Why haven't you paid to get the car out of storage? You are accumulating more storage fees and problems by not getting the car out of storage. If the court determines that the tow was valid, you'll end up paying more for leaving it in storage. Taking it out of storage will not adversely affect your lawsuit, but not getting it out may end up resulting in storage fees even if you win. In this situation, mitigating your damages is a worthwhile thing to do.
Note that your request for the court to order that you be given a temporary driving permit is something the court won't do. That request has no connection to the wrongful storage claim and the court does not have jurisdiction to grant relief not related to the claim at issue. There is nothing stopping you from doing whatever you are required to do to reinstate your license. It's up to the DMV to determine if there are any grounds for refusing your request for reinstatement of your license.
Note that the fact that you were not arrested and taken to jail doesn't seem relevant either. That, too, is unrelated to the towing and storage issue. If you think it's relevant, you need to explain why it's relevant to the towing issue because it's not apparent to me and it won't be apparent to the judge either.
Earlier you said that the police chief's wife owned the tow company, but your court petition says it was the wife of the officer who ordered the tow that owned the company. That makes a difference.
You don't address what the officer claimed was the reason for the tow. Why not? That is, after all, important to the issue of whether the tow was valid. The issue of whether the tow was valid does matter. You also don't make any mention if the other tow company was available to do the tow at the time. That matters, too. If the officer was justified in having the vehicle towed and his wife's company was the only available, he doesn't really have a choice in whom to call for the tow. That's significant because in that situation he's not making a choice to use his wife's company over another company that was available to do the job. Instead, he was calling the only company available to do the job.
Your petition leaves me with the impression that you've left some things out of the story.
At the very least, you need to get your license restored if you want to do any driving in the state. Your case won't solve that problem for you.
I cant afford the storage fees or I would have already gotten it out. But because the Tow company was trying to get granted the lien on it and dispose of it, I filled out the portion of the disposal notice where I can oppose the disposal and they took me to small claims court and i informed that judge about this case and what it is all about so he told the tow company to not dispose of it till further notice and they stopped charging up the fees after 30 days cuz the the tow and storage fees are more then the car is worth in their eyes. I have actually gotten my license reinstated since this happened... Its something I was already working on. I was at my house and my car was parked when the officer pulled up behind my vehicle and turned his emergency lights on.
City Policy manual says that....
Whenever a person in charge or in control of a vehicle is arrested, it is the policy of this[department/office] to provide reasonable safekeeping by storing the arrestee's vehicle subject to the exceptions described below. The vehicle, however, shall be stored whenever it is needed for the furtherance of the investigation or prosecution of the case, or when the community caretaker doctrine would reasonably suggest that the vehicle should be stored (e.g., traffic hazard, high-crime area.)
The following are examples of situations where consideration should be given to leaving a vehicleat the scene in lieu of storing, provided the vehicle can be lawfully parked and left in a reasonablysecured and safe condition:
* Traffic-related warrant arrest.
* Situations where the vehicle was not used to further the offense for which the driverwas arrested.
* Whenever the licensed owner of the vehicle is present, willing, and able to take control of any vehicle not involved in criminal activity.
* Whenever the vehicle otherwise does not need to be stored and the owner requests that it be left at the scene. In such cases, the owner shall be informed that the[Department/Office] will not be responsible for theft or damages.
And the things I left out of the story are because the burden of proof lays in the hands of the City, which they can not do because the cop didn't turn on his body cam or dash cam, and the chief of police did not give me a fair post storage hearing in any kind of scope. Im not going to risk incriminating myself if I dont have to.... But without me being physically arrested there was no other purpose to tow my vehicle other than to enrich his family business.
Miranda v. City of Cornelius, 429 F. 3d 858, 864-866 (9th Cir. 2005) holds that a license violation "does not . . . justify impoundment" of a safely parked vehicle on private property.
United States .v Hawkins, 249 F.3d 867, 872 (9th Cir. 2001) states that warrantless
seizures are presumptively unreasonable and the government bears the burden of showing that
the seizure falls within a recognized exception, such as a valid community-caretaking function or for an investigation or taken as evidence of a crime
