ContractsProf Blog

Editor: Jeremy Telman
Oklahoma City University
School of Law

Monday, December 21, 2015

In Which I Freak Out About Parking and Towing (But It's Case-Related, I Swear)

Fortreno de aĆ­toj, DE FR, 2

Once, when I lived in a city, my car got towed. I was properly, legally parked at the time I parked the car. Unfortunately, after I parked the car, the city came by and put up a sign saying they were cutting down a tree the next day and my car needed to be moved. Unfortunately, the car wasn't parked on the street where I lived (that's city living for you) and also unfortunately, I didn't go back to my car for a few days (also city living for you). When I went to retrieve my car for a driving errand and found it missing, I had a moment of utter panic that it had been stolen. Then I noticed the bedraggled sign and realized it must have been towed. Thus commenced a long, involved saga. My license plate number was not reported online as having been towed, so I had to take two separate buses across the length of the city to a police station, where I waited in a very long line of people doing various police business to be told yes, it had been towed, but no, it wasn't in the system, and I had to go another opposite side of the city (I was making a triangle) to retrieve it and I had to BRING CASH (I was told this many times, in oral all-caps). Which meant that first I had to locate an ATM in an area of the city with which I was unfamiliar, and then take more buses to the tow company location. This entire ordeal (which I maintain wasn't entirely my fault, considering I think it was unrealistic of the city to provide so little notice of the tree issue, because the vast majority of us city-dwellers don't go to our cars on a daily basis) took the better part of my day and cost hundreds of dollars but, at the end of it, at least I got my car back (and then afterward I had to keep making out-of-my-way trips on a daily basis to make sure that my car hadn't become subject to any weird new towing orders). 

I tell all of you this saga because when I started reading the fact pattern of Parham v. Cih Properties, Civil Case No. 14-1706 (RJL), out of the District Court for the District of Columbia, I had flashbacks. In that case, the plaintiff lived in an apartment complex that had a parking lot. (There is a prior Parham v. Cih Properties case, involving a plaintiff with a different first name, possibly the plaintiff's mother.) She alleged that her car was towed from the lot. After allegedly having to engage in a complicated search, the plaintiff determined that the car had been ticketed for having "dead tags" and had been sent "to be crushed for scrap metal." The plaintiff alleged that her car did not have dead tags and also that the tag number she was given on the ticket wasn't even the tag number of her car. At any rate, the plaintiff has never actually been able to locate the man who allegedly towed the car and so has never actually located her car and so never received her car back. So, she's sued. 

Why, you might wonder, am I talking about all these parking sagas in the ContractsProf Blog? Well, there was a breach of contract aspect to this case, in that she alleged that she had a contract with the apartment complex that the complex breached when it authorized the towing of her car. However, the only contract between the plaintiff and the apartment complex was a thirty-year-old lease agreement that explicitly stated that parking was not covered by the agreement. Therefore, the court found there was no breach of any contract.

CARS WERE JAMMED INTO EVERY SPARE SPACE AT A DOWNTOWN COMMERCIAL PARKING LOT DURING A BUS STRIKE IN WASHINGTON... - NARA - 556721

I understand the court's analysis but I'm incredibly perplexed and wish I had more information. Was there never any updating of the lease agreement in the ensuing thirty years? Surely the rent had been increased, at least? And, honestly, under what authority was she parking in the parking lot? Whenever I have had parking in a city lot, it came with tags or cards or permits or something, so that the parking could be managed. And never, in a city situation, has the parking been free. The parking here was apparently located in Washington, D.C. (see above photo for an only-slightly-out-of-date depiction of parking in Washington, D.C.), so I wish knew more about the circumstances under which the parking lot was being governed. I just find it difficult to believe that there wasn't some sort of agreement somewhere between the plaintiff and someone about what the parking situation was, even if the agreement was only oral in nature, or even if we had to turn to promissory estoppel to get there. But am I thinking about this from a completely wrong angle somehow? 

The plaintiff in this case was proceeding pro se, which might have contributed to the fact that there wasn't enough evidence for the plaintiff to survive summary judgment. Indeed, none of the plaintiff's claims (which included fraud and consumer protection claims) survived summary judgment. 

This case made me think of my own parking saga because, well, what would I have done if I'd just never been able to locate my car again? Even though I thought it was unfair that I was forced to inconveniently traipse all over the city and produce hundreds of dollars in cash based on what I considered a "surprise" towing sign, I think I also vaguely thought that probably one of the "terms" of my agreement with the city under which it had given me a street parking permit was that I would check on the car at least every twenty-four hours. So, although I was annoyed during my saga, I put most of the blame on myself. I have no idea what I would have done if I'd never found my car, though. 

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/contractsprof_blog/2015/12/in-which-i-freak-out-about-parking-and-towing-but-its-case-related-i-swear.html

Commentary, Recent Cases, True Contracts | Permalink

Comments

This post brought by unfortunate memories of my own past towing experiences.

Posted by: Nancy | Dec 21, 2015 11:22:13 AM

I think you're very probably right on the contract analysis. And if this were in Texas, the woman would have been in much better shape, since we have lawyers who specialize in towed cars. Texas has a statute that requires the person who improperly towed the car not only to give back the money and pay damages, but to pay the full legal fees for the claimant. I know a lawyer who makes a very good living off of illegal tows.

Posted by: Frank Snyder | Dec 22, 2015 8:23:47 AM

Nancy -- We all have a tale of such woe in our past, don't we?

Posted by: Stacey | Dec 22, 2015 6:31:21 PM

Frank - Oh, wow! I had no idea!

Posted by: Stacey | Dec 22, 2015 6:31:48 PM