Federal judge orders car returned to homeless man struggling to pay parking tickets

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:

A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the city of San Francisco to return a towed car to a homeless man who couldnt 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. Constitutions Fourth Amendment guarantee against unreasonable searches and seizures.

White wrote that in a situation in which a car owner cant afford to pay overdue parking tickets, it is not clearthat 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.

Kayodes 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.