Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-23-35235/USCOURTS-ca9-23-35235-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
City of Portland
Appellee
Andrew Grimm
Appellant

Document Text:

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

ANDREW GRIMM, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

 v. 

CITY OF PORTLAND, 

Defendant-Appellee.

No. 23-35235 

D.C. No. 3:18-cv00183-MO 

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Oregon

Michael W. Mosman, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted October 21, 2024

Portland, Oregon

Filed January 3, 2025

Before: David F. Hamilton,* Lawrence VanDyke, and 

Holly A. Thomas, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge H.A. Thomas

* The Honorable David F. Hamilton, United States Circuit Judge for the 

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, sitting by designation.

Case: 23-35235, 01/03/2025, ID: 12918277, DktEntry: 59-1, Page 1 of 15
2 GRIMM V. CITY OF PORTLAND

SUMMARY**

Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause/Vehicular 

Tows

The panel affirmed the district court’s grant of summary 

judgment for the City of Portland in an action brought by 

Andrew Grimm alleging that the City’s procedures for 

notifying him that his car would be towed were deficient 

under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.

Grimm parked a car on the side of a downtown street, 

paid for an hour and 19 minutes of parking through a mobile 

app, and then left the car on the street for seven days. During 

that time, City parking enforcement officers issued multiple 

parking citations, which they placed on the car’s windshield. 

After the car sat on the street for five days, a parking 

enforcement officer added a red slip warning that the car 

would be towed. Grimm did not move the car, and, two days 

after the warning slip was placed on the windshield, the car 

was towed. 

The panel held that the City conformed with the 

requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment by providing 

notice reasonably calculated to alert Grimm of the 

impending tow. The warning slip placed on the car’s 

windshield five days after Grimm had parked the car and two 

days before the car was towed, which explicitly stated that 

the car would be towed if it were not moved, was reasonably 

calculated to inform Grimm of the impending tow.

** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has 

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

Case: 23-35235, 01/03/2025, ID: 12918277, DktEntry: 59-1, Page 2 of 15
GRIMM V. CITY OF PORTLAND 3

The panel further held that Grimm’s failure to remove 

the citations and warning slip from the windshield did not 

provide the City with actual knowledge that its attempt to 

provide notice had failed.

COUNSEL

Gregory W. Keenan (argued), Digital Justice Foundation, 

Floral Park, New York, Plaintiff-Appellant.

Elsa C. W. Haag (argued), Assistant Deputy City Attorney; 

Denis M. Vannier, Deputy City Attorney; Portland Office of 

the City Attorney, Portland, Oregon; for DefendantAppellee.

OPINION

H.A. THOMAS, Circuit Judge:

Andrew Grimm parked a car on the side of a downtown 

street in the City of Portland, Oregon, paid for an hour and 

19 minutes of parking through a mobile app, and then left 

the car on the street for seven days. During that time, City 

parking enforcement officers issued multiple parking 

citations, which they placed on the car’s windshield. After 

the car had sat on the street for five days, a parking

enforcement officer added to this growing pile a slip warning 

that the car would be towed. Grimm did not move the car, 

and, two days after the warning slip was placed on the 

windshield, the car was towed.

Case: 23-35235, 01/03/2025, ID: 12918277, DktEntry: 59-1, Page 3 of 15
4 GRIMM V. CITY OF PORTLAND

Grimm sued the City, alleging that its procedures for 

notifying him that his car would be towed were deficient 

under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. 

The district court granted summary judgment to the City. 

The district court explained that, although Grimm’s failure 

to remove the citations from the windshield might have 

alerted the City that its attempt to provide notice had failed, 

no other form of notice was practicable under the 

circumstances.

We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We hold 

that the City conformed with the requirements of the 

Fourteenth Amendment by providing notice reasonably 

calculated to alert Grimm of the impending tow. We further 

hold that Grimm’s failure to remove the citations and 

warning slip from the windshield did not provide the City 

with actual knowledge that its attempt to provide notice had 

failed. We therefore affirm the district court’s grant of 

summary judgment.

I.

A.

Like many municipalities, the City of Portland offers

people the option to electronically pay for parking through a 

mobile app. In Portland, people may pay for parking using 

Parking Kitty, an app created and operated by Passport 

Parking, Inc. (“Passport”). Users of Parking Kitty must 

provide a phone number to register with the app. To pay for 

parking, users must input a credit card number and the

license plate number of the car they wish to park. Users can 

also provide their email address to the app if they wish to 

receive receipts by email. Parking Kitty sends users a 

notification shortly before a parking session expires, and 

another notification when the session has expired. Passport 

Case: 23-35235, 01/03/2025, ID: 12918277, DktEntry: 59-1, Page 4 of 15
GRIMM V. CITY OF PORTLAND 5

is a private entity, and the City cannot send notifications 

regarding citations or towing through Parking Kitty. Nor 

does Passport regularly share users’ contact information 

with the City.

On October 25, 2017, Andrew Grimm registered as a 

user of Parking Kitty. He entered into the app his phone 

number, email address, credit card information, and the 

California license plate number for a Honda Accord. Just 

under two months later, on December 14, 2017, Grimm 

parked the Accord on the side of a street in downtown 

Portland. Using the Parking Kitty app, Grimm paid to use 

the parking spot from 5:41 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Grimm received 

notifications from Parking Kitty when his parking session 

was about to expire and when it expired. Grimm did not pay 

to extend his parking time or initiate a new parking session.

Nor did he move the car.

At the time Grimm parked the car on December 14, the

vehicle registration for the Accord was up to date, but the 

registration tags on the car were only valid through June 

2017.1 On December 15, a City parking enforcement officer 

issued two citations and placed them on the car’s windshield: 

one for being unlawfully parked in a meter zone without 

proof of payment, and another for failing to display current 

registration tags. On December 18, a parking enforcement 

officer issued two more citations for the same offenses and 

placed them on top of the December 15 citations.

On December 19, a parking enforcement officer issued 

yet another citation for parking unlawfully and placed it on 

top of the other citations. This time, the officer also placed 

1 The registration for the car listed Grimm’s father, Fredrick, as the 

registered owner and “Imperial ECU” as a lienholder.

Case: 23-35235, 01/03/2025, ID: 12918277, DktEntry: 59-1, Page 5 of 15
6 GRIMM V. CITY OF PORTLAND

on the car a red slip warning that the car would be towed. 

The warning slip displayed the word “WARNING” in large 

print on one side and included on the other side the following 

sentence: “Your vehicle will be subject to tow/citation if it is 

not moved.” The officer circled the words “tow/citation” and 

underlined the word “tow.”

On December 21, seven days after Grimm had parked 

the car, a parking enforcement officer issued a final citation 

for parking unlawfully and placed it on top of the other 

citations. The cherry on top of this pile was another red slip, 

this time displaying the word “TOW” in large print on one 

side, and an order to tow the car on the other. After placing 

the red tow slip, the officer contacted Retriever Towing, 

which towed the car. The City then mailed a tow notice and 

information about how to retrieve the car to the addresses

listed on the car’s registration. The City did not otherwise 

attempt to contact Grimm.

Grimm did not return to the car before it was towed and 

did not see the citations, the warning slip, or the tow slip. He

picked up the car from Retriever Towing on December 30, 

paying $514 to do so.

B.

On January 26, 2018, Grimm filed a complaint in the 

district court, alleging that the City, two parking 

enforcement officers, and Retriever Towing violated his 

rights under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process 

Clause. The district court granted Retriever Towing’s 

motion to dismiss, and Grimm conceded that the parking 

enforcement officers were entitled to qualified immunity, 

leaving only the City as a defendant. The City then filed a 

motion for summary judgment, which the district court 

granted in July 2018. The district court applied the threeCase: 23-35235, 01/03/2025, ID: 12918277, DktEntry: 59-1, Page 6 of 15
GRIMM V. CITY OF PORTLAND 7

factor balancing test set forth in Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 

U.S. 319 (1976), to hold that the City’s procedures for 

notifying Grimm about the tow were reasonable.

In a 2020 decision, we reversed the district court’s 

judgment, holding that the district court had applied the 

wrong legal standard. Grimm v. City of Portland (Grimm I), 

971 F.3d 1060, 1065–68 (9th Cir. 2020). We first determined 

that “some individualized form of pre-towing notice was 

required before Portland could tow Grimm’s car.” Id. at 

1064. We explained that the case did not involve an 

exigency, such as a car parked in the path of traffic, that 

could justify towing the car without any advance notice. Id.

We then concluded that the district court had incorrectly 

relied on the Mathews balancing test to determine the 

adequacy of the City’s pre-tow notice. Id. at 1065. We held 

that the appropriate test was that set forth in Mullane v. 

Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U.S. 306 (1950), 

which requires “notice reasonably calculated, under all the 

circumstances, to apprise interested parties of the pendency 

of the action and afford them an opportunity to present their 

objections.” Grimm I, 971 F.3d at 1065 (quoting Mullane, 

339 U.S. at 314). We emphasized that the distinction 

between these standards could be dispositive because, in 

Jones v. Flowers, 547 U.S. 220 (2006), the Supreme Court 

had explained that applying the Mullane standard sometimes 

requires governments to undertake additional attempts at 

notice when they become aware that their previous attempts 

have failed. Grimm I, 971 F.3d at 1066.

We declined, however, to determine in the first instance 

whether the City’s notice procedures were adequate under 

the Mullane standard. Id. at 1068. We therefore remanded 

Case: 23-35235, 01/03/2025, ID: 12918277, DktEntry: 59-1, Page 7 of 15
8 GRIMM V. CITY OF PORTLAND

the case to the district court to consider, among other issues, 

the following questions:

(1) Is putting citations on a car that do not 

explicitly warn that the car will be towed 

reasonably calculated to give notice of a tow 

to the owner?; (2) Did the red tow slip placed 

on Grimm’s car shortly before the tow 

provide adequate notice?; and (3) Was 

Portland required under Jones to provide 

supplemental notice if it had reason to 

suspect that the notice provided by leaving 

citations and the tow slip on Grimm’s 

windshield was ineffective?

Id. We did not expressly ask whether the warning slip placed 

on Grimm’s windshield on December 19 provided adequate 

notice because, at the time of that appeal, the record was 

unclear as to whether such a slip had been issued. See id. at 

1062 n.2.

On remand, the district court granted summary judgment 

to the City. The district court determined that a citation 

lacking an express warning of an impending tow would be 

inadequate under Mullane. But the district court held that the 

red warning slip, which was issued two days prior to the tow, 

provided adequate notice because it expressly warned 

Grimm that the car would be towed. The district court then

found that, although the City’s notice procedures were 

constitutional, the City had information indicating that 

Grimm did not receive notice because the City’s citations 

and slips had piled up on Grimm’s windshield. The district 

court thus held that, under Jones, the City was required to 

provide additional notice to the extent practicable. But the 

Case: 23-35235, 01/03/2025, ID: 12918277, DktEntry: 59-1, Page 8 of 15
GRIMM V. CITY OF PORTLAND 9

district court determined that the City had no practicable 

alternative means of providing notice to Grimm.

II.

“We review the district court’s grant of summary 

judgment de novo, viewing the evidence and drawing all 

reasonable inferences in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party.” Anthony v. Trax Int’l Corp., 955 F.3d 1123, 

1127 (9th Cir. 2020) (quoting Cohen v. City of Culver City, 

754 F.3d 690, 694 (9th Cir. 2014)). “We must determine 

whether there are any genuine issues of material fact and 

whether the district court correctly applied the relevant 

substantive law.” Id. (quoting Cohen, 754 F.3d at 694). We 

may affirm on any ground supported by the record. Zellmer 

v. Meta Platforms, Inc., 104 F.4th 1117, 1122 (9th Cir. 

2024).

III.

A.

We first consider whether the City provided notice 

reasonably calculated to alert Grimm of the impending tow. 

“An elementary and fundamental requirement of due process 

in any proceeding which is to be accorded finality is notice 

reasonably calculated, under all the circumstances, to 

apprise interested parties of the pendency of the action and 

afford them an opportunity to present their objections.” 

Mullane, 339 U.S. at 314. In determining what notice is 

appropriate under the Mullane standard, we must “balanc[e] 

the ‘interest of the State’ and ‘the individual interest sought 

to be protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.’” Tulsa Pro. 

Collection Servs., Inc. v. Pope, 485 U.S. 478, 484 (1988) 

(quoting Mullane, 339 U.S. at 314). A plaintiff need not 

Case: 23-35235, 01/03/2025, ID: 12918277, DktEntry: 59-1, Page 9 of 15
10 GRIMM V. CITY OF PORTLAND

receive “actual notice” under this standard. Dusenbery v. 

United States, 534 U.S. 161, 170 (2002).

In Clement v. City of Glendale, we held that governments 

must provide notice in most circumstances before towing an 

illegally parked car. 518 F.3d 1090, 1095–96 (9th Cir. 2008). 

We explained that “[t]he punishment for illegal parking is a 

fine, which is normally imposed by affixing a ticket to the 

windshield.” Id. at 1094. We emphasized that the “ticket can 

also serve as notice of the illegality and a warning that the 

car will be towed if not moved or properly registered.” Id.

We further explained that our holding was consistent with 

our prior decision in Scofield v. City of Hillsborough, where 

we “held that there was a due process requirement that notice 

be given—usually in the form of a ticket placed on the 

windshield—before police could tow apparently abandoned 

vehicles that are otherwise legally parked.” Clement, 518 

F.3d at 1096 (citing Scofield v. City of Hillsborough, 862 

F.2d 759, 764 (9th Cir. 1988)).

Here, the City provided Grimm with all the notice that 

the Fourteenth Amendment requires. The red warning slip

placed on the car’s windshield five days after Grimm had

parked the car was reasonably calculated to inform him that 

the car would be towed. Id. at 1094–96. Although the 

subsequent tow slip was placed on the windshield the same 

day the car was towed, the warning slip provided two days’

advance notice that the car would be removed from the city

street. Cf. Grimm I, 971 F.3d at 1068 (describing the tow slip 

as having been placed on the car “shortly before the tow”). 

And, unlike the earlier citations placed on the car, the 

warning slip explicitly stated that the car would be towed if 

it were not moved. See id.

Case: 23-35235, 01/03/2025, ID: 12918277, DktEntry: 59-1, Page 10 of 15
GRIMM V. CITY OF PORTLAND 11

Grimm cites the Supreme Court’s decision in Mennonite 

Board of Missions v. Adams, 462 U.S. 791 (1983), for the 

proposition that the warning slip placed on the car’s

windshield was inadequate. And, indeed, the Court held in

that case that “posted notices were inadequate to apprise a 

property owner of condemnation proceedings when his 

name and address were readily ascertainable from both deed 

records and tax rolls.” Id. at 797 (citing Schroeder v. City of 

New York, 371 U.S. 208, 210–11 (1962)). But Mennonite

Board of Missions is readily distinguishable. There, the 

Court addressed the notice that a mortgagee must receive 

before the forced sale of real property. See id. at 792–93. At 

issue here is the notice that an individual must receive before 

the temporary seizure of a car. Our precedents have already 

made clear that a ticket placed on a car generally provides 

adequate notice of an impending tow. Clement, 518 F.3d at 

1094–96. And while it is undoubtedly the case that an 

individual has an interest against being even temporarily 

deprived of a vehicle, see Grimm I, 971 F.3d at 1063–64,

that interest is different than an individual’s interest against 

the permanent loss of real property. Compare Mennonite Bd.

of Missions, 462 U.S. at 798, with Clement, 518 F.3d at 1094. 

Second, this is not a case in which Grimm’s “name and 

address were readily ascertainable” to the City. Mennonite 

Bd. of Missions, 462 U.S. at 797. The Accord was not 

registered to Grimm, but to his father, with a third-party 

lienholder. And the City had no access to Grimm’s 

information—or any ability to contact him—through the 

Parking Kitty app.

But even if the car had been registered to Grimm, or if 

the City could have obtained Grimm’s phone number or 

email address through the Parking Kitty app, we reject the 

notion that the City would have been required to track him 

Case: 23-35235, 01/03/2025, ID: 12918277, DktEntry: 59-1, Page 11 of 15
12 GRIMM V. CITY OF PORTLAND

down in this way before towing the car. A tow warning

slip—or a similar document or ticket expressly warning of 

an impending tow—placed on a car two days before a tow 

takes place is notice reasonably calculated to alert the user 

of that car to an impending tow. An individual with an 

interest in preserving uninterrupted access to his car would

revisit the car after his parking session ended or his meter 

ran, and, seeing such a notice, would either move the vehicle 

or pay for additional parking time.

2

A standard requiring the City to mail out a notice, send 

an email, or make a phone call in addition to leaving a 

warning slip would strike the wrong balance between the 

“‘interest of the State’ and ‘the individual interest sought to 

be protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.’” Tulsa Pro. 

Collection Servs., Inc., 485 U.S. at 484 (quoting Mullane, 

339 U.S. at 314). It is thus perhaps unsurprising that Grimm 

cannot point to any cases requiring such action before a car 

is towed. While Grimm cites the D.C. Circuit’s decision in 

Propert v. District of Columbia, 948 F.2d 1327 (D.C. Cir. 

1991), for the principle that notice by mail is required before 

a government can tow a car with up-to-date registration,

Propert held no such thing. That case concerned the notice 

required before a car is destroyed, not before it is towed. Id.

at 1328–30. The D.C. Circuit acknowledged in Propert that

a “warning sticker” that the government had attached to the 

plaintiff’s windshield could “provide[] adequate pretowing—as opposed to pre-destruction—notice.” Id. at 

1335. Although we would not in any event be bound by a 

contrary decision from that court, Al Ramahi v. Holder, 725 

2 Our holding here applies with equal force to a car that is illegally parked

in a location that does not require payment. See Clement, 518 F.3d at 

1094–96.

Case: 23-35235, 01/03/2025, ID: 12918277, DktEntry: 59-1, Page 12 of 15
GRIMM V. CITY OF PORTLAND 13

F.3d 1133, 1138 n.2 (9th Cir. 2013), Propert is thus 

consistent with our holding here that the warning slip left by 

the City provided Grimm with adequate notice.

B.

We next consider whether the City should have known 

that its attempt at notice had failed because the citations and 

slips remained undisturbed on Grimm’s vehicle before it was 

towed. Grimm argues that this fact gave the City “good 

reason to suspect” that its attempt to notify him had not been 

received, and, citing to the Supreme Court’s decision in 

Jones, urges that the City was therefore obligated to use

additional methods of notifying him.

Grimm overstates the Court’s holding in Jones. In that 

case, the Supreme Court addressed whether the plaintiff 

received adequate notice of an upcoming tax sale of his 

home when a state government sent the plaintiff notice of the 

sale through certified mail, but the mail was returned and 

marked as unclaimed. Jones, 547 U.S. at 223–24. The Court 

explained that, although notice by mail was generally 

sufficient, it had “never addressed whether due process 

entails further responsibility when the government becomes 

aware . . . that its attempt at notice has failed.” Id. at 227. 

The Court therefore characterized the question presented as 

“whether such knowledge on the government’s part . . . 

varies the ‘notice required.’” Id. (quoting Walker v. City of 

Hutchinson, 352 U.S. 112, 115 (1956)). And the Court

ultimately held that the state’s use of certified mail was 

inadequate because the state should have been aware that its 

attempts at notice had failed when the mail was returned. Id.

at 229–34.

Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to 

Grimm, we cannot draw a reasonable inference that the City 

Case: 23-35235, 01/03/2025, ID: 12918277, DktEntry: 59-1, Page 13 of 15
14 GRIMM V. CITY OF PORTLAND

ever became aware that its attempt to notify him of the 

impending tow had failed. Cf. id. at 227. While in Jones the 

Supreme Court emphasized that “a feature of the State’s 

chosen procedure is that it promptly provides additional 

information to the government about the effectiveness of 

notice,” id. at 231, nothing about the City’s method of notice 

required Grimm to confirm that he had received it.3 Grimm’s 

argument also leaves little room for our prior holding in 

Clement that notice provided by a ticket is generally 

sufficient. 518 F.3d at 1094. Under the approach Grimm 

advocates, individuals would need to regularly remove 

citations from their vehicles to demonstrate that they had 

received notice—and would have good incentive not to do 

so if they wished to avoid being towed. But notice does not 

become adequate only when its receipt is confirmed. See 

Dusenbery, 534 U.S. at 171–72 (rejecting any requirement 

that a prisoner sign for a piece of mail notifying him of his 

right to contest the administrative forfeiture of his property). 

Rather, absent specific information demonstrating that 

notice was not received, the ultimate “failure of notice in a 

specific case does not establish the inadequacy” of the 

attempt. Jones, 547 U.S. at 231.

3 In Jones, the Supreme Court also explained that “when a letter is 

returned by the post office, the sender will ordinarily attempt to resend it 

. . . especially . . . when . . . the subject matter of the letter concerns such 

an important and irreversible prospect as the loss of a house.” Id. at 230. 

Here, as we have discussed above, the “subject matter” of the warnings, 

although also important, did not concern a matter as “irreversible” as that 

at issue in Jones. Id. It instead involved the temporary deprivation of a 

car that had not been accessed, moved, or otherwise required by its user

for a week.

Case: 23-35235, 01/03/2025, ID: 12918277, DktEntry: 59-1, Page 14 of 15
GRIMM V. CITY OF PORTLAND 15

IV.

While we do not dictate the precise form of notice that a 

municipality must provide before towing a vehicle, such

notice must contain an express warning that the vehicle may 

be towed. A citation that lacks an express tow warning 

would not provide the notice that the Fourteenth Amendment 

requires. Nor would a warning provided only shortly before 

towing takes place be constitutionally adequate.4

In the case before us today, Portland complied with these 

requirements. By placing a warning slip on the windshield 

of the Accord two days before the car was towed, the City 

provided notice reasonably calculated to alert Grimm of the 

impending tow. The fact that the citations and warning slip

remained on the car undisturbed did not provide the City 

with actual knowledge that its attempt to notify Grimm had 

failed.5 The district court’s grant of summary judgment to 

the City is therefore AFFIRMED.

4 Our decision today does not disturb the exceptions to the pre-towing

notice requirement that we recognized in Grimm I, Clement, and 

Scofield. See Grimm I, 971 F.3d at 1064.

5 Because the City did not have actual knowledge that its attempt to 

provide notice had failed, we do not reach the question whether any 

additional forms of notice would have been practicable under the 

circumstances.

Case: 23-35235, 01/03/2025, ID: 12918277, DktEntry: 59-1, Page 15 of 15