CLEMENT v. J & E SERVICE
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals today released an opinion in CLEMENT v. J & E SERVICE, No. 05-56692, a civil rights appeal. The panel consisted of Alex Kozinski, Chief Judge, Andrew J. Kleinfeld and Richard C. Tallman, Circuit Judges.
KOZINSKI, Chief Judge:
We determine the extent to which the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires a state to provide notice before it may tow a vehicle parked in violation of state registration laws, if the owner has dutifully complied with an alternate form of registration. Facts Virginia Clement lived in a residential hotel and parked her 1981 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz in the hotel’s parking lot. The car had not been driven in seven years and Clement did not keep the car’s registration current. But she did dutifully complete an alternate form of vehicle registration, she had the hotel’s permission to park there and the car was in its proper space. Without so much as a letter, a knock on the door, a note on her windshield or even a parking ticket, the Glendale police towed and impounded Clement’s car. They left no clue to where it had gone. Only later did Clement discover that it had been towed for allegedly violating California vehicle registration laws. The process started when Glendale police officer Young, on a routine patrol, noticed expired registration stickers on the car. He ran the plates and learned that Clement had filed a “planned non-operation” (PNO) certificate with the state DMV.2 A PNO certificate allows vehicle owners to avoid paying for registration and insurance, so long as they don’t drive on public roads or park in publicly accessible parking lots. Cal. Veh.. . .