Suspending a driver's license because of unpaid traffic fines unfairly targets poor people and is unconstitutional, a class-action lawsuit alleges.

The Oregon Law Center is representing five plaintiffs from Portland, Baker City, Pendleton and Mission who have had their driver's licenses suspended for years or decades because they can't afford to pay their spiraling debt from traffic violations.

They want a federal judge to order the state to halt license suspensions for traffic fines until the Oregon DMV gives drivers a chance to demonstrate their inability to pay. If a driver can't pay the fines, they say the state should exempt that motorist from losing a license. The plaintiffs argue the state's current suspensions violate the due process rights of low-income people and are discriminatory.

"The DMV's practice amounts to the criminalization of poverty,'' Oregon Law Center attorney Emily Teplin Fox wrote in a motion for a preliminary injunction filed in federal court in Portland Friday. The center provides legal services to low-income clients across the state.

The suit is the latest in a national movement to curb the suspensions of driver's licenses based on unpaid traffic fines.

Last summer, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill that ends the practice, finding the punishment did not help that state collect unpaid fines and only sent low-income people into a cycle of job loss and further poverty. In July, a federal court in Tennessee ruled that suspending licenses for unpaid traffic tickets without determining a driver's ability to pay violated their due process. Similar challenges are pending in Montana, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

Officials from the Oregon Department of Transportation declined to comment. Currently, the state offers to set up six- to 12-month payment plans to help drivers pay off their traffic violations debt. The state also offers hardship permits to some suspended drivers, allowing them to drive for basic family needs, such as ferrying children to and from school, buying groceries or visiting doctors.

From 2007 to 2017, the Oregon DMV issued 334,338 license suspensions arising solely from minor traffic violation fines that went unpaid, according to the lawsuit.

The practice puts low-income people in an impossible position, as paying a traffic violation fine of $115 to $400 proves a huge obstacle and "punishes them for being poor,'' the suit alleges.

"They either stop driving, making it impossible to meet their work and family obligations, or drive illegally, placing themselves at risk of being cited for driving with a suspended license and further compounding their traffic deft,'' law center attorney Marisa Samuelson wrote in the suit.

Portland resident Cindy Mendoza, a single mother of three children, is one of the plaintiffs. In 2010, while unemployed and caring for a new baby, she received a $300 speeding ticket in Wasco County and couldn't afford to pay it. The amount increased to $812, with court costs and fees. The debt was sent to a collections agency, and the state DMV suspended her license. Before she was able to pay off her debt five years later, she was cited at least two more times for driving with a suspended license.

Mendoza's license remains suspended, and her traffic violation debt is now $11,282.77, owed to three circuit courts – an amount she can't conceive of paying as she receives food stamps to feed her children, according to the suit.

Gloria Bermudez, another plaintiff, is her family's sole wage earner. The single Portland mother of four children works as a restaurant cook, earning $1,600 a month. In 2003, she was issued a $175 ticket for failure to obey a traffic signal. Her debt on that citation nearly doubled, and the state suspended her license. In 2010, her license was reinstated when she entered into a payment plan, but she couldn't keep up with her $75-a-month payments to the state and the DMV suspended her license again in 2012.

Pendleton resident Rebecca Heath walked 11 miles round-trip to and from her last job because her driver's license was suspended. She lives on a Social Security disability benefits and less than $200 a month in food stamps. She hasn't had a stable job since 1997, in part because the DMV suspended her driver's license Sept. 29, 1995, and at least six additional times.

The legal step is not intended to prevent the state from using license suspensions to keep unsafe motorists off the road, plaintiffs said. It's aimed at suspensions that result from minor traffic violations, such as having a broken tail light, driving five miles over the speed limit or failure to use a turn signal, the suit says.

"For low-income Oregonians, license suspensions threaten their self-sufficiency and fundamental constitutional right to travel,'' the suit says.

The state could avoid the problem of uncollectible traffic debt by adopting a policy similar to the Car Care program run by state police, the plaintiffs noted. Instead of ticketing a driver stopped for a minor vehicle equipment violation, the police can provide a voucher that offers a discount on automotive parts at certain participating shops.

In August, lawyers for the five plaintiffs requested the state lift the restrictions on their drivers' licenses and allow each of the five to show their failure to pay is due to their indigency. The DMV denied the request, leading to the suit.

-- Maxine Bernstein

mbernstein@oregonian.com

503-221-8212

@maxoregonian