not the purpose of the california legislature in acting vehicle code section twenty two sixty eight it's total and section and all of that statutory scheme in particular whether it was public safety was what they were trying to legislate if so then the challenge statutory scheme falls within the broad safety exemption that the f a a th extensively i want to highlight three of them but before even i do that i want to touch upon one of the issues that were raised in that was raised in the previous argument and that is this whole consequence trucked of their right of private towing parties to essentially calls from private property as as justice clifton brought up i think it's important to stress that without the existence of this statutory middle of the day but without their presence and without the specific authorization of the property owner saying this particular vehicle i want to be towed instead of some blanket contract in which you say you may come on and seize any vehicle any time that you the tone company find to be somehow in violation of the parking scheme that we have here and it's not only illegally parked for the vehicles for me ok suppose because there's not a question in this case is whether the landlord objects to the towing whether the landlord wants to permit the tow and we've got to make this brief property managers like the idea because they don't want to get up at two am to have to walk out parking lot the tollway the parked if we're not only talking about ones that are blocking fire lanes or that are parked out in the middle there's all kinds of circumstances in which a car may be parked in a proper space without a proper permit that is there with the permission of the owner of that space as you pointed out who gave that particular person permission to park there whether they be an overnight guest whether they be a family member who may be parking there for that that the person who normally would park in moved his or her car to accommodate the person be it you know chivalry you know or you know the because the person was elderly whatever reason it could be that the person's it's the person's own space and his car for instance is being kept overnight  let me shift you back to the focus of this man think the issues raised in the other case are really purely different from the issues here and what you need to do here is attach the code section at issue here with the safety three specific things i want to call the court's attention to in addition to all the issues that are brief the first is that after this trial on august ninth two thousand and three with an eye specifically on this issue and on this court's earlier that the legislature that the regime used in the history of the it says in its description this bill would provide that it is the intent of the legislature that certain statutory provisions relating to the towing of vehicles further and promote the safety and welfare of the public they go running to specific justification for and to which is the section that relates to l one which is this the th vehicle from the property thereby promoting the safety of those persons involved in the removal of the vehicle in addition blah blah blah this will assist the courts in any subsequent litigation in this question and it is intended to enhance the position and legal standing of the state of california this was an effort to clarify what the legislative intent was and let's not forget that it was the question of legislative intent and not statutory interpretation that was at issue in front of judge groups during a district court judge just intent the phrase used by the supreme court was genuinely responsive to safety concerns i infer from that it's not simply a matter of the legislature why is the window dressing and saying we have safety concerns here genuinely suggest that there's got to be a bonafide a connection between what they're doing and in this case the safety concerns yes and there was at the beginning there it is i think inherent in all of the provisions that are that are provided for it was argued certainly in the evidence that was put in front of the in front of judge brewster at the trial but the argument is that if this had been present at the time then the the entire investigation as to what how it was our it wasn't and it would not have had to have occurred at that time it  was it's not like they're putting a window dressing on something calling it public safety when it clearly has no relationship to it the legislature has the right to say we didn't need intended this to be our purpose when we first then acted the statute there has clearly been misunderstanding about it because we see that the night circuits come down one way our own court of appeals has come down another there's been two district court cases that seem to us to look to us for clarification we are seeking to add clarification to it and therefore by quoting this on this on what was already clearly an integral part of the entire structure th the the legislature is not doing what the supreme court said one could do which is put simple window dressing on it they are trying to instruct the courts that lest there be any misinterpretation about what we're trying to accomplish here this is what we're trying to accomplish and as i and to call your attention back to what we argued before without this entire structure which do you have tele chose to ignore and decided that they could honor a contract to try to circumvent th section that that without this action there would be no right to tell you these vehicles at all and therefore by insisting that we have these no these provisions that we have someone present to to provide some kind of disputes between the person whose car is being towed and the person seeking to tow it we are attempting to provide for the general welfare and protect the safety of everybody involved those who are towing those who you know have to defend later at the impound yard the security guard who did you know there's all kind i mean the mind focus more sharply and i'm not sure in the state of nature what you say is true that you need affirmative authorization from the legislature to tow because in this case the vehicles being towed from private property recently without authorization could be there but again i think it's a softening on the wrong track we need to make the connection here between what the code does and safety and judge grew spirit least so that you couldn't find that connection but the extrinsic evidence didn't support the proposition there was a direct safety benefit now i think that's that's something you need to focus on where's the safety coming out of this the safety is coming out of it for several things one that it by having specific authorization and as the statutes suggest hopefully having someone in the security position there at the time that the to was being made there is it decreases the chance that the vehicle owner goes one on one with the with the tow truck operator and fights to keep his vehicle they are instead of in the telly are that's number one the code doesn't require the argument secondly there might be a specific you know just a safety because there's just there's a specific intervention of somebody who can't who knows this particular tenant or renter and this particular vehicle and who's there to say look is proper for the state to impose when general public safety is one of the things that they're trying to legislate and that's what the legislature is whether there is an adequate safety  there were there were several other nexuses that are not signed that were that were argued one was that one of this of the parts of the statute requires prior notification to the police this is in an effort to avoid the police dedication of resources to determining that a car that was towed was not in fact stolen thus if you notify the police and an hour before as was required we're going to tell this car then they have it they have the license plate written down so that when the person comes down the next morning and finds lo and behold their car which they thought was properly part is missing their first assumption is it's going to be that it was  because the police are then not devoting resources to tracking a stolen vehicle report when they can say no we have a record of that it was towed you can resource argument as opposed to the police resources are problem that they were going to off and impound yards to intervene but you know and defuse violent situations between people who were going there to claim their cars and the impound clerks because they felt because these people felt that they were improperly told that they were told without notice and that the police were having to devote resources to this problem that they couldn't they couldn't the safety answers that the car owner goes out to the important impound yard and comes to blows with away at any point was prevent was crimping their ability to do other things that they wished to be doing with their resources rather than then yes but even if it the is the thing that the preamp's the congress was attempting to prevent the states from from doing you may argue that it's that it's in a not be safety or it may not be consumer protection which i think is it is a part of public safety but it is certainly but they said that the traditional and strong deference that that if the federal government shows to local governments and state governments when it comes to policing their neighborhoods to deciding where they want to devote their resources is something that a circuit citing the city of columbus found in the operators of kansas city missouri that there was a safety factor to be the local ordinance more importantly the eleventh circuit in the lactic tolling versus cit to determine not only the the legislative intent but that the meaning of california law is that a california court of appeals in in a published decision as it did in surviving taste or is it a federal district court sitting in california question of of the interpretation of the california statute that is a question of federal law as set forth and the supreme court's our garage decision and so although i understand the argument that says we look the california courts into reality or new law that we look to the federal courts to decide whether or not it satisfies a federal law standard agreed your honor but the federal court in the in the legislation in the supreme court in hours garage s specifically that they're not going to put a narrow prism on looking at the local on the local safety ordinances and here we have a california court saying we find this to be within within the safety ordinance exemption and we have the california legislature itself reiterating that it is trying to to put it clearly within that and it's not that far reach for them to do that it's clearly a safety consumer protection argument that they're trying to keep it there so we respectfully ask that statute in this particular issue to begin with i have to take exception to my esteemed opponents representation that cooperators are quote willy nilly towing cars from apartment complex's that's not the facts of this case that's not the facts of the situation at all the companies that are particularly this towing company in the scheme of towing in general is subject to clear authorization in guidelines from property owners and they have directives specifically telling the towing companies when a vehicle is on authorized how it the distinction here is not no authorization for this authorization no authorization there's already law for that's called criminal it's not that they don't have authorization the distinction in this case is that they have written authorization instead of on site written authorization and the prior written authorization gives them specific guidelines that tells them when a car needs to be towed they don't have a lot of discretion when they're operating pursuant to these guidelines and these written authorization it's the difference if you will between my wife calling me at my office and saying bring home a bottle of two percent milk and whole wheat bread and pick it up at the store on the way home i think i can follow those directions i think i can do that as opposed to her having to come down to my office with a written note and hand it to me in person that says pick up milk and bread at the store on the way home i have authorization i have some guidelines to  it's just that she doesn't hand them to me that's in simple terms what's going on here the talkers have a specific written offer is ation they know exactly what they're supposed to be doing in these cases and they're doing it so part of th case what about the safety issue that seems to be at the core of whether or not this think the issues that have been brought up by the studio i think are largely red herring prevents towing prevents involuntary tone well first of all it doesn't it just delays it it makes it more complicated the toes still going to be made it doesn't prevent towing it just complicates it it delays it it makes it more expensive it makes it more cumbersome but it's not going to prevent involuntary tolling there are things going to prevent involuntary toni's people not parking we're not supposed to park that's what prevents involuntary tolling it's rampant in san diego county where people are parking where they're not supposed to park there are signs castle talks about due process but due process in this case of course i use that term loosely because obviously this is not the one nine hundred eighty three case but there are signs and in every  of complex large signs that are set forth by statute as to the content of the size to the location if they don't park here people willingly and knowingly avoid and ignore those signs constantly these folks want to be in business if don't prevent that's one of their safety arguments the other argument they made and i don't quite understand is that expedites the recovery of vehicles after they've been towed that's nonsensical it's over that point the written authorization doesn't have anything to do with  they say it prevents mistakes leave something there is that the property owner is not going to make a mistake they make mistakes all the time that something is that the top writer might make a mistake but that the property owner will somebody has been told they can park over there doesn't bother to tell the telling company or using the space over there now telling company don't know any better so that making a mistake is the property managers mistake but because he's not contacted nobody on the scene knows it mistake it's easily remedied you call the towing company they bring the car back there's no there's no dangerous even if there's a mistake making a very dangerous for no safety concerns raised by a mistake and i understand the argument to be that the risk of confrontation when the property managers who don't want to have to get up at two am to deal with it and the people that are parking in different places but what we're focused on here is the instruction from the supreme court that unless it's genuinely responsive to safety concerns it's a confrontation between a vehicle owner and  it's usually verbal it's a verbal confrontation people say hey that's my car it's whatever there was no evidence of any fish the cuff there's no evidence of any any violence at all it was verbal i'm sorry fas well perhaps the most telling evidence in the case was was the fact that the city has some statistics about calls that they had received of altercations or harlow's relating to a toe and and again none of them represented any violence none of them represent any safety concerns they were people who don't want their cartel to call the police they don't know what else to do they just don't want their cars no evidence of any now the judge entered a temporary restraining order in this case and joining the city from enforcing this on site authorization law so only after the  of the temporary restraining order the call for police service actually decreased the calls for towing for for the police assistance at the scene of a tow decreased its rooster rightfully so found that in fact the facts of the case showed that requiring a third party on the scene actually escalated confrontation and again i use the word confrontation that's not to suggest that a confrontation necessarily infers a safety problem i could say i'm having a confrontation with my posing council today but i don't feel i'm in any danger we're having a confrontation but that doesn't pose a safety concern there's no safety concern here and it's the same with towing the fact that there's a confrontation does not mean that there's any safety concerns there's no genuine safety concern that's what the supreme court said and after a full bench trial that's what judge brewster found was there any evidence i t's always hard sometimes people say it's hard to prove a negative and i feel difficulty to prove that there could never be a confrontation so i'm putting aside the burden of putting this evidence in the record is there any evidence in the record from the trial that car owners were getting in fights with tow truck fights i don't i don't recall but even if there was let's assume for purposes of let's say that there was evidence of a fight the point is that a real point is those the requirement of having somebody there to sign a toe to prevent that some of the most telling t was for mr mr tilson he said i don't care if you have ten people on scene signing written authorizations if the vehicle owner wants to be confrontational he's going to be confrontational the signing requirement doesn't change that  i think it does because it because the on site requirement that the on site there are harm of having somebody on site doesn't affect safety your argument is even if there are confrontation or the legislature  responsive to the safety concerns now i think thanking judge brewster agreed that the correct interpretation is that it's a factual determination that's what that's what he decided i think it's correct that is a factual determination served and and maybe the thing to do in this case now is to follow action from the clerk for judgment in sacramento to have state wide application obviously this case only has has application in san diego county because there was an know only as to this is an injunction this is a permanent injunction against the city of san diego and i believe that affirming judge brewster's decision i don't believe that it's the effect of our decision as opposed to you would only say i grew i mean i think that's the practical effect if you will i was answering as a from a little i don't know that that concerns i guess if it is then they be that's the at the end of the challenge to it but if it's not then the challenge is good because it's pretty  it has no it's not genuinely responsive to safety concerns and that's our position think it's neither party at one point presented additional evidence you know concerning the i guess the event the safety issues