Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause/Vehicular Tows

The panel affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment for the City of Portland in an action brought by Andrew Grimm alleging that the City’s procedures for notifying him that his car would be towed were deficient under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. Grimm parked a car on the side of a downtown street, paid for an hour and 19 minutes of parking through a mobile app, and then left the car on the street for seven days. During that time, City parking enforcement officers issued multiple parking citations, which they placed on the car’s windshield. After the car sat on the street for five days, a parking enforcement officer added a red slip warning that the car would be towed.

Grimm did not move the car, and, two days after the warning slip was placed on the windshield, the car was towed.

The panel held that the City conformed with the requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment by providing notice reasonably calculated to alert Grimm of the impending tow. The warning slip placed on the car’s windshield five days after Grimm had parked the car and two days before the car was towed, which explicitly stated that the car would be towed if it were not moved, was reasonably calculated to inform Grimm of the impending tow.

The panel further held that Grimm’s failure to remove the citations and warning slip from the windshield did not provide the City with actual knowledge that its attempt to provide notice had failed.

Read the full case here: Grimm v. City of Portland, No. 23-35235, 2025 WL 22134 (9th Cir. Jan. 3, 2025), https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2025/01/03/23-35235.pdf

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