PHILADELPHIA – A class action lawsuit versus the City of Philadelphia over claims that its vehicle towing relocation program fails to both abide by due process and provide adequate notice or fair procedures for owners to locate and recover their vehicles after they have been moved, is embroiled in a heated discovery dispute over allegations the City has not provided required documentation.
Kathleen Eastman, Mary Henin, Amanda Hay and Matthew Allen (individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated) of Philadelphia first filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on May 17, 2021 versus the City of Philadelphia.
“Vehicles parked on City streets may be towed and impounded for specific infractions enumerated in the City Code, and procedures exist for notifying owners of impounded vehicles, including a publicly accessible database to assist owners in locating and recovering their vehicles. The City, however, has failed to provide the same or similar procedures for the Relocation Program,” the suit said.
“The Relocation Program authorizes the towing and moving of vehicles that have been lawfully parked under circumstances requiring the moving of the vehicles to allow for, among other things, construction, repairs, emergency work or public gatherings authorized by the City. At times, temporary ‘no stopping’ signs are posted and vehicles that were legally parked are moved to another location.”
According to the plaintiffs, the Relocation Program “provides no notice to the vehicles’ owners or registered operators that their vehicles have been relocated,” and “no notice posted at that location advising the vehicle owners or operators where their vehicles have been taken or how they can get information regarding the new location of the vehicle.”
The suit alleged that the only notice regarding the Relocation Program on how a vehicle owner or operator may retrieve the vehicle is provided on a page buried several levels down on the City’s website, which suggests only that a call should be made to the PPD district in which the vehicle had been parked.
“As a matter of practice and custom, there has been a systemic lack of adequate notice to vehicle owners and operators regarding the City website and how to locate their vehicles, failure of towers and the PPD to provide timely and adequate notice of the new location of the vehicle, and a lack of adequate training and supervision of police personnel to ensure that owners and operators are provided timely and accurate information as to the vehicle location,” per the suit.
“Making matters worse, although relocated vehicles are to be moved to a legal parking spot within a short radius from where they were legally parked, as a matter of practice and custom, some vehicles are relocated to arbitrary locations at considerable distances from their original locations.”
Each of the named plaintiffs cited their own relevant experiences in having their vehicles towed, relocated and illegally parked without proper notice, to support their allegations.
In the case of plaintiff Henin, after she initially reported her own vehicle as stolen (as directed by the Philadelphia Police Department) in February 2020, she recovered her vehicle and instructed the authorities that her car was found.
But nonetheless, she said she was later stopped, forced from her vehicle at gunpoint and detained by New Jersey police officers, who alleged that the car was stolen based on a still-existing PPD report that the vehicle was indeed stolen.
“The City, as a matter of practice and custom has failed to provide adequate procedures to prevent vehicles from being relocated to places where it is illegal to park or in time-limited or metered parking spaces, which unfairly exposes innocent owners to parking infractions. The constitutional violations alleged in this Complaint are ongoing, and without judicial relief will cause harm to the class members who will be subjected to the Relocation Program,” the suit stated.
The City filed an answer to the complaint on Nov. 30, arguing that the plaintiffs failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted and providing 10 separate affirmative defenses to that effect.
According to the City, the actions complained of are not theirs, but rather that of third-party towing companies and that due to the separate circumstances surrounding each tow, certification of the plaintiffs as a class would be inappropriate.
“Plaintiffs have failed to state a claim against the answering defendant upon which relief can be granted. Answering defendant asserts all of the defenses, immunities, and limitations of damages available to it under the Political Subdivision Tort Claims Act and aver that plaintiffs’ remedies are limited exclusively thereto. Plaintiffs’ claims are barred, in whole or in part, to the extent that they have failed to take reasonable measures to mitigate any or all damages. Plaintiffs’ claims are barred, in whole or in part, insofar as answering defendant purported actions or omissions were not the proximate cause of any alleged injury, loss or damage incurred by the plaintiffs. At all times material to this civil action, answering defendant acted in a reasonable, proper, and lawful manner,” the defenses said.
“Plaintiffs’ claims are barred by the applicable statute of limitations. Answering defendant do not control the actions of third-party tow operators, and cannot be held liable for the acts or omissions of those entities. Plaintiffs cannot state a claim for damages where plaintiffs’ own inattention to posted notices of temporary parking limitations, and failure to comply with same, was the proximate case of their experienced harm. Plaintiffs cannot satisfy the numerosity or typicality requirements to maintain a class action under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(a)(1-4). Because of the different predicate circumstances of each tow, and the different entities responsible for such tows, plaintiffs cannot establish that answering defendant has acted ‘on grounds that apply generally to the class’ such that class certification under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(2) is inappropriate.”
UPDATE
Counsel for the plaintiffs authored a letter to U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania Judge Mitchell S. Goldberg on May 3, outlining what they feel is three months’ worth of resistance from the City in providing required discovery documents.
“Pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 26 and 37 and the Court’s procedures, plaintiffs seek the Court’s intervention in obtaining the City of Philadelphia’s responses to plaintiffs’ first set of interrogatories and documents responsive to plaintiffs’ first set of document requests. Plaintiffs have communicated and met and conferred with defendant on numerous occasions in an attempt to obtain the outstanding discovery responses prior to the filing of this letter. To date, defendant has provided no interrogatory responses and limited documentation, including a miniscule amount related to the towing of two plaintiffs’ vehicles,” plaintiff counsel’s letter read, in part.
“This case is about plaintiffs’ cars and then plaintiffs falling down the rabbit hole of the City’s vehicle relocation program, but staying in Philadelphia instead of emerging in Wonderland. Plaintiffs are trying to avoid a similar situation with discovery.”
Plaintiff counsel then described a three month-long process of conferring with counsel for the City in an attempt to obtain responses to interrogatories and necessary documents to prove its case, but to no avail.
Finally, they requested a judicial order from Goldberg.
“Plaintiffs thus move the Court for an order compelling discovery under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 37(a)(3)(B)(iii) and (iv) and 37(c). The defendant’s failure to produce the requested information is neither substantially justified nor harmless, as defendant is aware that plaintiffs intend to schedule depositions shortly, including a Rule 30(b)(6) deposition. Plaintiffs are severely hampered in moving forward with deposition discovery without all or almost all of the relevant documents and information,” per the letter.
“Plaintiffs have extended the City every professional courtesy and provided ample time to respond to their discovery requests. Given plaintiffs’ futile efforts at obtaining defendant’s complete discovery responses, plaintiffs respectfully seek an order compelling defendant to provide its interrogatory responses, as well as the remaining documents requested in plaintiffs’ first set of document requests.”
For counts of civil rights violations of both the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983, the plaintiffs are seeking certification of the Class defined above, declaratory and injunctive relief for plaintiffs and the class, compensatory damages for plaintiffs, attorneys’ fees and costs, and any further or other relief that the Court deems just and appropriate.
The plaintiffs are represented by Joseph C. Kohn, Craig W. Hillwig, William E. Hoese and Aarthi Manohar of Kohn Swift & Graf, in Philadelphia.
The defendant is represented by Anne B. Taylor of the City of Philadelphia’s Law Department.
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania case 2:21-cv-02248
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com