not taken any position on whether he disputes
the underlying facts, nor does he rely on specific citations to the record in his responses. In any event,
because the court will order supplemental stipulations and briefing on this issue, it need not determine
whether Purkey fully complied with Rule 56.01(c).

55

case. (See Docket No. 64 ¶¶ 94–96.) The Brookings Report, in turn, is fairly transparent about its
methodology, and many of the sources on which it relies are publicly available, such as transit
authorities’ own route and schedule information. See Brookings Report at 5–6, 29–34. It is not
difficult, then, to foresee how the facts cited by the plaintiffs—or comparable facts conveying
similarly supportive background information about specific Tennessee communities—could be
admissible at trial, either through an author of the Brookings Report, if available, or some other
knowledgeable witness. Accordingly, if the parties truly are unable to agree upon the facts
necessary for full consideration of the plaintiffs’ claims, the court will permit Thomas and
Hixson to file supplemental affidavits and statements of undisputed fact establishing how, if at
all, they would anticipate introducing specific factual support regarding the necessity of driving
to Tennesseans.
Further briefing may also be helpful on the census data as currently presented, if the
parties are unable to agree on what that data says. With regard to the raw data itself, Purkey’s
hearsay objection is unavailing, because Rule 201 generally permits the court to take judicial
notice of “public records and government documents available from reliable sources on the
Internet.” U.S. ex rel. Dingle v. BioPort Corp., 270 F. Supp. 2d 968, 972 (W.D. Mich. 2003).
Official publications of public authorities, moreover, are self-authenticating under Rule 902(5) of
the Federal Rules of Evidence. See Fair Hous. Ctr. of Sw. Mich. v. Hunt, No. 1:09-CV-593, 2011
WL 710666, at *3 (W.D. Mich. Feb. 23, 2011) (“Publications of the U.S. Bureau of Census are
self-authenticating . . . .”). Although parties might dispute the analysis of census figures or even
the methodology by which a census was conducted, the court knows of no reasonable basis to
dispute that the U.S. Census Bureau’s published data is itself an accurate representation of the
census or censuses taken.

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Thomas and Hixson, however, do not rely solely on the data in its raw form, but also on
their compilation and tabulation of figures from that data to represent the percentages of
residents in a number of Tennessee metropolitan areas who drive to work. (Docket No. 43 ¶¶ 6–
10.) The plaintiffs argue that their tabulations are admissible under Rule 1006 of the Federal
Rules of Evidence, which permits a party to use “a summary, chart, or calculation to prove the
content of voluminous writings, recordings, or photographs that cannot be conveniently
examined in court.” Alternatively, the plaintiffs suggest that their tabulations can be considered
as a Rule 611(a) pedagogical device. See United States v. Bray, 139 F.3d 1104, 1111 (6th Cir.
1998). Given the voluminous nature of the census data, it seems to the court that a Rule 1006
summary would be appropriate. “[S]ummaries admitted as evidence under Rule 1006,” however,
“must fairly represent and be taken from underlying documentary proof.” Gomez v. Great Lakes
Steel Div., Nat. Steel Corp., 803 F.2d 250, 257 (6th Cir. 1986). The court’s consideration of this
matter would therefore be aided by Purkey’s setting aside his evidentiary gamesmanship and
weighing in on whether the plaintiffs’ summary is accurate. In other words, the court invites
Purkey to check the plaintiffs’ math rather than looking for ways to avoid it. If, then, the parties
are truly unable to reach an agreement regarding the plaintiffs’ numbers, the court will require
additional briefing on the degree to which the numbers presented in paragraph 10 of Krugman’s
declaration are admissible as a Rule 1006 summary or, in the alternative, a Rule 611(a)
pedagogical device. While Purkey is free to lodge or reiterate any evidentiary objections he likes,
he will also be required to take an affirmative position on the accuracy of the plaintiffs’
calculations, with an adequate and thorough explanation of any grounds for disputing those
calculations, or risk the court’s taking the plaintiffs’ calculations as conceded. The plaintiffs, in

57

turn, will be ordered to make good faith efforts to assist Purkey’s counsel in understanding the
plaintiffs’ tabulation methodology.
Counsel for the parties can, and presumably will, use their best litigation judgment
regarding how to go about the stipulations and briefing ordered. The court notes, however, that it
fails to see why any party would wish to draw these proceedings out by being intransigent or
willfully obtuse about the basic fact that driving is a central part of ordinary life for most adult
Tennesseans who are capable of operating a motor vehicle, particularly those who wish to be
economically self-sufficient. The court has taken judicial notice of that fact generally, and it has
little doubt that additional facts are discoverable and admissible that would provide more
detailed support for the general proposition. It is difficult to imagine what would be gained by
holding a trial solely for the purpose of hauling in witnesses to authenticate studies and confirm
simple calculations, all to form an evidentiary record in support of a premise that any person who
lives in Tennessee can see is true. It would seem to the court that resolving this case
expeditiously would be better furthered by agreeing upon the basic, indisputable facts and
focusing on the area of the parties’ actual meaningful disagreement: the substance of the
governing constitutional law. In any event, for the aforementioned reasons, the court will hold
the parties’ motions for summary judgment in abeyance regarding Count I, pending the requested
supplemental stipulations and briefing, which the court will outline in greater detail in the
accompanying order.
2. Count III
a. James v. Strange
Because Count III, like Count I, involves the Equal Protection Clause, the court will turn
to it next. Count III targets the same features of Tennessee’s system as Count I, but from a

58

different angle. Relying largely on the Supreme Court’s decision in James v. Strange, 407 U.S.
128, Thomas and Hixson argue that section 40-24-105(b) denies equal protection by subjecting
people holding court debt to a significantly harsher collection and enforcement scheme than
Tennessee allows with regard to people holding private debt. In other words, while Count I
compares the difference between the law’s treatment of indigent court debtors and non-indigent
court debtors, Count III turns to the difference between the law’s treatment of court debtors and
its treatment of private debtors. Much of Purkey’s argument follows the same path he took with
Count I. He argues that this scheme is governed by rational basis review, which the state’s laws
should survive.
Strange involved a Kansas statutory scheme for recouping amounts expended by the state
on counsel and legal services provided to indigent criminal defendants pursuant to the state’s
obligations under Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963). Strange, 407 U.S. at 128. Any
time a sum was expended, it was promptly recorded as a debt of the defendant. That debt
“bec[ame] a lien on the real estate of defendant” and could “be executed by garnishment or in
any other manner provided by the Kansas Code of Civil Procedure.” Id. at 131. The defendant
debtor, however, was not “accorded any of the exemptions provided by [the Kansas Code of
Civil Procedure] for other judgment debtors except the homestead exemption.” Id.
The Strange court considered Kansas’ scheme pursuant to a deferential standard, looking
only to “whether [the law] is based on assumptions scientifically substantiated.” Id. at 133
(quoting Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476, 501 (1957) (Harlan, J., concurring in the result)).
Indeed, even the Johnson majority has conceded that Strange’s “text appeared to apply rational
basis review.” 624 F.3d at 749. Under that standard, the Court struck the scheme down,
observing that the state may not “impose unduly harsh or discriminatory terms merely because

59

the obligation is to the public treasury rather than to a private creditor.” Id. at 138. The Court
took particular issue with the fact that, by eliminating almost all exemptions, Kansas had
subjected criminal defendant debtors to a regime that struck at their core resources. The Court
explained that the protections that had been removed were ones intended to ensure that even
debtors facing an overwhelming civil judgment would not have their resources wholly wiped out
by debt collection efforts. For example:
Of the [exemptions available to a civil judgment debtor], none is more important
to a debtor than the exemption of his wages from unrestricted garnishment. . . .
Kansas has . . . perceived the burden to a debtor and his family when wages may
be subject to wholesale garnishment. Consequently, under its code of civil
procedure, the maximum which can be garnished is the lesser of 25% of a
debtor’s weekly disposable earnings or the amount by which those earnings
exceed 30 times the federal minimum hourly wage. No one creditor may issue
more than one garnishment during any one month, and no employer may
discharge an employee because his earnings have been garnished for a single
indebtedness.
Id. at 135–36. The Court recognized that “deny[ing] protections such as these to the once
criminally accused is to risk denying him the means needed to keep himself and his family
afloat.” Id. at 146.
Strange, unlike Griffin, does not have a novella’s worth of later Supreme Court opinions
explaining precisely what the lower courts should construe it to mean. The Court did revisit the
issue, however, in Fuller v. Oregon, 417 U.S. 40 (1974). Oregon, like Kansas and a number of
other states, had adopted a statutory scheme pursuant to which the state sought to recover the
costs of counsel from defendants—in Oregon’s case, only convicted defendants—who had been
indigent at the time of their prosecutions and had relied on state-funded appointed counsel. Quite
unlike the Kansas scheme at issue in Strange, however, the Oregon recoupment statutes
categorically applied only to a person who “[was] or [would, in the future] be able to pay” the
amounts owed. 417 U.S. at 45 (quoting Or. Rev. Stat. § 161.665(3)). As interpreted by the
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Oregon courts, “no requirement to repay [could] be imposed if it appear[ed] at the time of
sentencing that ‘there [was] no likelihood that a defendant’s indigency [would] end.” Id. (quoting
State v. Fuller, 504 P.2d 1393, 1397 (1973)). The Oregon statute, therefore, was “quite clearly
directed only at those convicted defendants who [were] indigent at the time of the criminal
proceedings against them but who subsequently gain[ed] the ability to pay the expenses of legal
representation.” Id. at 46. As the Court put it:
Defendants with no likelihood of having the means to repay are not put under
even a conditional obligation to do so, and those upon whom a conditional
obligation is imposed are not subjected to collection procedures until their
indigency has ended and no ‘manifest hardship’ will result. The contrast with
appointment-of-counsel procedures in States without recoupment requirements is
thus relatively small: a lawyer is provided at the expense of the State to all
defendants who are unable, even momentarily, to hire one, and the obligation to
repay the State accrues only to those who later acquire the means to do so without
hardship.
Id. (footnote omitted). The Court, applying Strange, upheld Oregon’s statute. In so doing, the
Court reiterated that what it had found objectionable about Kansas’ scheme was that the
“elimination of the exemptions normally available to judgment debtors ‘embodie[d] elements of
punitiveness and discrimination which violate the rights of citizens to equal treatment under the
law.’” Fuller, 417 U.S at 47 (quoting Strange, 407 U.S. at 142.) Concurring in the judgment,
Justice Douglas stressed that the reason the statute survived was that it had “been stringently
narrowed.” 417 U.S. at 59 (Douglas, J., concurring in the judgment).
b. Section 40-24-105(b)’s Protection of Indigent Debtors
Strange does not require that all debt be recouped by the same mechanisms, or even by
equally effective mechanisms. See Strange, 407 U.S. at 138 (“We recognize, of course, that the
State’s claim to reimbursement may take precedence, under appropriate circumstances, over the
claims of private creditors and that enforcement procedures with respect to judgments need not

61

be identical.”). What Strange does provide, however, is a firm command that a state’s uniquely
harsh treatment of a class of indigent debtors cannot be carried out in “such discriminatory
fashion” that it “blight[s] . . . the hopes of indigents for self-sufficiency and self-respect.” Id. at
142–43. The question, then, is whether that is the case here.
In Tennessee, fines, costs, and litigation taxes can be collected through the same basic
mechanisms as a civil judgment. See Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-24-105(a), (c), (f). Kansas also took
its system of ordinary civil collections as its baseline, but ran afoul of the Constitution by
subtracting a number of protections that would have been uniquely necessary for the very
indigent or recently indigent debtors to which its statute applied. Tennessee took a different
route, albeit one that, Thomas and Hixson argue, took it to much the same destination. Whereas
Kansas took away protections from its ordinary scheme, Tennessee heaped on additional tools of
coercion—most notably, the loss of a driver’s license. While the structure of the schemes is
different, the effect is the same: one particular type of debtor is singled out for a regime uniquely
capable of driving those debtors into, or further and more inextricably into, poverty.
Indeed, acknowledgment of the unique constitutional hazards of such a system can, as the
court has noted, be found in the opinion of the Johnson Sixth Circuit majority. Johnson
distinguished the Kansas debt scheme from Tennessee’s re-enfranchisement scheme on the
ground that Johnson involved a “mere ‘statutory benefit,’” whereas Strange implicated the
debtor’s ability to “support[] himself and his family.’” Johnson, 624 F.3d at 749 (quoting
Harvey, 605 F.3d at 1079; Strange, 407 U.S. at 135). That distinction, the Johnson majority
explained, was why Strange, despite facially being a case of rational basis review, in fact applied
a somewhat more demanding consideration of the factors involved.

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Here, the statute at issue, like the one in Johnson, threatens serious financial harm to
those who run afoul of it. The court does not need to repeat its lengthy discussion above to
establish that taking a person’s driver’s license away is, like Kansas’ scheme of unlimited
garnishment, a threat to the debtor’s basic subsistence. Ultimately, then, the formal differences
between Count I and Count III give way to substantial practical overlap. Although the theories
undergirding each differ, both hinge on just how severe a sanction the revocation of a license is
and just how greatly it harms the debtor’s basic subsistence or ability to build economic selfsufficiency. For that reason, the court will likewise deny Purkey’s motion to dismiss with regard
to Count III and hold the motions for summary judgment in abeyance pending the requested
supplemental stipulations and briefing.
3. Count II
In Count II, Thomas and Hixson challenge not the substance of the state’s revocation
scheme, but the way it is carried out—specifically, that a person facing revocation is not afforded
notice and an opportunity to contest the facts underlying the TDSHS’s revocation before that
revocation goes into effect. Purkey does not dispute that the state’s revocation of a person’s
driver’s license requires it to afford the minimal protections of due process. Purkey argues,
instead, that the state’s procedural due process obligation is satisfied by a combination of (1) the
original due process afforded at the time of the debtor’s conviction, (2) the fact that TDSHS
sends notices informing debtors of their revocations, and (3) that a debtor who believes that his
license was revoked in error because he had, in fact, paid his court debt can seek a review of his
records from TDSHS.
A driver’s license, once issued, is “not to be taken away without that procedural due
process required by the Fourteenth Amendment.” Bell v. Burson, 402 U.S. 535, 539 (1971)

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(citing Sniadach v. Family Fin. Corp., 395 U.S. 337 (1969); Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U.S. 254
(1970)). What due process requires, however, varies depending on the nature of the scheme at
issue. Even in a case where all involved agree that a person was entitled to due process, there
may still be disagreement about “how much process is due.” Shoemaker v. City of Howell, 795
F.3d 553, 559 (6th Cir. 2015). Determining precisely what process a person is entitled to in a
particular situation requires the consideration of a number of factors:
[1] the private interest that will be affected by the official action; [2] the risk of an
erroneous deprivation[;] . . . [3] the probable value, if any, of additional or
substitute procedural safeguards; and [4] the Government’s interest, including the
function involved and the fiscal and administrative burdens that the additional or
substitute procedural requirement would entail.
Id. at 559 (quoting Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 335 (1976)).
The Supreme Court’s cases in this area establish that a driver facing suspension or
revocation of his license is entitled to a pre-deprivation hearing in some—but not all—situations.
In Bell v. Burson, the Supreme Court concluded that an adequate pre-deprivation hearing was
required under a Georgia law pursuant to which “the motor vehicle registration and driver’s
license of an uninsured motorist involved in an accident” was “suspended unless he post[ed]
security to cover the amount of damages claimed by aggrieved parties in reports of the accident.”
402 U.S. at 535–36. The state allowed a motorist an administrative hearing prior to the
suspension, but that hearing did not consider issues of liability or fault. Id. at 536. Accordingly,
an uninsured driver who was wholly innocent in an accident could nevertheless have his license
suspended for failing to post bond in the amount of the claimed damages of another party
involved—indeed, possibly the party who was actually at fault—without ever having a hearing in
which he could deny his liability. Id. The Court held that the statute deprived a driver of due
process and that, although a driver was not entitled to a full determination of liability before

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facing a requirement to post bond or face suspension, he was at least entitled to a “determination
whether there [was] a reasonable possibility of judgments in the amounts claimed being rendered
against” him. Id. at 540.
In Dixon v. Illinois, however, the Supreme Court made clear that a pre-suspension
hearing is not required in all situations. 431 U.S. at 115. Under the scheme at issue in Dixon,
Illinois had “established a comprehensive system of assigning ‘points’ for various kinds of traffic
offenses, depending on severity, to provide an objective means of evaluating driving records.”
Id. at 107. Pursuant to the state’s regulations, a driver faced suspension or revocation, without a
pre-action hearing, if he amassed a qualifying number of points. Id. at 108. The state did,
however, provide for notice concurrent with the revocation or suspension, followed by a right to
a full evidentiary hearing on the state’s decision. Id. at 109. Applying the aforementioned
Eldridge factors, the Court concluded that no pre-deprivation hearing was required. The court
explained that, in light of the fact that Illinois’ scheme permitted exceptions based on hardship,
the private interest at issue was “not so great as to require [the Court] ‘to depart from the
ordinary principle [that] something less than an evidentiary hearing is sufficient prior to adverse
administrative action.’” Id. at 113 (quoting Mathews, 424 U.S. at 343). Moreover, although it
was possible that a person might face an incorrect suspension due to a clerical error, the risk of
an erroneous deprivation was ultimately “not great,” because “revocation decisions [were]
largely automatic.” Id. Finally, the Court noted the “substantial public interest” in ensuring the
administrative efficiency of a scheme dedicated to “safety on the roads and highways, and in the
prompt removal of a safety hazard.” Id. at 114. The Court concluded that it was this last factor,
the presence of a public safety issue, that particularly distinguished the case from Bell. Illinois’
denial of a pre-deprivation hearing was permissible, in part, because the statute at issue was

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“designed to keep off the roads those drivers who are unable or unwilling to respect traffic rules
and the safety of others.” Id. at 115.
Purkey urges this court to treat Dixon as wholly determinative of TDSHS’s obligations at
issue in this case. That argument, however, ignores the fact that the factor that the Supreme
Court appears to have considered most important in Dixon is entirely absent here. The scheme in
Dixon was targeted at drivers who had amassed traffic offenses that could give rise to a
reasonable inference that they were significantly more likely than the average driver to pose a
risk to public safety if allowed on the road. In contrast, a person can find himself facing a section
40-24-105(b) revocation despite a spotless, or even exemplary, driving record. Despite Purkey’s
repeated attempts to ground Tennessee’s revocation scheme in the state’s power to police the
safety of its highways, he has demonstrated no basis for concluding that a driver who cannot pay
his court debt is any more of a risk to the drivers around him than a driver who can. Section 4024-105(b) is not about safety; it is about payment. In that regard, it is more like the scheme at
issue in Bell. Ultimately, though, Tennessee’s policy of revoking driver’s licenses based on court
debt does not analogize perfectly to the laws at issue in either case. Whether a driver facing
revocation is entitled to a pre-deprivation hearing must depend on a consideration of the
particular rights, interests, and underlying evidentiary issues implicated here.
The facts and briefing currently before the court leave a certain amount of ambiguity with
regard to how, exactly, TDSHS processes initial revocations for failure to pay court debt. In his
Reply in support of his Motion for Summary Judgment, Purkey writes:
Plaintiffs are incorrect that the State revokes driver’s licenses “with no notice.”
Although Section 105(b) does not require pre-revocation notices, the
Commissioner is required to send notice at the time of revocation. See Tenn. Code
Ann. § 55-50-504(h). Further, such “revocation . . . shall not take effect until ten
(10) days after notice has been sent to the last known address of the driver.” Id.

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(Docket No. 88 at 18–19.) This language, as far as the court can tell, states that, while section 4025-105 does not itself require pre-revocation notice, another statute, section 55-50-504(h) does
require notice, after which the revocation cannot “take effect” for ten days. Under that statute:
Notwithstanding any other law to the contrary, revocation or suspension of a
license shall not take effect until ten (10) days after notice has been sent to the last
known address of the driver. The notice requirement in this subsection (h) shall
not apply to a driver whose license has been revoked or suspended by a court of
competent jurisdiction or who has surrendered the license to the court.
Id. The relevant section of Purkey’s Reply, however, does not actually cite to any portion of
either party’s Undisputed Material Facts or Responses thereto in order to support the contention
that TDSHS actually does wait ten days for its revocations to go into effect.
The crux of this discrepancy appears to be Purkey’s distinction between when his agency
changes a driver’s “status” and when the revocation of the license is “effective.” Purkey admits
that “the Department revokes a person’s driver’s license on the same day that it receives
notification of non-payment from the court.” (Docket No. 64 ¶ 28.) However, Purkey also claims
that, “while revocation is effective as of the date that notification is [sent] to the driver by the
Department, the Department does not change the status of the driver’s license for a period of 10
days in order to allow the driver to receive notification from the Department.” (Docket No. 64 ¶
28.) This distinction, though, does not appear to reflect what Purkey now admits he is bound to
do pursuant to section 55-50-504(h), which makes no mention of the “status” of the driver’s
license, only when the revocation “shall . . . take effect.”
In any event, the court need not dwell too long on this confusion, because Count II
survives, for now, regardless. Whether TDSHS actually waits ten days for a revocation to take
effect might become a key issue, if Thomas and Hixson ultimately fail to prevail on Counts I and
III. If they do prevail on Counts I and III, however, the fact that they have not been afforded

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procedural due process will be a foregone conclusion, because they will have been, as a matter of
law, entitled to an opportunity for a hearing that they have not been afforded. Moreover, the
question of what type of hearing might be necessary will inevitably hinge on the outcome of
Counts I and III, because the substantive nature of the rights and facts at issue affects the
application of the Eldridge factors. The court, accordingly, will deny Purkey’s motion to dismiss
with regard to Count II, and will add, to its requested briefing, that Purkey clarify TDSHS’s
practices regarding whether a driver’s license is considered revoked for the ten days following
the agency’s sending a notice letter. The motions for summary judgment will be held in abeyance
in full.
C. Class Certification
Thomas and Hixson seek certification of a class defined as “[a]ll persons whose
Tennessee driver’s licenses have been or will be revoked pursuant to the Statute and who, at the
time of the revocation, cannot or could not pay Court Debt due to their financial circumstances.”
(Docket No. 1 ¶ 93.) Purkey argues that Thomas and Hixson are not entitled to certification of
their class for five reasons: (1) they have failed to produce appropriate evidence sufficient to
meet their burden under Rule 23; (2) they cannot satisfy the numerosity requirement because
they have not demonstrated what portion of people with revoked licenses are indigent; (3) they
cannot satisfy the commonality requirement because the population of drivers with revoked
licenses involves substantial variation in the issues and postures presented by each individual
case; (4) they similarly cannot satisfy the typicality requirement because Thomas and Hixson
proving their own right to relief would not necessarily establish the right to relief of others; and
(5) they cannot satisfy Rule 23(b)(2) because they cannot identify a form of injunctive relief that
would be applicable to the class as a whole.

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1. Reliance on Statement of Claudia Wilner
Purkey objects to the plaintiffs’ reliance, in their motion for class certification, on a 28
U.S.C. § 1746 declaration of Claudia Wilner, which addresses a number of foundational facts
regarding their proposed class and Tennessee’s scheme for revoking driver’s licenses for court
debt. (Docket No. 6-3.) Wilner is one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers, and Purkey asks the court to
strike her declaration on the ground that Wilner has inappropriately proffered herself as a fact
witness in a case where she is also serving as counsel.
Under Tennessee’s Rules of Professional Conduct, “[a] lawyer shall not act as an
advocate at a trial in which the lawyer is likely to be a necessary witness unless” one of three
enumerated exceptions applies. Tenn. Sup. Ct. R. 8, RPC 3.7(a); see also Local R. 83.01(e)(4)
(“The standard of professional conduct of the members of the bar of this Court shall include the
current Tennessee Code of Professional Responsibility, Tenn. Sup. Ct. R. 8.”). As Thomas and
Hixson point out, Rule 3.7(a), at least by its text, specifically applies to activity “at trial” and
does not directly address preliminary stages such as a motion for class certification.
Nevertheless, Rule 3.7(a) may be implicated by these earlier proceedings if an attorney’s
activities or statements are such that they would make her “likely to be a necessary witness”
when the time for trial arrives.
Nothing in Wilner’s statement raises such an issue here. For example, as the court has
already noted, Rule 3.7(a) expressly permits an attorney to provide “testimony relat[ing] to an
uncontested issue.” Tenn. Sup. Ct. R. 8, RPC 3.7(a)(1). Several of the facts attested to by Wilner
fall clearly within that exception. For example, Wilner attests that only 7% of the people whose
licenses were revoked from July 1, 2012 through June 2, 2016, have had their licenses restored.
(Docket No. 6-3 ¶¶ 11–13.) Purkey has since stipulated to that fact. (Docket No. 40 ¶ 44.) Other

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of Wilner’s claims are merely citations to materials put out by the State of Tennessee itself. For
example, she cites the Tennessee Department of Correction’s own figures regarding the number
of people released by the state from jail or prison in Fiscal Year 2015–16 (13,987) and the
average time served (4.57 years). (Docket No. 62 ¶ 14.) See Tenn. Dep’t of Corr., Statistical
Abstract: Fiscal Year 2016 30 (Oct. 2016). 16 “[P]ublic records and government documents
available from reliable sources” are generally appropriate for judicial notice. U.S. ex rel. Dingle,
270 F. Supp. 2d at 972. Wilner’s citation to those statistics is, therefore, little different than
simply citing them in a brief. Still other of Wilner’s statements bear on issues related to her
representation of her client and fall within Rule 3.7(a)(2)’s exception for “testimony relat[ing] to
the nature . . . of legal services rendered in the case.” (See, e.g., Docket No. 6-3 ¶¶ 1–2, 25.)
Wilner does draw the court’s attention to a handful of third-party sources related to the
prevalence of poverty among people with criminal records. (Id. ¶ 16 (citing Rebecca Vallas &
Sharon Dietrich, One Strike and You’re Out: How We Can Eliminate Barriers to Economic
Security and Mobility for People with Criminal Records 9 (2014); The Pew Charitable Trusts,
Collateral Costs: Incarceration’s Effect on Economic Mobility (2010); Joan Petersilia, When
Prisoners Return to the Community: Political, Economic and Social Consequences, Sentencing
& Corrections, Nov. 2000, at 9.) If Wilner were planning to testify at trial regarding the
credibility and contents of those reports, it would indeed likely pose a problem under Rule 3.7(a),
as was discussed regarding the Brookings Report earlier. Unless Purkey disputes those reports’
very existence, however, Wilner’s merely informing the court that the reports have been
published is not fact testimony on a contested issue. In any event, the court does not rely on those
third-party reports for its certification decision.

16

Available at https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/correction/documents/StatisticalAbstract2016.pdf.

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The few bits of Wilner’s attestation that arguably bear on contestable factual issues
merely involve Wilner’s drawing simple inferences from the law and the uncontested facts
presented. For example, Ms. Wilner speculates about the feasibility of a court debtor’s
repayment of court debt while he is still incarcerated. (Docket No. 6-3 ¶ 13.) Insofar as these few
statements amount to factual assertions, the court finds them unnecessary to resolving the issue
of class certification and finds that they do not establish that Wilner is likely to be a necessary
witness at trial. Purkey’s request that Wilner’s statement be stricken is, therefore, denied.
2. Numerosity
Purkey argues next that Thomas and Hixson cannot establish that their proposed class is
sufficiently numerous to warrant certification under Rule 23. Purkey concedes that, from July 1,
2012, to June 1, 2016, TDSHS revoked 146,211 driver’s licenses for failure to pay fines, costs
and/or litigation taxes and restored only 10,750. (Docket No. 64 ¶ 107–08; see also Docket No.
40 ¶¶ 43–44 (stipulating to statistics)). He argues, however, that there is no way to know how
many of those people were indigent. Thomas and Hixson, he argues, have therefore failed to
demonstrate numerosity.
Rule 23(a)(1) requires that the class be so numerous that joinder of all members is
impracticable. Although there is no strict numerical test, substantial numbers usually satisfy the
numerosity requirement. Gilbert v. Abercrombie & Fitch Co., No. 2:15-cv-2854, 2016 WL
4159682, at * 4 (S.D. Ohio Aug. 5, 2016) (citing Daffin v. Ford Motor Co., 458 F.3d 549, 552
(6th Cir. 2006)). “There is no magic minimum number that will breathe life into a class.” Russo
v. CVS Pharmacy, Inc., 201 F.R.D. 291, 294 (D. Conn. 2001) (quoting Jones v. CCH-LIS Legal
Info. Servs., 1998 WL 671446, *1 (S.D.N.Y. Sept.28, 1998)). Plaintiff must show some evidence
of or reasonably estimate the number of class members, and, in assessing numerosity, the court

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may make common sense assumptions without the need for precise quantification of the class.
Id.
Purkey is correct that Thomas and Hixson have not put forth evidence that would allow
the court to know precisely how many of the people whose driver’s licenses were revoked are
indigent. However, “the exact number of class members need not be pleaded or proved” for a
class to be certified, as long as the class representatives can show that joinder would be
impracticable. Golden v. City of Columbus, 404 F.3d 950, 965–66 (6th Cir. 2005) (quoting
McGee v. E. Ohio Gas Co., 200 F.R.D. 382, 389 (S.D. Ohio 2001)). Facts, common sense, and
the basic features of the statutes at issue all dictate that there is little doubt that that is the case
here. Tennessee’s own Administrative Office of the Courts has written that it is “generally
agreed that approximately 75% of those being prosecuted by the district attorney will be
indigent” for the purpose of providing counsel. Tenn. Admin. Office of the Courts, Tennessee’s
Indigent Defense Fund: A Report to the 107th Tennessee General Assembly 19 (2011). 17
Although one can debate the degree to which that number would translate to indigence for the
purpose of paying court debt, it establishes a reasonable baseline for considering the
pervasiveness of indigence in the Tennessee criminal justice system. Moreover, the nature of
Tennessee’s scheme is that every person who cannot pay his court debt will face revocation
unless he happens to receive some form of discretionary relief from a court. To deny that there
are a substantial number of indigent debtors facing revocation, then, is essentially to deny that
indigent debtors exist at all—or, at the very least, to assume, based on no evidence, that all or
virtually all of those debtors have received relief that is, by its own terms, wholly discretionary.
Such a possibility strikes the court as decidedly implausible.

17

Available at http://www.tsc.state.tn.us/sites/default/files/docs/aoc_indigent_defense_fund_report.pdf.

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Moreover, as Thomas and Hixson point out, their class would be sufficiently numerous,
even if only a small percentage of the people whose licenses have been revoked turned out to be
indigent. Indeed, if only one percent of the people whose licenses were revoked and never
restored were indigent, then there would still be over 1,300 class members. Purkey’s own
speculation on this point tends actually to support the position of the plaintiffs. Purkey speculates
that, although Thomas and Hixson suggest that most of the people whose licenses were revoked
pursuant to section 40-24-105(b) were indigent, “[i]t is just as likely, based upon the proof before
this Court at this stage, that a majority of those revocations involved individuals with the means
to satisfy the outstanding sums.” (Docket No. 67 at 7.) But even if a bare majority of those
people are non-indigent, that still leaves a class of tens of thousands. Even in Purkey’s counterhypothetical intended to ward off certification, then, the plaintiffs’ class is sufficiently numerous.
The court will not deny certification for failure to satisfy Rule 23(a)(1).
3. Commonality and Typicality
Purkey’s latter two objections under Rule 23(a) raise the same issue from different
angles. Thomas and Hixson are two particular defendants, facing indigency for their own
specific reasons, required to pay court debt in two particular counties. Tennessee, however, has
numerous judicial districts, courts, and clerks’ offices, which deal with a wide array of
defendants. The practices for assessing and dealing with court debt may well vary substantially
from county to county, from judge to judge, and from case to case. The questions then arise: (1)
do all of the indigent people facing or living with revocations truly suffer a common injury; and
(2) are the injuries of Thomas and Hixson truly typical of those injuries?

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a. Commonality
Purkey is correct that Thomas and Hixson seek to assert claims for a diverse class of
plaintiffs. The commonality requirement, however, does not simply call for the court to list all
the traits that can be ascribed to the various class members and tally up the differences.
“Commonality” refers to commonality with regard to the specific claims asserted. In order for
the court to certify the class under Rule 23, the class members’ claims must depend upon a
common contention of such a nature that it is capable of class-wide resolution. In re Whirlpool
Corp. Front-Loading Washer Prods. Liab. Litig., 722 F.3d 838, 852 (6th Cir. 2013). Variation in
the ancillary details of the class members’ cases is insufficient to defeat certification, as long as
“[i]t is unlikely that differences in the factual background of each claim will affect the outcome
of the legal issue.” Bacon v. Honda of Am. Mfg., Inc., 370 F.3d 565, 570 (6th Cir. 2004) (quoting
Califano v. Yamasaki, 442 U.S. 682, 701 (1979)).
The claims of all the plaintiffs in this case share at least two central questions: (1)
whether Tennessee can revoke a driver’s license for failure to pay court debt without the
opportunity to establish that the debtor is entitled to an exception based on his indigence; and (2)
what minimum procedures the state must afford a debtor facing revocation. As the court has
already discussed, those two questions implicate a number of legal and factual sub-issues, which
will also be shared by the class. Moreover, while the individual cases of the different class
members may vary substantially, those variations are immaterial to the categorical right that
Thomas and Hixson have asserted. If Thomas and Hixson had cast their net more widely and
sought to litigate the general fairness of Tennessee’s system of court debt, Purkey might be
correct that the substantial amount of local and case-by-case variation would make class
certification impossible. Thomas and Hixson, however, are not asking the court to consider the

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constitutionality of every debt assessment, collection effort, or clerk’s office policy. They
complain of a specific injury: the revocation of a person’s driver’s license for nonpayment of
court debt without the opportunity to demonstrate that the person is entitled to an exception from
revocation based on his indigence. That injury is common throughout the proposed class, as are
the questions of law and fact underlying it.
Purkey argues next that Thomas and Hixson cannot establish commonality, because the
various members of the class pose different safety risks if allowed on the road. Section 40-24105(b), however, has nothing to do with safety risk. Tennessee has other provisions for the
revocation of driver’s licenses for reasons related to safety. See, e.g., Tenn. Code Ann. § 55-50501(a)(1) (calling for revocation based on conviction for vehicular homicide), (a)(2) (calling for
revocation based on conviction for driving under the influence). The only reason anyone loses
his license pursuant to section 40-24-105(b) is, by definition, that the person failed to pay court
debt. The proposed class presumably includes both excellent drivers and mediocre drivers, just
like the general population. This case, though, is concerned only with the impediment to their
driving related solely to unpaid court debt. If a member of the class should qualify for revocation
for some other reason, the proposed relief would pose no obstacle. With regard to the narrow
claims raised in this case, Thomas and Hixson have established commonality.
b. Typicality
Typicality is met if the class members’ claims are fairly encompassed by the named
plaintiffs’ claims. This requirement ensures that the class representatives’ interests are aligned
with the interests of the represented class members so that, by pursuing his own interests, the
class representative also advocates the interests of the class members. Whirlpool, 722 F.3d at
852–53. Thus, a plaintiff’s claim is typical if it arises from the same event or practice or course

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of conduct that gives rise to the claims of other class members and if his claims are based on the
same legal theory. In re Am. Med. Sys., Inc., 75 F.3d 1069, 1082 (6th Cir. 1996). Commonality
and typicality tend to merge because both of them serve as guideposts for determining whether,
under the particular circumstances, maintenance of a class action is economical, and whether the
plaintiff’s claims and the class claims are so interrelated that the interests of the class members
will be fairly and adequately protected in their absence. Young v. Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co., 693
F.3d 352, 542 (6th Cir. 2012).
In this instance, with commonality established, typicality readily follows. The underlying
economic situations of Thomas and Hixson and the details of their convictions may be unique to
them, but, with regard to the issues central to their claims, Thomas and Hixson are as typical as
any member of the class. Because they have faced and received revocations for unpaid court debt
under section 10-24-105 and they are indigent, they are typical.
4. Rule 23(b)
Purkey’s argument regarding Rule 23(b) mirrors his arguments on commonality and
typicality and, ultimately, succumbs to the same flaws. After a plaintiff shows that he satisfies all
of the requirements of Rule 23(a), he must establish that “the class he seeks to represent falls
within one of the subcategories of Rule 23(b).” Senter, 532 F.2d at 522. Thomas and Hixson rely
on Rule 23(b)(2), which covers situations in which “the party opposing the class has acted or
refused to act on grounds that apply generally to the class, so that final injunctive relief or
corresponding declaratory relief is appropriate respecting the class as a whole.” Fed. R. Civ. P.
23(b)(2). Rule 23(b)(2) permits certification only for “those classes with homogenous interests”
relative to the relief sought. McDonald v. Franklin Cty., Ohio, 306 F.R.D. 548, 558 (S.D. Ohio
2015) (quoting Coleman, 296 F.3d at 447).

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Purkey again attempts to defeat class certification by pointing to the array of differing
courts responsible for the putative class members’ debts. Thomas and Hixson, however, are not
asking this court to wade into every judicial district’s procedures and solve the wide array of
challenges facing every debtor. Rather, they are asking the court simply to enjoin TDSHS from
enforcing the statute in its current form because TDSHS’s process makes no allowance for
indigence of the debtor. Rule 23(b)(2) is well suited to cases, such as this one, where class
representatives allege an injury inherent to the administration of a generally applicable
government policy. See Daffin v. Ford Motor Co., No. C-1-00-458, 2004 WL 5705647, at *5
(S.D. Ohio July 15, 2004) (“Although not limited to civil rights suits, 23(b)(2) was plainly
designed . . . to address them . . . .”), aff’d, 458 F.3d 549. It may be that the constitutional
protections that Thomas and Hixson seek to vindicate can be satisfied while continuing to allow
for a substantial amount of local variation regarding how the required safeguards are actually to
be provided. That hypothetical potential for variation, however, does not negate the unitary
nature of the relief sought. The plaintiffs’ claims meet the requirements of Rule 23(b)(2).
5. Propriety of Certification
Purkey identifies no other grounds for denying class certification here. Rule 23(a)(4)
requires the court only to certify the class if “the representative parties will fairly and adequately
protect the interests of the class.” That requirement considers both general commonality of
interests and whether the putative representative “will vigorously prosecute the interests of the
class through qualified counsel.” Gonzales v. Cassidy, 474 F.2d 67, 73 (6th Cir. 1973). The
record provides ample basis for concluding that Thomas and Hixson have made such a showing.
Thomas and Hixson have also satisfied Rule 23(a)(1), (2), and (3) by showing numerosity,
commonality, and typicality, and they have demonstrated that their case falls within the

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boundaries of Rule 23(b)(2). Rule 23(c)(1) directs this court to determine whether to certify a
class “[a]t an early practicable time after a person sues or is sued as a class representative,” and
there appear to be no more substantive questions remaining regarding whether certification is
appropriate here. The court, accordingly, will certify the proposed class.
One procedural issue, however, remains outstanding: appointment of class counsel. Rule
23(g) requires the court to appoint counsel to represent the class, chosen from among counsel
involved in the litigation on behalf of individual members of the class. Hixson and Thomas have
not identified whom, specifically, they are putting forward to serve as class counsel. Although
the court notes that “the materials submitted in support of the motion for class certification may
suffice to justify appointment [of class counsel] so long as the information described in
paragraph (g)(1)(C) is included,” Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(g)(2) advisory committee’s note, the court
will, rather than guessing at what Thomas and Hixson would propose, direct their counsel to
designate which individual or individuals seek appointment as class counsel.
IV. CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, the Motion to Dismiss (Docket No. 23) will be denied and the
Renewed Motion for Class Certification (Docket No. 36) will be granted. Purkey’s Motion for
Summary Judgment (Docket No. 61), as well as the plaintiffs’ Motion for Summary Judgment
(Docket No. 36), will be held in abeyance pending the completion of supplemental briefing and
stipulations, as directed in the accompanying order. The court will further order plaintiffs’
counsel to designate in writing which individual or individuals seek appointment as class
counsel, in accordance with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(g), by close of business on April
6, 2018.

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An appropriate order will enter.
ENTER this 26th day of March 2018.

______________________________
ALETA A. TRAUGER
United States District Judge

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