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Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued September 19, 2011 Decided December 20, 2011

No. 10-7178

HENRY N. DIXON AND CUONG THANH PHUNG,

APPELLANTS

v.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA,

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:10-cv-00297)

Gregory L. Lattimer argued the cause and filed the briefs

for appellants.

Stacy L. Anderson, Assistant Attorney General, Office of

the Attorney General for the District of Columbia, argued the

cause for appellee. With her on the brief were Irvin B. Nathan,

Attorney General, Todd S. Kim, Solicitor General, and Donna

M. Murasky, Deputy Solicitor General. 

USCA Case #10-7178 Document #1348714 Filed: 12/20/2011 Page 1 of 11
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Before: EDWARDS, GINSBURG,

* and RANDOLPH, Senior

Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge

EDWARDS.

EDWARDS, Senior Circuit Judge: Appellants Henry Dixon

and Cuong Thanh Phung were arrested in 2008 and 2009,

respectively, in the District of Columbia (“the District” or

“D.C.” or “the city”) for speeding in excess of thirty miles per

hour (“mph”) above the posted speed limit. They filed this class

action on behalf of all individuals who have been arrested and

subjected to criminal penalties for such speeding in the last three

years. They allege that the District’s traffic enforcement

policies deny them the equal protection of law and thus violate

the Fifth Amendment. See Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497

(1954).

Specifically, Appellants object to the District’s policy of

subjecting motorists who speed in excess of thirty mph over the

speed limit to different penalties, depending on how they are

caught. A motorist who is stopped by a police officer for

speeding over thirty mph above the speed limit is subject to

arrest, and possibly criminal prosecution and imprisonment. See

18 D.C. CODE MUN.REGS. § 2200.12 (Lexis 2009). A motorist

who is detected speeding over thirty mph above the posted speed

limit by the District’s Automated Traffic Enforcement System

(“the ATE” or “the System”) is subject to only a contestable

civil fine. See D.C.CODE § 50-2209.01–50-2209.02 (2001). In

other words, motorists speeding over thirty mph above the speed

limit face substantially stiffer penalties if they are apprehended

by police officers than if they are detected by the ATE.

The District Court granted the District’s motion to dismiss

*

 Judge Ginsburg took senior status after oral arguments were

heard in this case.

USCA Case #10-7178 Document #1348714 Filed: 12/20/2011 Page 2 of 11
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under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), holding that

Appellants had failed to state a claim upon which relief could be

granted. Dixon v. District of Columbia, 753 F. Supp. 2d 6

(D.D.C. 2010). In reaching this judgment, the District Court

first acknowledged that the Equal Protection Clause of the

Fourteenth Amendment applies to the District of Columbia

through the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Id. at

8 n.1 (citing Bolling, 347 U.S. at 499). The court next posited

that the Equal Protection Clause is “essentially a direction that

all persons similarly situated should be treated alike.” Id. at 8

(quoting City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Ctr., 473 U.S. 432,

439 (1985)). The court then found that, because motorists who

are apprehended by police officers for speeding are not similarly

situated to motorists detected speeding by the ATE, the two

groups could be subjected to different penalties for the same

conduct. See id. at 8–9. The District Court thus concluded that

the District’s traffic enforcement policies do not run afoul of the

equal protection guarantee of the Fifth Amendment. Id. at 9.

We affirm the District Court’s judgment, albeit on different

grounds. Appellants may be correct that motorists who are

stopped by police officers for speeding in excess of thirty mph

above the speed limit are similarly situated to at least some

motorists detected engaging in identical conduct by the ATE.

Their claim still lacks merit, however, because Appellants’

challenge cannot survive rational basis review. The District’s

disputed traffic enforcement policies neither burden a

fundamental right nor target a suspect class. Therefore, in

“attacking the rationality of the [District’s] legislative

classification[, Appellants] have the burden to negative every

conceivable basis which might support it.” FCC v. Beach

Commc’ns, Inc., 508 U.S. 307, 315 (1993) (citations omitted)

(internal quotation marks omitted). Appellants have not met this

burden.

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I. Background

A. Facts

In 1999, the District introduced the ATE to deter speeding

violations. The System employs radars and cameras to detect

and photograph instances of speeding throughout the city. After

the ATE records a speeding violation, the Mayor’s office

automatically mails “a summons and a notice of infraction to the

name and address of the registered owner of the vehicle on file

with the Bureau of Motor Vehicle Services or the appropriate

state motor vehicle agency.” D.C. CODE § 50-2209.02(b). The

captured image is treated as “prima facie evidence of an

infraction and may be submitted without authentication.” Id. §

50-2209.01(b). Upon receipt of the notice and summons, the

owner of the vehicle becomes liable for the payment of a civil

fine assessed for the infraction, “unless the owner can furnish

evidence that the vehicle was, at the time of the infraction, in the

custody, care, or control of another person.” Id. § 50-

2209.02(a). The owner of the vehicle may also request a

hearing to challenge the infraction. Id. § 50-2209.02(c). It

appears that no other penalties may be imposed against a

motorist for any speeding violations detected by the ATE.

Speeding motorists also may be apprehended by officers of

the Metropolitan Police Department (“MPD”). Indeed, for

nearly two decades, a MPD General Order has required officers

to effectuate arrests of motorists who operate their vehicles

“over 30 mph in excess of the posted speed limit.” METRO.

POLICE DEP’T,GENERAL ORDER 303.1, at 4 (1992), available at

http://www2.justiceonline.org/dcmpd/GO30301.pdf. A District

regulation further provides that such motorists may be subject to

criminal prosecution, and, upon conviction, a fine of $300 or

imprisonment for up to ninety days. 18 D.C.CODE MUN.REGS.

§ 2200.12. 

A MPD officer caught Appellant Dixon speeding in excess

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of thirty mph above the speed limit in 2008. Compl. ¶ 14,

reprinted in Joint Appendix (“J.A.”) 3. Dixon was arrested and

detained for several hours. Id. He faced a maximum

punishment of a $300 fine or ninety days of incarceration. Id.

A MPD officer caught Appellant Phung speeding more than

thirty mph above the speed limit in 2009. Id. ¶ 15. Phung was

also arrested and detained, and he faced the same potential

penalties. Id. Appellants filed this class action on behalf of

allegedly thousands of individuals who have been subjected to

arrest and criminal prosecution for speeding over thirty mph

beyond the limit in the last three years. See id. ¶¶ 2, 16, 17. 

They assert that many other motorists, who have been detected

engaging in identical conduct by the ATE, have faced only civil

fines. The District does not dispute this. Finally, Appellants

argue that the District’s policy of subjecting motorists to

disparate punishment based on the method of detection violates

the equal protection guarantee of the Fifth Amendment. Id. ¶ 4;

see also Bolling, 347 U.S. at 499. They seek declaratory and

remedial injunctive relief, damages, fees, and costs. Compl. ¶

4.

B. Proceedings Before the District Court

The District Court granted D.C.’s motion to dismiss for

failure to state a claim. The District Court stated that “[t]he

threshold inquiry in evaluating an equal protection claim

is . . . to determine whether a person is similarly situated to those

persons who allegedly received favorable treatment.” Dixon,

753 F. Supp. 2d at 8–9 (first alteration in original) (quoting

Women Prisoners of the D.C. Dep’t of Corr. v. District of

Columbia, 93 F.3d 910, 924 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (internal quotation

marks omitted)). The District Court found that motorists in

Appellants’ class – those who are caught speeding by MPD

officers – are dissimilar to motorists detected speeding by the

ATE. The District Court thus concluded that the District’s

traffic enforcement policies do not violate the equal protection

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guarantee of the Fifth Amendment. See id. at 9. The District

Court reasoned that when an officer directly observes a speeding

motorist, that officer, by virtue of direct observation, has

probable cause to effectuate a warrantless arrest of the motorist

in the speeding vehicle. See id. In contrast, according to the

District Court, when the ATE detects and records a speeding car

through the use of radars and cameras, the police lack probable

cause to effectuate a warrantless arrest, because no officer is

present to confirm that the vehicle’s owner was the actual driver

who committed the infraction. See id. Based on this logic, the

District Court dismissed Appellant’s equal protection claim.

On appeal, Appellants contend that the District Court’s

judgment must be reversed, because it is entirely predicated on

a faulty factual premise – viz. a motorist detected by the ATE

cannot be arrested without a warrant, because there was no

witness to his or her speeding violation. As Appellants point

out, this premise does not always hold. The ATE employs both

fixed-location cameras and mobile units of specifically trained

officers equipped with radars and cameras. See Metro. Police

Dep’t, Automated Speed Enforcement FAQs, http://mpdc.dc.gov/

mpdc/cwp/view,a,1240,q,547977,mpdcNav_GID,1552,mpdc

Nav,|31886|.asp (last visited Dec. 6, 2011), reprinted in J.A.

30–31. When a speeding vehicle is detected by fixed-location

cameras, there is no officer who witnesses the speeding

violation. But when a speeding vehicle is detected by a mobile

radar unit, an officer of that unit is, at least arguably, in a

position to abandon his or her station and equipment, pursue the

speeding vehicle, and thereby attain probable cause to effectuate

a warrantless arrest of the driver.

Appellants and the class they represent therefore appear to

be similarly situated to motorists whose speeding is captured by

members of the ATE’s mobile radar units: Both groups of

motorists could be directly observed by police officers, and,

consequently, both could be subject to warrantless arrest. But

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only those motorists who are observed speeding by police

officers who are not members of mobile radar units are actually

pursued, arrested, and subjected to criminal sanctions. And in

Appellants’ view, it is a violation of the equal protection

guarantee for the MPD to arrest speeding motorists who speed

in excess of thirty mph over the speed limit and are observed by

an officer without a camera – i.e., a traditional MPD officer –

but not to arrest speeding motorists who speed in excess of thirty

mph over the speed limit and are observed by an officer with a

camera – i.e., a member of a mobile radar unit.

II. Analysis

A. Standard of Review

“We review a dismissal for failure to state a claim under

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) de novo.” Atherton v.

D.C. Office of the Mayor, 567 F.3d 672, 681 (2009) (citation

omitted). A complaint must provide “a short and plain

statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to

relief.” FED.R.CIV.P. 8(a)(2). “[W]hen ruling on a defendant’s

motion to dismiss, a judge must accept as true all of the factual

allegations contained in the complaint.” Atherton, 567 F.3d at

681 (alteration in original) (citation omitted). But the pleader

must still provide “more than labels and conclusions, and a

formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not

do.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007)

(citation omitted). Thus, as the Supreme Court recently

established, “[t]o survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint

must . . . state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.”

Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. 1937, 1949 (2009) (citation

omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted).

B. Equal Protection

“[I]f a law neither burdens a fundamental right nor targets

a suspect class, we will uphold the legislative classification so

long as it bears a rational relation to some legitimate end.”

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Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620, 631 (1996) (citation omitted).

And as the Supreme Court explained in FCC v. Beach

Communications,

[w]hether embodied in the Fourteenth Amendment or

inferred from the Fifth, equal protection is not a license for

courts to judge the wisdom, fairness, or logic of legislative

choices. In areas of social and economic policy, a statutory

classification that neither proceeds along suspect lines nor

infringes fundamental constitutional rights must be upheld

against equal protection challenge if there is any reasonably

conceivable state of facts that could provide a rational basis

for the classification. 

508 U.S. at 313 (citations omitted).

Appellants do not seriously dispute that their claim must be

reviewed under the highly deferential rational basis standard.

There is no allegation here that the District’s classification

targets a suspect class. And while the Appellants imply that

their claim involves the fundamental liberty of free mobility,

“[t]he law of this land does not recognize a fundamental right to

freedom of movement when,” as here, “there is probable cause

for arrest.” Hedgepeth v. Washington Metro. Area Transit

Auth., 386 F.3d 1148, 1156 (D.C. Cir. 2004) (citation omitted).

Thus, the District’s policy is subject to rational basis review, and

it is entitled to a presumption of rationality. See, e.g., Tate v.

District of Columbia, 627 F.3d 904, 910 (D.C. Cir. 2010)

(noting that a government “classification is accorded a strong

presumption of validity,” and, thus, “[t]he burden is on the one

attacking the [governmental] arrangement to negative every

conceivable basis which might support it, whether or not the

basis has a foundation in the record” (alterations in original)

(citation omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted)). 

In order to defeat the District’s motion to dismiss their

equal protection claim, Appellants “must allege facts sufficient

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to overcome the presumption of rationality that applies to

government classifications.” Wroblewski v. City of Washburn,

965 F.2d 452, 460 (7th Cir. 1992). And they must offer more

than a “conclusory assertion that the policy is ‘without rational

basis.’” Id. Appellants have failed to satisfy this burden.

There is no question that D.C. has a legitimate interest in

deterring speeding to ensure public safety. Moreover, it is

rational for D.C. to conclude that it can best achieve this interest

through the combination of individualized, targeted enforcement

– i.e., officer stops – and widespread enforcement – i.e., ATE

monitoring. What Appellants object to is that motorists who

commit the same violation face strikingly different penalties.

The imposition of different penalties against similarly situated

motorists survives rational basis review, however, because each

penalty advances the District’s deterrence interest in a different

way and at a different cost. In addition, the variable

enforcement scheme increases the likelihood that speeding

motorists will be detected, and, as a result, it serves as a greater

deterrent to violations of traffic laws.

The threat of officer stops deters speeding, because such

stops can result in the imposition of relatively strong sanctions.

An individual officer can catch only so many speeding

motorists. But when an officer witnesses a speeding motorist,

that officer has probable cause to effectuate a warrantless arrest. 

See Virginia v. Moore, 128 S. Ct. 1598, 1604 (2008) (“In a long

line of cases, we have said that when an officer has probable

cause to believe a person committed even a minor crime in his

presence . . . arrest is constitutionally reasonable.” (citations

omitted)). The officer may decide to undertake the arrest purely

because of the motorist’s speeding, or because of the officer’s

suspicion that something else is afoot. But in any event, if the

speeding motorist is apprehended, he or she faces arrest, the

possibility of prosecution, and, upon conviction, a criminal fine

or imprisonment. 18 D.C. CODE MUN. REGS. § 2200.12. It is

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precisely the severity of such sanctions that can be expected to

deter some motorists from speeding. Thus, taking into account

the relatively low risk of detection, the District may rationally

assume that individual stops will not effectively deter speeding

violations, if potential violators know that they will face nothing

more than civil fines.

ATE monitoring poses a different calculus for police

officers and motorists. When the ATE detects a speeding

vehicle, it automatically directs a civil fine to the owner of that

vehicle. See D.C.CODE § 50-2209.02(a)–(b). Because the ATE

does not require police officers to pursue, detain, or arrest

speeding motorists, it is axiomatic that the District’s use of this

enforcement system substantially increases the number of

speeding motorists who will be detected and face a monetary

penalty. It is true that the owner of a vehicle who receives a

citation may request a hearing to demonstrate that he or she was

not driving the car when the speeding violation occurred. Id. §

50-2209.02(c). But the District has good reason to assume that

most persons who are cited via the ATE will not contest the fine,

either because they are actually guilty of speeding or because

objecting is not worth the aggravation.

Furthermore, the District may rationally assume that it

would be too expensive and less effective for the city to pursue

criminal sanctions, as opposed to civil fines, through the ATE.

On the one hand, it is questionable whether there would be

probable cause to arrest the owners of vehicles that are detected

speeding via the ATE, because the detection system – consisting

of manned and unmanned radars and cameras – does not

automatically identify who is driving the speeding vehicle, only

who owns that vehicle. Therefore, if the District sought to

impose criminal sanctions, instead of civil fines, based on ATE

detection, either more police officers would be required to invest

more time in preparing arrest warrants, or members of mobile

radar units would have to pursue speeding motorists, thereby

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potentially compromising the ATE’s goal of widespread,

systematic, and low-cost detection. On the other hand, even if

ATE detections, without more, might give police officers

probable cause to arrest the owners of speeding vehicles, it is

fair to assume that more vehicle owners would challenge the

citations than do currently, and these challenges would likely

increase administrative costs for the District.

Finally, there can be little doubt that the city is justified in

assuming that its variable enforcement scheme deters more

motorists from speeding than does an enforcement scheme that

relies solely on targeted enforcement through officer stops.

Motorists in D.C. now know that even if the risk of getting

stopped for speeding by an officer is relatively low, they still

face the higher risk of ATE detection and civil fines. The

District is also justified in assuming that its scheme deters more

motorists from speeding than does an enforcement scheme that

relies solely on civil citations. All motorists must account for

the background risk that speeding may result in arrest and

potentially either a criminal fine or imprisonment. The District

has decided that the best way to deter speeding is through the

creation of some variability and uncertainty in the city’s

enforcement schemes. The wisdom of such a determination is

not the appropriate subject of equal protection review.

III. Conclusion

In sum, the District of Columbia’s different treatment of

motorists stopped by an officer for speeding in excess of thirty

mph above the speed limit and motorists civilly cited for the

same conduct via the ATE does not violate the equal protection

guarantee of the Fifth Amendment. The District’s policy is

rationally related to a legitimate governmental interest in

efficiently deterring violations of speed limits. Accordingly, we

affirm the judgment of the District Court.

So ordered.

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