I'll appeal this ticket all the way to the Supreme Court!: The US Supreme Court has lots of important issues to squeeze into its tiny docket (less than half than it used to be in the 1980s), but it managed to fit a case summarized by the dissent below as "whether the city must provide a hearing within 48 hours to contest a $134.50 fine." As noted by the majority opinion below in its deserved to be read in full statement of facts, Edwin David "expected to get back fairly quickly, but, as it turned out, he did not return to the place where he expected to find his car until 3:15 p.m. Alas, his car was not there." It was towed, he recovered the car after paying the required fee, but argued the city of Los Angeles violated his due process rights protected by the Fourteenth Amendment by failing to provide a sufficiently prompt hearing.

"In David’s eyes, the towing and storage of his automobile were directed by one of the City’s myrmidons, and any decent public servant would have been more kindly." Besides, his constitutional rights were violated. The appellate court agreed (though they rejected most of his arguments), showing off its vocabulary by saying: "We are somewhat puzzled that twenty-five years after we pointed out the impropriety of undue delay, the problem is recrudescent." In fact, as the dissent (via an opinion basically shared by the Supremes, who summarily overturned the lower court without holding oral argument via a per curiam opinion) noted, the caselaw really concerns seizures of cars, not money ... David got his car back right away, it was his $134 that he was annoyed about, $134 that he was quite able to pay. And, past precedents allowed a similiar delay when a lot more was at stake. So, even if one read appellate precedent broadly, their ruling appears to be wrongly decided.

All the same, why take the case? Various reasons, not necessary in this order: (1) The Supreme Court doesn't much care for the Ninth Circuit ... overturning a disproportionate number of its decisions (2) It felt the case was an abuse of the federal courts, wasting its time for such a trivial claim, so a precedent had to be set, and (3) It's an amusing little trifle. I'm inclined to agree with the second and third reasons ... waiting less than a month for a hearing to challenge a towing fee (a fee one could afford) in the city of Los Angeles is not really a matter of federal constitutional moment. Yes, if the car was impounded, such a delay would be a serious matter. If the person did not have the funds, it would also be a closer case. But that was not the case here. All the same, I would note that at least the dissent below made these distinctions. The Supreme Court was blithely dismissive, reaffirming a case in which a thirty to ninety day delay after a loss of a job was uphold. So, the case of City of Los Angeles v David did not just overturn an apparently clear case of overreaching, but did so in an abrupt open-ended matter that covered cases much worse than this one. Cases much more serious than this amusing little trifle.