I hate free street parking but this is so bizarre and unfair that I actually feel sympathy for the parkers.
It is amazing how much land is taken over for the parking of private vehicles.
No post body was provided.
Philly pays $30K to two 'courtesy' tow victims, but class-action suit continues
61–70 of 142 posts
Re: Philly pays $30K to two 'courtesy' tow victims, but class-action suit continues
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
> _is_ this theft? If not, why? No, the asset is being moved, not retained by the mover, and it's ostensibly being done for the public good (edit: see the link further down the thread for why this matters). If _eminent domain_ isn't theft, this definitely isn't. > Does it matter if it's done by a private towing company? Not if they're deputized.
> No, the asset is being moved, not retained by the mover I don't get this argument. If I take something which doesn't belong to me, say from a store, and move it two blocks away and put it down, I would still be stealing right? Is the perpetrator required to 'retain' something for it to be theft? If I'm caught while stealing and drop the item, "I just moved it without the owners consent" probably isn't going to cove…
I think a better example than eminent domain would be civil asset forfeiture (at least as practiced in the US). Although I guess a lot of people would say that is theft.
Re: Philly pays $30K to two 'courtesy' tow victims, but class-action suit continues
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
> No, the asset is being moved, not retained by the mover I don't get this argument. If I take something which doesn't belong to me, say from a store, and move it two blocks away and put it down, I would still be stealing right? Is the perpetrator required to 'retain' something for it to be theft? If I'm caught while stealing and drop the item, "I just moved it without the owners consent" probably isn't going to cove…
> If I take something which doesn't belong to me, say from a store, and move it two blocks away and put it down, I would still be stealing right? No, not if you don’t intend to deprive the rightful owner of it (although good luck convincing anyone that you lacked such intent). https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/theft > Theft is the taking of another person’s personal property with the intent of depriving that person of…
Thank you for highlighting the key distinction and referencing a source with more information.
> although good luck convincing anyone that you lacked such intent
So it sounds like in the courtesy towing context, the city claims that it doesn't have any intent to deprive people of the use of their property, but it's behaving in a way which a reasonable person would totally anticipate would lead to people being unable to use their property (by dropping vehicles in locations which are never communicated to the owner).
Re: Philly pays $30K to two 'courtesy' tow victims, but class-action suit continues
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think I’ve seen this kind of farce happen often enough in sitcoms. Odd Couple “My Strife In Court”, Seinfeld “The Parking Garage”, The Golden Girls “Ladies of the Evening”. People are always getting arrested in sitcoms for dumb reasons.
This also happens in the opening of “Brazil” which is a dystopian nightmare with a small amount of humor and plenty of farce. “Oops the dystopian government black bagged the wrong person because of a typo. So sorry! Here’s a check for the inconvenience.”
The scene with the widow asking about her husband's body is foundational in my distrust and hatred of bureaucracy.
Re: Philly pays $30K to two 'courtesy' tow victims, but class-action suit continues
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
> _is_ this theft? If not, why? No, the asset is being moved, not retained by the mover, and it's ostensibly being done for the public good (edit: see the link further down the thread for why this matters). If _eminent domain_ isn't theft, this definitely isn't. > Does it matter if it's done by a private towing company? Not if they're deputized.
> No, the asset is being moved, not retained by the mover I don't get this argument. If I take something which doesn't belong to me, say from a store, and move it two blocks away and put it down, I would still be stealing right? Is the perpetrator required to 'retain' something for it to be theft? If I'm caught while stealing and drop the item, "I just moved it without the owners consent" probably isn't going to cove…
IANAL and haven't read the laws of Philly but it seems pretty obvious that moving your property off a public street is not considered theft.
Re: Philly pays $30K to two 'courtesy' tow victims, but class-action suit continues
#66The article mentions two women who had each reported their cars stolen after the "courtesy" tow which makes one wonder -- _is_ this theft? If not, why? Does it matter if it's done by a private towing company?
Here in Sweden it would have been a theft-adjacent crime which is translated into English as 'criminal conversion', and it seems that criminal conversion fits.
A crime where someone does something to somebody's property without intending to actually take the property, or not to take it permanently.
Not being familiar with this jurisdiction I can't say whether that's the actual law though. Depending on how it's defined it could easily be theft.
Re: Philly pays $30K to two 'courtesy' tow victims, but class-action suit continues
#67The article mentions two women who had each reported their cars stolen after the "courtesy" tow which makes one wonder -- _is_ this theft? If not, why? Does it matter if it's done by a private towing company?
Morally, yes it's theft. Legally, probably not.
Re: Philly pays $30K to two 'courtesy' tow victims, but class-action suit continues
#68A similar thing happened to my wife and me during a vacation. We had reserved a car via Enterprise Car Share (like Zipcar). When we arrived to the designated car share space, the car was missing. We called Enterprise who said the car had been properly returned by the previous customer days before, so it should be there. They paid for us to get an Uber to another available car, so we were only delayed and hour or so.…
It's good if they can't restrict activating GPS because of customer privacy issues but I would think the time between one customer returning it and the next customer picking it up ought to be fair game?
That would be the case if you thought it all the way through and the manager had discretion, but what probably happened was that the company had a blanket policy of "no activating GPS trackers without director approval" that prevented that from occurring.
Re: Philly pays $30K to two 'courtesy' tow victims, but class-action suit continues
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If I take something which doesn't belong to me, say from a store, and move it two blocks away and put it down, I would still be stealing right? No, not if you don’t intend to deprive the rightful owner of it (although good luck convincing anyone that you lacked such intent). https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/theft > Theft is the taking of another person’s personal property with the intent of depriving that person of…
Thank you for highlighting the key distinction and referencing a source with more information. > although good luck convincing anyone that you lacked such intent So it sounds like in the courtesy towing context, the city claims that it doesn't have any intent to deprive people of the use of their property, but it's behaving in a way which a reasonable person would totally anticipate would lead to people being unable…
Temporarily depriving somebody of their property counts, these towings are clearly theft.
The actually interesting legal question revolves around who (if anybody) is liable in this situation.
Re: Philly pays $30K to two 'courtesy' tow victims, but class-action suit continues
#70> That’s the Philly euphemism for what is formally known as “relocation towing” — when the police department, Philadelphia Parking Authority, or a private towing company moves vehicles from legal parking spots for special events, construction or emergencies. I can see needing to move a vehicle in an emergency, but for special events and construction this shouldn't be needed in most cases. The city knows months in adv…
> They should plaster the neighborhood in warning notices a month before the event
I grew up in Seattle but lived in Philly for 2 years and this was one of the strangest things to me. In many cases they don't post _any notices at all._
I knew enough people who got "courtesy" towed with no records that I added a GPS tracker to our car to make sure I could find it.
See also: https://www.inquirer.com/news/courtesy-towing-south-philly-p... https://www.inquirer.com/news/towing-philadelphia-parking-au...