PHILADELPHIA – The City of Philadelphia has filed for summary judgment in a class action lawsuit, over claims that its vehicle-towing relocation program both fails to abide by due process and provide adequate notice or fair procedures for owners to locate and recover their vehicles after they have been moved.
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, 2021, 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 Allen and Hay accepted settlement offers from the City totaling $15,000 each, on Sept. 7. Their co-plaintiffs Eastman and Henin also received equal settlement offers, but have not made decisions regarding them as of yet and remains as plaintiffs in the pending case.
The remaining plaintiffs, Eastman and Henin, authored a letter to Goldberg on Sept. 26 asking for a similar order to compel George Smith Towing Company, a non-party to the suit, to comply with an Aug. 18, 2022 subpoena.
Simply stated, the plaintiffs claimed that George Smith has made zero effort over a six-week span to respond with the requested information. Goldberg granted the motion on Oct. 13, ordering George Smith to comply with the subpoena within the following week.
Plaintiff counsel then filed a dual-motion for sanctions and contempt against George Smith on Nov. 14, for its alleged failure to comply with both the plaintiffs’ Aug. 18 subpoena and the Court’s Oct. 13, 2022 order.
As a result of George Smith’s alleged unwillingness to cooperate, the plaintiffs argued they have been “unable to review potentially key documents, introduce them at depositions, and question witnesses about them” and has “prejudiced plaintiffs, by limiting their ability to complete discovery and develop their claims.”
UPDATE
On Jan. 19, the City filed a motion for summary judgment, seeking dismissal of the case on the grounds that the remaining plaintiffs had not shown direct evidence of the City’s involvement in relocating their vehicles.
“The crux of plaintiffs’ Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment claims is that the City, as a governmental entity, interfered with their possessory rights to their vehicles. However, there is no evidence that the City was involved in towing or relocating plaintiffs’ vehicles. Plaintiffs thoroughly developed the record through discovery, obtained, assessed thousands of pages of evidence and deposed numerous witnesses. Plaintiffs conducted a thorough search in discovery for evidence of the City’s involvement in relocating their vehicles and found none,” the summary judgment motion stated.
“The City’s tow logs do not have any information of their vehicles either being relocated by the City or notification from a third party that they relocated the vehicles. Notwithstanding the significant discovery pursued, plaintiffs have not developed any evidence that suggests the City was in any way involved in moving their vehicles. Indeed, plaintiffs both conceded at deposition that they cannot identify the person or entity responsible for moving their vehicles. Consistent with the rule that a Section 1983 claim must involve action taken under color of state law, plaintiffs’ claims should be dismissed because plaintiffs cannot identify any facts that might establish this ‘threshold issue’ element of their claim.”
The City conceded that discovery did reveal occasions where “non-state actors engage in unsanctioned towing, both in contravention of appropriate practice and possibly the law.”
“To the extent a private tow entity failed to follow laws regulating towing to properly notify the City of a vehicle relocation, plaintiffs may have a claim against that private tow entity under state law for conversion. But the City is not responsible for this behavior,” the motion continued.
“To the extent that such an actor was responsible for the relocated vehicles at issue in this litigation, plaintiffs’ claims are more accurately stated as an attempt to hold the City liable for an unidentified third party’s failure to follow towing regulations to report vehicle relocation information to the City. That is no basis for recovery under the Fourth or the Fourteenth Amendments as there is no governmental involvement in the interference of plaintiffs’ possessory rights.”
The City added that the plaintiffs’ claims sounding connected to the providing of pre-deprivation parking notice are “undermined by the fact that individuals have no right to continue to park in spaces that are subsequently deemed No Parking spaces.”
“Plaintiffs claim they parked in legal parking spaces and were deprived post-deprivation notice because their vehicles were moved, however the record suggests that plaintiffs were likely provided pre-deprivation notice for construction work or events. Applicable rules, if followed, require that Temporary No Parking notices be posted at least 48 hours in advance to warn people it will become illegal to park in those spaces. When vehicles remain notwithstanding the changed designation of their parking spot, PPD should be called to ticket the vehicle,” the motion stated.
“Whatever entity relocates the vehicle is then responsible for reporting the originating and destination location to the PPD, so that information can be entered in the PPD tow logs. Here, plaintiff Henin found a Temporary No Parking sign on the ground that indicated there would be tree cutting on the block where she parked. Plaintiff Eastman remembers active construction on the block where she parked. Both plaintiffs acknowledged they did not check their vehicles for multiple days before realizing their vehicles were moved even though both agreed that they know Temporary No Parking notices may be posted indicating that vehicles may not park there.”
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, Elias Kohn, William E. Hoese and Aarthi Manohar of Kohn Swift & Graf, in Philadelphia.
The defendant is represented by Anne B. Taylor, Kristin K. Bray and Christopher J. Johnson of the City of Philadelphia’s Law Department, plus Michelle L. Reinhart of White & Williams, also in Philadelphia.
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