Student files complaint for civil rights violation
A Logan City ordinance regulating booting practices is in violation of student civil rights, a Utah State University professor said.
A complaint report was filed on the behalf of Quinn Millet, a Utah State University student, against Logan city, D’s Bridergland Apartments, Inc. and Cache Auto Booting Service. According to the filed complaint, David Daines, a USU associate professor, is co-representing Millet. Millet was booted on Sept. 11, 2003 and decided to look into the legalities of the practice, Daines said.
Daines, associate professor, said the practice of booting under the Logan City ordinance, in respect to landlord-tenant relationships, is legal only when the person ordering the booting “like the landlord or tenant has suffered a ‘special injury’.” Therefore, only the tenant who has leased out the parking space can order the booting to take place, Daines said, because the landlord is never “specially injured” in areas of tenant or leased parking.
Daines said when an individual is booted unlawfully, the individual’s property is stolen by the booting company and then is extorted the amount a set amount of money to have their property returned to them.
“When I was robbed [booted], I felt as if I had been mugged, and looked into if it were truly legal or not,” Millet said about being booted. “I think a lot of students have felt, and still feel, the way I do.”
According to the complaint report, Millet’s car was “seized and immobilized by booting by the defendant Cache Auto Booting Service.” The complaint challenges the constitutionality of the booting, and the legalized booting “by landlords and their private booters who make the individual booting decisions.”
According to the filed complaint, the ordinance violates the search and seizure clause of the Fourth Amendment. Daines said he became aware of the booting problem very early on, even before Logan City adopted the ordinance in late 2000. His students complained and discussed in class the issue of booting and said they “found it offensive and abusive,” he said.
“But I continued to somewhat ignore it and sent them over to the free legal advice that students can get through the ASUSU, and didn’t really give much thought, frankly, to the legalities or the illegalities to the booting,” Daines said.
Millet, one of Daines’ students, began to research the legalities of the issue and continually asked Daines about the issue, Daines said.
Daines said Millet really “pressed me to the wall where I really had to begin to dig deep and think about whether I had some kind of ethical obligation to my students to dig to the bottom of this issue. I finally decided that since I am about ready to retire that I couldn’t really leave in good conscious without sticking it out.”
Daines, a formal federal judge in Alaska, said he began researching the issue some time in April or May 2003 and during that summer. In his research he acquired a copy of the Logan Municipal Council minutes about the issue of booting, Daines said.
“What I found in those minutes, that are public information, is just incredibly astounding, almost unbelievable, that a political body can be so far off base,” Daines said, “and completely outside the bounds.”
Daines said the process and creation of the amendment to the ordinance is unlawful.
“If you have any background on the law at all, this makes it such an incredible, blind invasion of student’s constitutional rights,” Danies said about the meeting. “To see the reckless way they totally disregard those fundamental rights is the most shocking thing in all my years as a judge or prosecuting attorney I have ever witnessed. “And it was all specifically directed at students.”
In 2000, discussion about the booting practices was brought to the attention of the Logan Municipal Council. According to the Logan Municipal Council minutes, members of the council were split about the legalities of the issue, however later past the amendment to the ordinance.
According to those minutes, on Nov. 15, 2000 the council adopted the ordinance titled “An Ordinance amending Logan Municipal Code Section 10.52.040 to Include Regulation of Booting Practices in the City of Logan.” According to the complaint report, Millet and Daines contest the amending ordinance as unlawful and a violation of student civil rights.
The complaint against the city ordinance is the practice of booting can be classified as either “private profit booting” or “police directed booting”, according to the complaint report, with the latter referring to booting that occurs when police order the booting after the individual has five or more unpaid parking tickets.
The two classifications of booting violates due process, according to the issued complaint report, because the seizure of vehicles by booting is taking the individuals property where a procedural due process notice and hearing must be provided.
The legalization of private property owners and their private booters violates due process, the report said. According to the complaint report, the private profit booting “part of the ordinance is a total “surrender” or ‘abdication” of the City’s control over its police power…”
According to the complaint report, “The seizure decision is made by a specially business-licensed, profit-seeking, booter, from who’s profit-motivated decision the victim is provided no hearing or remedy.”
According to the complaint report, there are numerous reasons why the ordinance is in violation of student civil rights, one being the ordinance is “based on the false premise that a property owner has a right to a self help remedy for every trespassing or illegal vehicle on his premises…”
In the Logan Municipal Council minutes, the construction of the amendment to the ordinance included notification regulations about the booting policy, “parking enforcement shall post a conspicuous sign on the landlord’s property.” However, the complaint report indicates this requirement remains vague about where the signs should be located to properly notify individuals.
The complaint report states the Logan Municipal Council considered the issue of booting because of “please and complaints to the Council, police agencies, and the City and County Attorney’s offices from Utah State University students seeking relief and protection from abusive, unfair and illegal practices of booters who were booting under the pretext of the landlords’ claims to a common-law self-help remedy for parking violations.”
The case was filed in Federal Court, Millet said, because the goal is to have the ordinance either stricken or rewritten.
“I’m hoping that the city of Logan will see the flaws in their ordinance and make it fair toward students,” Millet said. “As is, I feel the ordinance is unfavorable for students.”
The subpoenas have been sent out, Millet said, and the booters will find out early this week.
-kcashton@cc.usu.edu