Sean Kayode, a homeless person hustling to make ends meet in San Francisco unsurprisingly received a lot of parking tickets, in San Francisco. Naturally, the best way for San Francisco to secure payment was to seize his method of earning money. A federal judge has ordered the car be returned, for now.
Via the SF Examiner:
Read the restA federal judge on Wednesday ordered the city of San Francisco to return a towed car to a homeless man who couldn't afford to pay the parking tickets he received while working as a food delivery driver.
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White said Sean Kayode had raised "serious questions" about whether the March 5 towing of his car because of unpaid parking tickets violated the U.S. Constitution's Fourth Amendment guarantee against unreasonable searches and seizures.
White wrote that in a situation in which a car owner can't afford to pay overdue parking tickets, "it is not clear…that seizure is reasonable in an effort to secure repayment of the debt owed."
The judge issued a preliminary injunction requiring return of the car. The order will remain in effect until there is a full trial on a lawsuit filed by Kayode, 52, and James Smith, 64, whose car was towed on Dec. 28, 2017.
Kayode's car was towed from a street-cleaning zone outside a homeless shelter where he was staying. In the previous 10 months, he had received about 30 parking tickets and had paid some but not all of them.
A state law allows local authorities to tow a car whose owner has five or more unpaid parking tickets for at least three weeks.
