Craig v. Carson

• Decision Date: 17 April 1978
• Docket Number: No. 77-124-Civ-J-S.,77-124-Civ-J-S.
• Citation: 449 F. Supp. 385
• Parties: Elizabeth A. CRAIG, Plaintiff, v. Dale CARSON, Individually and as Sheriff of the Consolidated City of Jacksonville, Florida, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Middle District of Florida

449 F. Supp. 385

Elizabeth A. CRAIG, Plaintiff, v. Dale CARSON, Individually and as Sheriff of the Consolidated City of Jacksonville, Florida, Defendant.

No. 77-124-Civ-J-S.

United States District Court, M. D. Florida, Jacksonville, Division.

April 17, 1978.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

William J. Sheppard, Jacksonville, Fla., for plaintiff.

William Lee Allen, Asst. Gen. Counsel, City of Jacksonville, Jacksonville, Fla., for defendant.

CHARLES R. SCOTT, District Judge.

OPINION

This case is pending before the Court after a consolidated hearing on plaintiff's motion for a preliminary injunction and the merits of the case itself. Fed.R.Civ.P. 65(a)(2). Pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 23(a) and (b)(2), the case was certified as a class action on April 3rd, 1978. The case is brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 to enforce a constitutional right guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court's jurisdiction is invoked under 28 U.S.C. § 1343.

I. Facts

In the late afternoon of February 3, 1977, plaintiff's car stalled during a heavy rainstorm. With the help of a Navy officer who stopped, the car was pushed to the side of Mayport Road. The Navy officer then drove plaintiff home. Once home, plaintiff called the Duval County Sheriff's office and gave a description of her car, the license tag number, the location where it was left, and explained the circumstances under which it was left. She indicated her intention to remove the car as soon as possible. The next morning, February 4, at around 8:00 o'clock A. M. Officer Richard Terrance St. Johns of the Duval County Sheriff's office saw plaintiff's car, and two others, parked along Mayport Road. He radioed the license tag numbers to his office which in turn relayed the information to the National Crime Information Center (`NCIC') computer which checked to see if any of the cars had been stolen. None had. Because plaintiff's car appeared to have been there overnight, the officer put a twenty-four removal notice on the windshield.

Later that same morning, two friends of plaintiff tried unsuccessfully to repair her car. That same night, another friend tried to repair the car and discovered that the distributor coil was missing.

On Saturday morning, February 5, 1978, Officer St. Johns returned to the area. The other two cars had been removed, but plaintiff's car was still there. He radioed his office again for a dispatcher to send the tow truck, and to obtain the owner's name and address through the vehicle registration information stored in the NCIC computer. For unexplained reasons, he was unable to obtain the NCIC vehicle registration information. Officer St. Johns testified, however, that he could just as easily have made a computer search for the vehicle registration information a day earlier when he made a similar NCIC computer search to determine if the vehicle was stolen. The officer then looked in the car and saw a bank deposit slip with plaintiff's name on it and an address at Neptune Beach, Florida. Later the officer went to that address and attempted to locate plaintiff. Two boys there said that plaintiff did not live there any more. That address was not the address on plaintiff's vehicle registration. After the tow truck arrived, plaintiff's car was towed to a service station parking lot in Neptune Beach.

Meanwhile, plaintiff returned and found her car gone. She called the Sheriff's Department twice and was unable to locate her car. Eventually she learned that the car was at the service station lot in Neptune Beach.

Monday morning, February 7, 1977, plaintiff went to the lot where her car had been towed. When she sought access to her car, she was refused unless she paid a $25.00 towing charge and storage charges accumulating at the rate of $3.00 per day. Being unable to pay the charges, plaintiff was denied access to her car.

The next day, a letter was received by plaintiff's mother at the address on plaintiff's vehicle registration. The letter, from the Duval County Sheriff's Department, notified plaintiff that her car could be redeemed by paying $25.00 towing charge plus storage charges in the amount of $3.00 per day; but that after sixty days her interest in the car would be forfeited. The vehicle registration address is plaintiff's permanent address. Because she was unable to pay the assessed charges, plaintiff was without access to, or use of, her car from February 5, 1977, until February 17, 1977, when defendant ordered plaintiff's car released pending the outcome of this case.

II. The Ordinances

Under several different ordinances, the Sheriff's Department is authorized to make an initial seizure of a motor vehicle, and to remove and tow it to a place of impoundment. Motor vehicles may be removed and impounded if they are left unattended on a public way for more than twenty-four hours¹; where an emergency or public safety requires²; after appropriate notice³; when the motor vehicle is unlawfully parked⁴; where four or more parking violations applicable to the motor vehicle have been outstanding for more than fifteen days⁵; and when a motor vehicle has been captured, lost, abandoned, or stolen.⁶

Once a vehicle has been seized, towed, and removed to a place of impoundment, specific city ordinances authorize the retention of the vehicle and a repossession of it only upon the fulfillment of certain conditions. The assessment of charges for towing the vehicle and storing it is authorized.⁷ The prepayment of those charges before release of the vehicle is required.⁸ The prepayment of any applicable parking fines or violations before release of the vehicle is required.⁹ A lien against the vehicle for the charges assessed is created.¹⁰ Forfeiture of the vehicle after sixty days' impoundment, for the purpose of paying the outstanding charges and foreclosing the lien for them, is authorized.¹¹

III. Issues and Law

The first issue raised by plaintiff in this case is whether the Jacksonville city ordinances authorizing the seizure and removal of motor vehicles to a place of impoundment violate the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by depriving a person of property without the safeguards of procedural due process. The second issue raised by plaintiff is whether the Jacksonville city ordinances that authorize the retention of impounded motor vehicles, and the repossession of those vehicles only upon the satisfaction of specific conditions, violate the Fourteenth Amendment due process clause by depriving a person of property without the safeguards of procedural due process.

There are four essential elements which must be met before the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment applies. In order, therefore, to be guaranteed the safeguards of the Due Process Clause, one must inquire initially whether those four essential elements are present.¹² First, a person must have a recognized liberty or property interest at stake. Smith v. Organization of Foster Families, 431 U.S. 816, 837, 97 S.Ct. 2094, 2106, 53 L.Ed.2d 14, 31 (1977); Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 332, 96 S.Ct. 893, 901, 47 L.Ed.2d 18, 31 (1976); Siler v. Brady Indep. School Dist., 553 F.2d 385, 387 (5th Cir. 1977); Stewart v. Bailey, 556 F.2d 281, 285 (5th Cir. 1977); Tanner v. McCall, 441 F.Supp. 503, 506 (M.D.Fla. 1977); Schrank v. Bliss, 412 F.Supp. 28, 41 (M.D.Fla.1976). Second, even a temporary deprivation of that liberty or property will satisfy the required element of the Due Process Clause. North Ga. Finishing, Inc. v. Di-Chem, Inc., 419 U.S. 601, 606, 95 S.Ct. 719, 722, 42 L.Ed.2d 751, 757 (1975); Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U.S. 67, 86, 92 S.Ct. 1983, 1997, 32 L.Ed.2d 556, 573 (1972); Stypmann v. San Francisco, 557 F.2d 1338, 1342 (9th Cir. 1977). Third, there must be some form of state action which deprives an individual of his liberty or property. Fourth, there must be some legitimate governmental or public reason asserted for depriving an individual of his liberty or property.

Once those elements of the Due Process Clause are present, the next step in the analysis is to determine what kind of procedural due process safeguards is required in the particular context. Smith v. Organization of Foster Families, 431 U.S. at 847, 97 S.Ct. at 2111, 53 L.Ed.2d at 37. The right to due process is absolute, Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. at 333, 96 S.Ct. at 901, 47 L.Ed.2d at 32; but the kind of due process varies in different factual situations. Id. at 334, 96 S.Ct. at 902, 47 L.Ed.2d at 33. See also Smith v. Organization of Foster Families, 431 U.S. at 847, 97 S.Ct. at 2111, 53 L.Ed.2d at 37. Nonetheless, the fundamental safeguards of procedural due process must be real, and present. There are basic, elementary safeguards of procedural due process, which while having varying forms in different contexts, must be present. The absence of some form of those basic protections or procedural due process is a fatal deficiency. North Ga. Finishing, Inc. v. Di-Chem, Inc., 419 U.S. at 607, 95 S.Ct. at 722, 42 L.Ed.2d at 757. The fundamental, indispensable protections of procedural due process are (1) a hearing (2) before an impartial decision-maker, after (3) adequate notice of the reason for the deprivation, with (4) an opportunity for the individual to present his case. Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. at 333, 96 S.Ct. at 901, 47 L.Ed.2d at 32; Boehning v. Indiana Employees Ass'n, 423 U.S. 6, 7 n. *, 96 S.Ct. 168, 46 L.Ed.2d 148, 150 n. * (1975); North Ga. Finishing, Inc. v. Di-Chem, Inc., 419 U.S. at 606, 95 S.Ct. at 722, 42 L.Ed.2d at 757; Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U.S. at 80, 92 S.Ct. at 1994, 32 L.Ed.2d at 569; Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U.S. 306, 313, 70 S.Ct. 652, 656, 94 L.Ed. 865, 873 (1950).

"Procedural due process" is a fluid, open-ended term, and what satisfies the basic guarantees of that term must be determined by balancing three factors: (1) the particular kind of private liberty or property interest at stake; (2) the risk of a wrongful and erroneous deprivation...