RCC Wesley Chapel Crossing, LLC v. Allen

Decision Date14 December 2021
Docket NumberS21G0029
Citation313 Ga. 69,867 S.E.2d 108
Parties RCC WESLEY CHAPEL CROSSING, LLC et al. v. Forrest ALLEN et al.
CourtGeorgia Supreme Court

Walter J. Bibbins, Brittanie Danielle Browning, John E. Hall, Jr., Hall Booth Smith, P.C., 191 Peachtree Street, Suite 2900, Atlanta, Georgia 30303, Ryan Matthew Ingram, David Patrick Conley, Marie Wilcox, Moore Ingram Johnson & Steele, LLP, 326 Roswell Street, Ste 100, Marietta, Georgia 30060, Kenan G. Loomis, Cozen O'Connor, 1230 Peachtree Street, N.E., The Promenade, Suite 400, Atlanta, Georgia 30309, for Appellant.

Frank Mitchell Lowrey, IV, Joshua Ferber Thorpe, Bondurant, Mixson & Elmore, LLP, 1201 West Peachtree Street, N.W., Suite 3900, Atlanta, Georgia 30309-3417, Matthew Quinn Wetherington, Sr., Wetherington Law Firm, 1800 Peachtree St. NW, Suite 370, Atlanta, Georgia 30309, Robert Neil Friedman, Wetherington Law Firm, 55 Ivan Allen Jr Blvd Suite 700, Atlanta, Georgia 30308, for Appellee.

Andrew Alan Pinson, Solicitor-General, Department Of Law, 40 Capitol Square SW, Atlanta, Georgia 30334, for Other Party.

John Colquitt Rogers, Carlock, Copeland & Stair, LLP, One Ninety One Peachtree Tower, 191 Peachtree Street NE, Suite 3600, Atlanta, Georgia 30303, Kimberly D. Stevens, Willie C. Ellis, Jr., LeRyan Paige Lambert, Hawkins Parnell & Young, LLP, 303 Peachtree Street, N.E., Ste. 4000, Atlanta, Georgia 30308-3243, for Amicus Appellant.

LaGrua, Justice.

We granted certiorari in this case to decide whether there is a common-law right that permits private property owners to immobilize vehicles that are not authorized to be on their property. For the reasons that follow, we conclude that the common-law rights the defendants alluded to in the courts below – namely, the right to remove trespassing vehicles and an alleged right to impound trespassing vehicles – do not apply to the defendants’ vehicle immobilization practice. However, because we disagree with the Court of Appeals’ conclusion that "the trial court did not err in finding no common law right to immobilize a vehicle absent an enabling statute or ordinance," RCC Wesley Chapel Crossing, LLC et al. v. Allen et al. , Case No. A20A0547, p. 10 (decided June 29, 2020), and any reliance on that conclusion in affirming the trial court's order granting Plaintiff Forrest Allen's motion for class certification, see id. at 10-15, we vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case to the Court of Appeals with direction to remand to the trial court for reconsideration of the proposed class.

1. Pertinent Facts and Procedural History
(a) Factual background

The relevant facts, as summarized by the Court of Appeals, see Allen , slip op. at 4-5, are as follows: On February 5, 2018, Plaintiff parked his vehicle in a parking lot located at 2440 Wesley Chapel Road (the "Wesley Chapel Lot") in DeKalb County, and nonparty State Impound Authority, LLC d/b/a VPE LLC ("State Impound") immobilized Plaintiff's vehicle by placing a "boot" on one of the tires. In order to remove the boot, Plaintiff was required to pay State Impound $650. Plaintiff paid State Impound the requisite fee to remove the boot from his vehicle.

(b) Trial court proceedings

In February 2018, Plaintiff filed a lawsuit in the State Court of Clayton County on behalf of himself and a putative class of similarly situated persons against Defendants RCC Wesley Chapel Crossing, LLC, Little Giant Farmers Market Corporation, Dollar Tree Stores, Inc., River City Capital, LLC, and River City Capital Property Management, LLC1 for negligence, premises liability, false imprisonment, conversion, and violation of the Georgia Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act ("RICO"). Plaintiff claimed that Defendants "hired, authorized, or otherwise provided material support to" third parties that immobilized vehicles located on Defendants’ property with boots or similar devices and required the owners or operators of the vehicles to pay a fee in order to have the immobilizing devices removed. Plaintiff moved to certify the action on behalf of a proposed class of similarly situated persons under OCGA § 9-11-23,2 asserting that between February 2013 and the present, at least 250 persons "have been booted and have paid a fine for removal of said device" at the Wesley Chapel Lot. Following briefing and oral argument, the trial court granted Plaintiff's motion, certifying the following class: "A class of all persons who have been booted, and have paid a fine for removal of said device, at 2440 Wesley Chapel Rd. (Parcel ID 15 131 03 010) or 2460 Wesley Chapel Rd. (Parcel ID 15 130 02 110) from February 5, 2013 to present."

In the order granting class certification, the trial court reasoned that "[t]he act of placing a boot on a vehicle and refusing to remove it until payment is received is the imposition of a lien on that vehicle," and "[s]uch a lien cannot exist at common law as lien laws are in derogation of the common law." On this basis, the trial court concluded that

Defendants cannot immobilize vehicles, or demand a fee to remove a vehicle immobilization device, absent an enabling statute. There is no enabling statute or ordinance at the location where Plaintiff and all other class members were booted.

The trial court thus determined that each of the class member's claims involved the common question of whether Defendants had "a legal right to immobilize vehicles at the subject properties" — a question that did not depend on "individualized issues of fact" or the class members’ "legal status at the property."

Defendants appealed, asserting that the trial court erred in granting class certification because Plaintiff failed to meet all the requirements of OCGA § 9-11-23 (a). In particular, citing Reinertsen v. Porter , 242 Ga. 624, 250 S.E.2d 475 (1978), Defendants asserted that the trial court erred in determining that there was commonality among the putative class because some of the potential class members were trespassers on the Wesley Chapel Lot and Defendants have a common-law right to immobilize trespassing vehicles on their property.

(c) The Court of Appeals’ decision

In June 2020, the Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court, holding, among other things, that (1) the trial court did not err in concluding that there is no right to immobilize a vehicle absent an enabling statute or ordinance; and (2) the trial court properly found that liability could be determined solely by looking to Defendants’ conduct because, even if some class members were parked on the Wesley Chapel Lot without authorization, there was no showing in the record that the immobilization of the class members’ vehicles or the process for releasing immobilized vehicles back to their owners differed materially. See Allen , slip op. at 8-10. In so holding, the Court of Appeals rejected Defendants’ reliance on Reinertsen , noting that, although Reinertsen recognized a landowner's right at common law to remove with due care the property of others left on his land without permission, "nothing in the Supreme Court's opinion recognizes a common law right to place immobilizing devices on vehicles illegally parked on private property against the will of its owner for profit." Allen , slip op. at 12 n.1.

We granted Defendants’ petition for certiorari to address whether a common-law right exists allowing a private property owner to immobilize a vehicle parked on its property without permission.

2. There is no common-law right allowing private property owners to immobilize unauthorized vehicles parked on their property.

In response to our certiorari question, Defendants claim that, at common law, private property owners are permitted to immobilize vehicles that are trespassing on their property.3 In support of this claim, Defendants rely, as they did on appeal to the Court of Appeals, on Reinertsen , asserting that the common-law right to remove trespassing property recognized in Reinertsen encompasses a right to immobilize trespassing vehicles. Defendants have now expanded upon this claim by asserting that the common-law doctrine of "distress damage feasant" also allows them to engage in the self-help remedy of impounding another person's property when it is wrongfully on their land.4 We disagree and conclude that neither the right to remove trespassing property discussed in Reinertsen nor distress damage feasant supports the vehicle immobilization practice Defendants engaged in here.

The doctrine of distress damage feasant is a narrow remedy at common law that recognizes a landowner's right to impound trespassing livestock causing actual damage to his property and to hold it as security until the animal's owner is ascertained and compensates the landowner for his damages. See 3 William Blackstone, COMMENTARIES ON THE LAWS OF ENGLAND 7 (1st ed. 1768) ("Another injury, for which distresses may be taken, is where a man finds beasts of a stranger wandering in his grounds, damage-feasant; that is doing him hurt or damage, by treading down his grass, or the like, in which case the owner of the soil may distrain them till satisfaction be made him for the injury he has thereby sustained."). In the alternative, the landowner has the right to sue the animal's owner in trespass for damages. See Thombley v. Hightower , 52 Ga. App. 716, 716, 184 S.E. 331 (1936) (holding that a suit for damages to crops from a trespass committed by the defendant's cattle was properly brought by the landowner). As this Court explained in Bonner v. DeLoach , 78 Ga. 50, 2 S.E. 546 (1886) :

The provisions of the common-law regulating this matter, render the defendant answerable for not only his own trespass, but that of his cattle also; for if, by his negligent keeping, they stray upon the land of another, (and much more if he prompts or drives them on,) and they there tread down his neighbor's herbage, and spoil his corn or his trees, this is a trespass for which the owner must answer in damages; and the law gives the party injured a
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4 cases
  • Bates v. State
    • United States
    • Georgia Supreme Court
    • January 4, 2022
  • Park v. State
    • United States
    • Georgia Supreme Court
    • October 4, 2022
  • Bell v. Hargrove
    • United States
    • Georgia Supreme Court
    • December 14, 2021
  • RCC Wesley Chapel Crossing, LLC v. Allen
    • United States
    • Georgia Court of Appeals
    • April 28, 2022
    ...Allen , 355 Ga. App. XXVII (Case No. A20A0547) (June 29, 2020) (unpublished) ("Allen I ").In RCC Wesley Chapel Crossing, LLC v. Allen , 313 Ga. 69, 76-77 (3), 867 S.E.2d 108 (2021) ("Allen II"), the Supreme Court of Georgia vacated our opinion in Allen I and directed this Court to remand th......
1 books & journal articles
  • Torts
    • United States
    • Mercer University School of Law Mercer Law Reviews No. 74-1, September 2022
    • Invalid date
    ...at 491.138. Id. at 317, 869 S.E.2d at 490.139. Id. at 317-18, 869 S.E.2d at 491. 140. See, e.g., RCC Wesley Chapel Crossing, LLC v. Allen, 313 Ga. 69, 867 S.E.2d 108 (2021) (holding that the common law right of a property owner to remove trespassing chattels did not include the right to imm......

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