IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS 

EASTERN DIVISION 

SHANIQUA DAVIS, ) 

 ) 

 Plaintiff, ) 

 ) No. 20-cv-04984 

 v. ) 

 ) Judge Andrea R. Wood 

CITY OF CHICAGO, ) 

 ) 

 Defendant. ) 

ORDER 

 Defendant’s motion to dismiss [11] is granted. The Complaint is dismissed with prejudice. 

The Clerk is directed to enter Judgment in favor of Defendant. Civil case terminated. See the 

accompanying Statement for details. 

STATEMENT 

 Plaintiff Shaniqua Davis lives in Chicago. She alleges that she left the country for nine 

days in December 2016, and that Defendant City of Chicago (“City”) caused her car to be towed, 

impounded, and scrapped for unpaid traffic ticket debt during that time. In this putative class 

action, Davis asserts claims pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that the City violated her Fifth 

Amendment right against takings for public use without just compensation (Count I) and failed to 

provide her with proper notice of the seizure and sale of her car in violation of her Fifth 

Amendment due process rights (Count II). She further claims that the City violated a vehicle 

disposal notice provision of the Illinois Vehicle Code, 625 ILCS 5/4-208 (Count III), and a similar 

local notice provision, § 9-100-120 of the Municipal Code of Chicago (Count IV). Finally, Davis 

asserts a federal claim for a declaratory judgment (Count V), a state-law claim for unjust 

enrichment (Count VI), and a state-law claim for trover and conversion of personal property 

(Count VII). The City has moved to dismiss Davis’s Complaint. (Dkt. No. 11.) 

I. 

For purposes of the City’s motion to dismiss, the Court accepts as true the well-pleaded 

facts in Davis’s Complaint and views those facts in the light most favorable to her. See Firestone 

Fin. Corp. v. Meyer, 796 F.3d 822, 826–27 (7th Cir. 2015). 

As alleged, the City tows and impounds tens of thousands of vehicles every year, often 

because the owner has multiple unpaid traffic citations. (Compl. ¶ 2, Dkt. No. 1.) An owner 

cannot reclaim an impounded vehicle without paying all outstanding traffic citations, 

impoundment fees, late penalties, and collection fees. (Id. ¶ 3.) When an owner fails to pay the full 

amount owed within eighteen days, the City sells the vehicle for a fraction of its value but does 

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not apply the proceeds of the sale against the owner’s outstanding debt. (Id. ¶¶ 4, 6.) In 2017, the 

City received about $4.6 million from selling unclaimed vehicles. (Id. ¶ 47.) 

In December 2016, Davis’s vehicle was towed for unpaid ticket debt pursuant to the City’s 

impoundment program. (Id. ¶¶ 54, 56.) Davis received no notice of this action. (Id. ¶ 55.) Davis 

eventually spoke with a City employee who informed her that her car had been towed and that she 

would need to pay $1,200—the balance of her outstanding tickets and immobilization, towing, 

and storage fees—to retrieve it. (Id. ¶¶ 56–57.) Davis could not afford to pay that cost; shortly 

thereafter, when she called the City again, she learned that her car had been sold and she could no 

longer recover it. (Id. ¶¶ 58–59.) She was also told that the sale proceeds would not be applied 

against her debt and that she could not retrieve her personal possessions from the car. (Id. ¶ 60.) 

Her car was sold for scrap value (around $200), which was far less than it was worth. (Id. ¶¶ 42, 

61–62.) 

II. 

 The City contends that Counts I through IV and Count VII are time-barred by their 

applicable statutes of limitations and must therefore be dismissed. “[T]he statute of limitations is 

an affirmative defense . . . [and] complaints need not anticipate and attempt to plead around 

defenses.” United States v. N. Tr. Co., 372 F.3d 886, 888 (7th Cir. 2004). For that reason, it is 

“irregular” to dismiss a complaint based on the statute of limitations. Id. But there is an exception 

when “the allegations of the complaint itself set forth everything necessary to satisfy the 

affirmative defense, such as when a complaint plainly reveals that an action is untimely under the 

governing statute of limitations.” United States v. Lewis, 411 F.3d 838, 842 (7th Cir. 2005). 

 The statute of limitations for Davis’s § 1983 claims (Counts I and II), which is determined 

by reference to Illinois state law, is two years. See Gekas v. Vasiliades, 814 F.3d 890, 894 (7th 

Cir. 2016). However, “the statute of limitations [starts] running only when the plaintiff learns that 

[she has] been injured, and by whom.” United States v. Norwood, 602 F.3d 830, 837 (7th Cir. 

2010). The state-law claims at issue here (Counts III, IV, and VII), because they are brought under 

Illinois state law against an Illinois municipality, have a statute of limitations of one year. See 745 

ILCS 10/8-101. Under Illinois state law, a claim accrues when a plaintiff learns that she has been 

injured, even if she does not know who caused her injury. Fid. Nat’l Title Ins. Co. of N.Y. v. 

Howard Sav. Bank, 436 F.3d 836, 839 (7th Cir. 2006). Davis filed her Complaint on August 24, 

2020; thus, the statute of limitations for her federal claims reaches back to August 24, 2018, and 

the statute of limitations for her state-law claims reaches back to August 24, 2019. 

 Davis’s allegations, however, make clear that she learned the City had sold her car and 

would not compensate her for its sale in early 2017. Her car was towed and impounded in 

December 2016. (Compl. ¶¶ 54, 56.) She then spoke to a City employee who told her that she 

could retrieve her vehicle if she paid the necessary fees, which indicates that the conversation 

occurred within the eighteen-day window that the City gives owners to pay off their debt before 

selling the impounded vehicle. (Id. ¶¶ 4, 6, 56–57.) And “shortly thereafter,” Davis learned that 

her car had been sold. (Id. ¶ 59.) Davis does not contest that she knew her car had been sold by 

early 2017—well before August 2018 and August 2019, the limits of the pertinent statutes of 

limitations. 

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 With respect to her federal claims, Davis contends that the City’s failure to credit her for 

the value of her sold car—or at least for the proceeds it received from the sale—constitutes a 

continuing violation such that the statute of limitations has not yet even begun to run. The 

continuing violation doctrine allows a plaintiff to “reach back to [the beginning of a violation] 

even if that beginning lies outside the statutory limitations period, when it would be unreasonable 

to require or even permit [her] to sue separately over every incident of the defendant’s unlawful 

conduct.” Heard v. Sheahan, 253 F.3d 316, 319 (7th Cir. 2001). However, where an injury is 

caused by a “discrete act,” the “lingering consequences” of that act do not constitute a continuing 

violation. Savory v. Lyons, 469 F.3d 667, 673 (7th Cir. 2006). 

 Davis asserts that the continuing violation doctrine applies because the City keeps trying to 

collect payment for her unpaid ticket debt and has not applied the proceeds from the sale of her 

car against that debt. But this is merely a lingering consequence of the City’s initial decision not to 

compensate Davis for the sale of her car, not a “fresh act each day” constituting a continuing 

violation. See id. Davis also suggests that it would be unreasonable to expect her to sue the City 

every time it demands payment to which it is not entitled. But that is not the subject of Davis’s 

suit—she challenges the City’s impoundment regime, not the lawfulness of the underlying tickets 

and fees. Because Davis’s cause of action accrued “at the time of the taking,” the City’s 

continuing failure to pay for the alleged taking does not form a continuing violation. Knick v. Twp. 

of Scott, 139 S. Ct. 2162, 2170 (2019). Davis’s other cited authority do not hold to the contrary. 

See Heard, 253 F.3d at 318 (holding that an Eighth Amendment deliberate indifference claim 

involving continuing failures to treat, unlike a medical malpractice claim based on a discrete act of 

malpractice, constitutes a continuous violation); Davis v. Wells Fargo Bank, No. 07 C 2881, 2008 

WL 1775481, at *4 (N.D. Ill. Apr. 17, 2008) (finding that although the plaintiff did not establish 

that the continuing violation doctrine applied and some of her allegations fell outside the statute of 

limitations, she stated a claim because she also alleged new “discrete act[s] with fresh adverse 

consequences” within the limitations period sufficient to state a claim); City of Rock Falls v. Chi. 

Title & Tr. Co., 300 N.E.2d 331, 333–34 (Ill. App. Ct. 1973) (applying the continuous violation 

doctrine to an ongoing series of discrete tortious actions). 

 Davis notes that the one-year statute of limitations for her state-law claims does not apply 

to any claim demanding “relief other than damages.” 745 ILCS 10/2-101; see Raintree Homes, 

Inc. v. Vill. of Long Grove, 807 N.E.2d 439, 444 (Ill. 2004). But Davis’s argument fails because 

Counts III, IV, and VII explicitly seek damages and do not seek injunctive relief. Thus, they are 

not claims seeking relief other than damages. Davis also incorporates her previous continuing 

violation arguments in support of her state-law claims, but those arguments fail too for the reasons 

given above. Ultimately, Davis’s allegations “unambiguously establish all the elements” of a 

statute of limitations defense and dismissal is therefore appropriate. See Hyson USA, Inc. v. Hyson 

2U, Ltd., 821 F.3d 935, 939 (7th Cir. 2016). For this reason, the Court does not reach the merits of 

the parties’ other arguments on these counts. Counts I, II, III, IV, and VII are dismissed with 

prejudice. 

III. 

Davis’s remaining claims do not stand on their own. Count VI asserts a claim for unjust 

enrichment under Illinois state law. However, “[u]nder Illinois law, there is no stand-alone claim 

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for unjust enrichment. Instead, Illinois courts describe it as ‘a condition that may be brought about 

by unlawful or improper conduct as defined by law, such as fraud, duress or undue influence.’” 

Benson v. Fannie May Confections Brands, Inc., 944 F.3d 639, 648 (7th Cir. 2019) (citations 

omitted); see also Vanzant v. Hill’s Pet Nutrition, Inc., 934 F.3d 730, 740 (7th Cir. 2019) (holding 

that under Illinois law unjust enrichment is a “request for relief” that is “tied to the fate” of an 

independent cause of action). The one case Davis cites against this conclusion is not to the 

contrary; in fact, the court explicitly declined to decide whether unjust enrichment was an 

independent claim under Illinois law. Cleary v. Phillip Morris Inc., 656 F.3d 511, 518 (7th Cir. 

2011). Because there is no independent unjust enrichment cause of action, “an unjust enrichment 

claim will stand or fall with related claims founded on the same improper conduct.” Anderson v. 

Rush St. Gaming, LLC, No. 1:20-cv-04794, 2021 WL 4439411, at *7 (N.D. Ill. Sept. 28, 2021) 

(internal quotation marks omitted). Here, because Davis’s other state-law claims are dismissed as 

time-barred, the unjust enrichment claim in Count VI must be dismissed as well. Similarly, the 

parties agree that Count V, which seeks a declaratory judgment, is dependent on Davis’s other 

claims. Because Davis’s other claims have been dismissed, Count V must be dismissed too. 

IV. 

 For the above reasons, the City’s motion to dismiss (Dkt. No. 11) is granted. Davis’s 

Complaint is dismissed with prejudice. 

Dated: September 27, 2022 __________________________ 

 Andrea R. Wood 

 United States District Judge 

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