In 2009, after Jennifer Fitzgerald and her boyfriend Brandon Preveau broke up, Preveau abandoned a 1999 Chevrolet Monte Carlo at an employee parking lot at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. The car had reportedly cost him only $600, but it was registered in Fitzgerald’s name without her knowledge. She later discovered that the vehicle had been sitting in the same area for years and that Chicago had issued hundreds of parking tickets against it.
By 2012, the abandoned car had collected 678 tickets totaling more than $105,000, making it one of the most extreme parking fine cases in Chicago. Fitzgerald said she did not have the keys and could not simply remove the vehicle, yet because the car was registered in her name, the city treated her as responsible for the unpaid fines. Her driver’s license was also revoked over the ticket debt, turning a car she said she never controlled into a massive financial nightmare.
The case eventually went to court, where Fitzgerald sued the city, her former boyfriend, and United Airlines over the situation. Chicago later offered to dramatically reduce the more than $105,000 bill, and in August 2013 the city agreed to settle the case for about $4,470. The strangest part of the story was that a $600 car had somehow turned into a six figure parking bill simply because it was left sitting in one airport parking lot for years.