FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

LAMYA BREWSTER, individually and

as class representative,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

CHARLIE BECK, Chief, individual

and official capacity; CITY OF LOS

ANGELES, a municipal corporation;

CITY OF LOS ANGELES POLICE

DEPARTMENT, a public entity,

Defendants-Appellees.

No. 15-55479

D.C. No.

5:14-cv-02257-

JGB-SP

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Central District of California

Jesus G. Bernal, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted January 12, 2017

Pasadena, California

Filed June 21, 2017

Before: Alex Kozinski, M. Margaret McKeown

and Paul J. Watford, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Kozinski
2 BREWSTER V. BECK

SUMMARY*

Civil Rights

The panel reversed the district court’s dismissal of an

action brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging that Los

Angeles police officers violated plaintiff’s Fourth

Amendment rights when they impounded her vehicle for

30 days pursuant to California Vehicle Code section

14602.6(a)(1), which authorizes impounding a vehicle when

the driver has a suspended license.

Plaintiff loaned her vehicle to her brother-in-law, who

was stopped by police officers and discovered to be driving

without a license. When plaintiff, who had a valid driver’s

license, attempted to recover her vehicle, the Los Angeles

Police Department refused to release the vehicle before the

30-day holding period had elapsed.

The panel held that the 30-day impound of plaintiff’s

vehicle constituted a seizure that required compliance with

the Fourth Amendment. The panel held that the exigency that

justified the initial seizure vanished once the vehicle arrived

in impound and plaintiff showed up with proof of ownership

and a valid driver’s license. The panel concluded that

appellees provided no justification for the continued impound

of plaintiff’s vehicle.

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

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.
BREWSTER V. BECK 3

COUNSEL

Donald W. Cook (argued), Los Angeles, California; Barrett

S. Litt, Kaye McLane Bednarski & Litt, Pasadena, California;

PaulHoffman and Catherine Sweetser, Schonbrun De Simone

Seplow Harris & Hoffman LLP, Venice, California; for

Plaintiff-Appellant.

Gabriel S. Dermer (argued) and Adena M. Hopenstand,

Deputy City Attorneys; Ronald S. Whitaker, Assistant City

Attorney; Michael N. Feuer, City Attorney; Office of the City

Attorney, Los Angeles,California; for Defendants-Appellees.

OPINION

KOZINSKI, Circuit Judge:

We consider whether a 30-day impound of a vehicle is a

“seizure” requiring compliance with the Fourth Amendment.

BACKGROUND

Lamya Brewster loaned her vehicle to Yonnie Percy, her

brother-in-law. Percy was stopped by Los Angeles Police

Department (LAPD) officers who learned that Percy’s

driver’s license was suspended. The officers then seized the

vehicle under California Vehicle Code section 14602.6(a)(1),

which authorizes impounding a vehicle when the driver has

a suspended license. Vehicles seized under this section must

generally be held in impound for 30 days. Cal. Veh. Code.

§ 14602.6(a)(1).
4 BREWSTER V. BECK

Three days later, Brewster appeared at a hearing before

the LAPD with proof that she was the registered owner of the

vehicle and her valid California driver’s license. Brewster

offered to pay all towing and storage fees that had accrued,

but the LAPD refused to release the vehicle before the 30-day

holding period had lapsed.1

Brewster filed a class action lawsuit under 42 U.S.C.

§ 1983 on behalf of all vehicle owners whose vehicles were

subjected to the 30-day impound. The complaint alleges that

the 30-day impound is a warrantless seizure that violates the

Fourth Amendment. The district court concluded that the 30-

day impound is a valid administrative penalty and granted

appellees’ motion to dismiss.

DISCUSSION

Section 14602.6(a)(1) of the California Vehicle Code

authorizes police to seize a vehicle when the driver’s license

has been suspended. “A vehicle so impounded shall be

impounded for 30 days.” Id. Within two business days of

impoundment, the agency that seizes the vehicle must notify

the vehicle’s owner and provide an “opportunity for a storage

hearing to determine the validity of, or consider any

mitigating circumstances attendant to, the storage.” Id.

§ 14602.6(a)(2), (b). The LAPD’s “Impound Policy” mirrors

section 14602.6.

1 Ten days after the impound, the LAPD released the vehicle to

Superior Auto, the lien holder and legal owner of the vehicle. But, under

LAPD policy, Superior Auto had to “ensure that no one, including the

registered owner . . . will have access to the . . . vehicle during the

remainder of the 30-day impoundment period.” Accordingly, Brewster

was deprived of her vehicle for the full 30 days.
BREWSTER V. BECK 5

The district court found that “the thirty-day impoundment

period—designed to deter unlicensed drivers or drivers with

a suspended license from driving—is an administrative

penalty, and thus not unconstitutional under the Fourth

Amendment.” But this is the wrong inquiry. Whether the

seizure is a valid penalty or forfeiture under the Fifth and

Fourteenth Amendments is an interesting question but not one

that is raised in this case. Plaintiff claims only that the 30-

day impound violates the Fourth Amendment.2

The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable

searches and seizures. U.S. Const. amend. IV. A seizure is

a “meaningful interference with an individual’s possessory

interests in [his] property.” Soldal v. Cook County, 506 U.S.

56, 61 (1992) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). 

“A seizure conducted without a warrant is per se

unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment—subject only to

a few specifically established and well delineated

exceptions.” United States v. Hawkins, 249 F.3d 867, 872

(9th Cir. 2001) (internal quotation marks and citation

omitted).

It’s well established that “a seizure lawful at its inception

can nevertheless violate the Fourth Amendment because its

manner of execution unreasonably infringes possessory

interests.” United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. 109, 124 &

n.25 (1984) (citing United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696,

2 We express no view as to whether the 30-day impound is a valid

administrative penalty under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. See

Lee v. City of Chicago, 330 F.3d 456, 474 (7th Cir. 2003) (Wood, J.,

concurring) (suggesting that a prolonged impound of a vehicle may be an

unconstitutional taking under the Fifth Amendment). On remand,

Brewster shall be given leave to amend the complaint to include any

additional claims she may choose to bring.
6 BREWSTER V. BECK

707–10 (1983)). For example, in United States v. Dass,

officers validly seized packages that they suspected contained

marijuana. 849 F.2d 414, 414–15 (9th Cir. 1988). But we

held that the length of the warrantless seizures—in that case,

between seven to twenty-three days—violated the Fourth

Amendment. Id.

The parties agree that the LAPD could impound—and,

therefore, seize—Brewster’s vehicle under section

14602.6(a)(1) pursuant to the community caretaking

exception to the Fourth Amendment. See United States v.

Cervantes, 703 F.3d 1135, 1141 (9th Cir. 2012) (discussing

the community caretaking exception). But this exception is

available only to “impound vehicles that jeopardize public

safety and the efficient movement of vehicular traffic.” Id.

(internal quotation marks and citation omitted). The exigency

that justified the seizure vanished once the vehicle arrived in

impound and Brewster showed up with proof of ownership

and a valid driver’s license. The question we must consider

is whether the Fourth Amendment required further

authorization for the LAPD to hold the vehicle for 30 days.

We have no cases on point, but Judge Henderson of the

Northern District of California has addressed the matter in a

thorough and well-reasoned opinion, which we find

persuasive. See Sandoval v. County of Sonoma, 72 F. Supp.

3d 997 (N.D. Cal. 2014).

Because a 30-day impound is a “meaningful interference

with an individual’s possessory interests in [his] property,”

Soldal, 506 U.S. at 61 (internal quotation marks and citation

omitted), the Fourth Amendment is implicated when a vehicle

is impounded under section 14602.6(a). The district court

found that such a seizure doesn’t present a Fourth
BREWSTER V. BECK 7

Amendment problem because “the state has an important

interest in . . . keeping unlicensed drivers from driving

illegally.” But that is beside the point. The Fourth

Amendment “is implicated by a delay in returning the

property, whether the property was seized for a criminal

investigation, to protect the public, or to punish the

individual.” Sandoval, 72 F. Supp. 3d at 1004.

The Fourth Amendment doesn’t become irrelevant once

an initial seizure has run its course. See Jacobsen, 466 U.S.

at 124 & n.25; Lavan v. City of Los Angeles, 693 F.3d 1022,

1030 (9th Cir. 2012); see also Manuel v. City of Joliet, 137 S.

Ct. 911, 914, 920 (2017) (holding that the Fourth Amendment

governed the entirety of plaintiff’s 48-day detention). A

seizure is justified under the Fourth Amendment only to the

extent that the government’s justification holds force. 

Thereafter, the government must cease the seizure or secure

a new justification. Appellees have provided no justification

here.

The only other circuit to address this specific issue is the

Seventh. See Lee, 330 F.3d at 466. There, the City of

Chicago seized Lee’s vehicle for evidentiary purposes but

failed to return it when it was no longer needed. Id. at

458–59. The parties agreed that the initial seizure of the

vehicle was reasonable. Id. at 460. But Lee argued that “the

continued possession of the property by the government

became a meaningful interference with his possessoryinterest

and, thus, must be interpreted as a Fourth Amendment

seizure.” Id. (emphasis added). The Seventh Circuit

disagreed, holding that “[o]nce an individual has been

meaningfully dispossessed, the seizure of the property is

complete, and once justified by probable cause, that seizure

is reasonable.” Id. at 466. Reasoning that “Lee’s car was
8 BREWSTER V. BECK

seized when it was impounded,” the Seventh Circuit

concluded that the City’s continued possession of the vehicle

“neither continued the initial seizure nor began another.” Id.

To arrive at its conclusion, the Seventh Circuit

distinguished United States v. Place. Law enforcement

agents seized Place’s luggage on suspicion that he might be

carrying narcotics. 462 U.S. at 699. “There [was] no doubt

that the agents made a ‘seizure’ of Place’s luggage for

purposes of the Fourth Amendment when . . . the agent told

Place that he was going to take the luggage to a federal judge

to secure issuance of a warrant.” Id. at 707. But it wasn’t

this initial seizure that concerned the Supreme Court. Rather,

it was the “90-minute detention of [Place’s] luggage [that

was] sufficient to render the seizure unreasonable.” Id. at

710. We are unpersuaded by the Seventh Circuit’s

conclusion that Place “deal[t] onlywith the transformation of

a momentary, investigative detention into a seizure” and “has

no application after probable cause to seize has been

established.” Lee, 330 F.3d at 464.

* * *

The 30-day impound of Brewster’s vehicle constituted a

seizure that required compliancewith the Fourth Amendment. 

Appellees argue that this result frustrates the state

legislature’s intent to impose a penalty on unlicensed drivers. 

We have no occasion to decide whether this objective is

lawful. See supra p. 5 n.2. The police could impound a

vehicle under section 22651(p), which authorizes

impoundment when the driver doesn’t have a valid license. 
BREWSTER V. BECK 9

See Cal. Veh. Code § 22651(p). Section 22651(p) doesn’t

have a mandatory 30-day hold period, thus avoiding the

Fourth Amendment problempresented bysection 14602.6(a).

REVERSED.