In case of RCC Wesley Chapel Crossing, LLC et al. v. Forrest Allen et al., the Georgia Supreme Court considered whether there is a common law right to permit a private property owner to boot a vehicle parked on his property without a permit. Booting is the practice of immobilizing a vehicle until the owner pays to have the immobilizer removed.
The plaintiff sued the owner-operator of a parking lot and the commercial tenants of the attached mall for negligence, property liability, false imprisonment, conversion and violation of the Georgia Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). The lawsuit alleged that after the plaintiff parked in the mall parking lot, his vehicle was immobilized by the placement of a boot on one of his vehicle’s tires and that he had to pay $650 to have the boot removed .
Defendants argued that common law – the body of law derived from court decisions and not statutes – allows private property owners to immobilize vehicles entering their property. They contended that the common law right to remove unauthorized property includes a right to immobilize unauthorized vehicles.
Defendants also alleged that the hundreds of years old common law doctrine of “distress damage feasant” allows homeowners to engage in self-help to seize another person’s property if it is wrongfully on their land located. The distress damage doctrine recognizes a landowner’s right to seize unauthorized livestock that wander onto his land and cause actual damage, and to keep it as security until the owner of the animal is identified and compensates the landowner for his damage.
The Georgia Supreme Court unanimously rejected these arguments flatly. It held that neither the right to remove unauthorized property nor the distress damage doctrine supported the defendants’ practice of vehicle boating.
The court held that the act of immobilizing an unauthorized vehicle is in sharp contrast to the common law power to remove unauthorized property from a property, since immobilizing property perpetuates trespassing. In addition, the Court noted that this common law remedy has been partially superseded by the Towing Law of Georgia, which provides specific guidelines for vehicle removal and impounding, but says nothing about car booting. See OCGA § 44-1-13.
The court ruled that the doctrine of distress at sea was not applicable to the present case. Defendants did not cite authority when a court applied the emergency damage doctrine to anything other than livestock, or when a court ruled that a landowner has a general right to seize and hold a tangible property, such as a vehicle, whose owner is easily seized determine is. In fact, the court concluded that there is no statutory authority that recognizes a general right to immobilize unauthorized vehicles located on private property and hold them against the will of the owner until payment is received. The court further found that even if emergency damages were sought to allow the vehicle immobilization practice in question, the defendants’ suit would fail because the doctrine requires trespassing and proof of actual damage, and the records do not show any damage suffered by the defendants .
In order for booting to be allowed on private property in Georgia, there must be a law or regulation permitting it. In fact, the Trial Court and the Georgia Court of Appeals held below that there is no right to immobilize a vehicle where there are no enabling laws or regulations. Some municipalities in Georgia have ordinances that specifically allow booting by unauthorized vehicles, but that was not the case in this case. And, as mentioned above, although Georgian law allows unauthorized vehicles to be towed and impounded in certain circumstances, that was not what the defendants did here.
