St. Louis must pay for violating due process in towed vehicle case

Both the City of St. Louis and a woman who sued the municipality for the seizure of her truck saw their appeals fail in front of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit.

The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department entered a wanted report for plaintiff Mary Meier’s Ford truck in 2015 following a hit-and-run. Meier and her son, Ben, would use the truck for their business.

Several months later, a Maryland Heights police officer saw the truck and called Doc’s Towing to take the vehicle away, telling the towing driver that the truck should stay in Doc’s Towing’s possession until the SLMPD authorized its release. The officer arrested the vehicle’s occupants – Ben and a woman – for an unrelated matter.

Meier went to Doc’s Towing the next day to retrieve the truck but was told the city still had a hold on the vehicle. She then called the business for updates every day for a week. She never received notice from the city that it was detaining her truck.

About a week later, Meier’s son contacted the SLMPD and was told that to get the truck released, he would have to come to the station “to answer questions relative to the accident.”

Meier hired a lawyer to help retrieve the truck. After the lawyer, Jeffrey Rath, had called and left several messages for the SLMPD, he went to the station and spoke with a detective, explaining that Ben could not meet with police about the hit-and-run because he was in custody. The detective then gave Rath a release order to notify Doc’s towing that the vehicle was no longer wanted, and the business released the truck on April 29, 2016, billing Meier for the one-and-a-half-month storage of the truck.

Meier then sued the city and Doc’s Towing for violating her rights against unreasonable seizure and due process under the United States Constitution’s Fourth Amendment and 14th Amendment, respectively. She claimed the city had a custom of reporting vehicles “wanted” in order to detain them without a warrant or proper notice or process. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri granted summary judgment for the defendants, but the 8th Circuit reversed on the first appeal, concluding that Meier had sufficient evidence to establish the defendants’ liability on both claims.

On remand, Meier settled with Doc’s Towing while she went to trial with the city. On the claim of unreasonable seizure, the district court granted the city’s motion for judgment as a matter of law. But a jury returned a verdict for Meier on her due process claim, awarding her $7,500 in damages. The district court partially granted the city’s motion seeking a set-off of the award based on the settlement money Meier received from Doc’s Towing, allowing a set-off of $2,000. The district court denied the city’s post-trial motion for judgment as a matter of law.

The city appealed that denial and the set-off amount, while Meier appealed the judgment as a matter of law on her claim of unreasonable seizure.

The city disputed that Doc’s Towing’s retention of the truck was fairly attributable to the city, as is necessary for the 14th Amendment to come into play in this case. However, the 8^th Circuit found that a reasonable jury could have determined there was a close nexus between the city and the alleged due process violation. Among its cited reasons, an SLMPD captain said in a deposition that a wanted report on a vehicle is equivalent to a request to detain the vehicle for the SLMPD.

The 8^th Circuit also noted that, despite the city’s claims to the contrary, there is evidence that the officers routinely enter wanted reports for vehicles to detain them and then have drivers appear at the police station for an “investigative procedure” before their vehicles are released. Therefore, a reasonable jury could infer that the SLMPD uses a custom that provides no way for owners to retrieve their vehicles other than by submitting to the department’s demands, violating owners’ rights to an opportunity to be heard in a meaningful manner.

On the city’s appeal concerning the set-off amount, the 8^th Circuit held that the district court correctly granted a set-off of $2,000, because Meier could not receive combined compensatory damage awards for more than $7,500, and her settlement with Doc’s Towing had included $2,000 in damages. Therefore, the district court correctly allowed the city to pay $5,500 instead of $7,500. The 8^th Circuit also rejected the suggestion that the city was entitled to a set-off of the sum Doc’s Towing paid to Meier for attorney fees.

Meier’s argument that the district court erred in granting judgment as a matter of law on her unreasonable seizure claim was also unsuccessful at the 8^th Circuit, which would not remand this claim for further consideration because it sought compensation for the same injury as did the due process claim.

The district court’s rulings were unanimously affirmed by Judge Lavenski R. Smith, Judge Morris S. Arnold and Judge Jane Kelly.

The city’s attorney, Brandon Laird of the St. Louis City Counselor’s Office, and Meier’s attorney, Gregory Fenlon of Saint Louis Lawyers Group, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The case is Meier v. City of St. Louis, 22-2206 and 22-2332