Opinion ID: 717472
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Unauthorized Use of a Motor Vehicle

Text: 15 Under New York law, [a] person is guilty of unauthorized use of a vehicle in the third degree when: (1) Knowing that he does not have the consent of the owner, he takes, operates ... or otherwise uses a motor vehicle. A person who engages in any such conduct without the consent of the owner is presumed to know that he does not have such consent.... N.Y. Penal Law § 165.05. 16 Mrs. Lowth gives two reasons for her claim that Officer Grant did not have probable cause to arrest her for violating this statute. She contends that she had a right to move the car because blocking her driveway constituted a public nuisance. Her right to abate such a nuisance, she claims, precludes any possible criminality. And she argues that she was not guilty of knowingly driving a car without authorization because she believed that the car belonged to a friend of her daughter's who had given her implicit consent to drive it. 17 The public nuisance argument lacks legal merit. While New York courts have held that private citizens may abate public nuisances under certain circumstances, this right is not absolute. A temporary obstruction on a public highway does not constitute a public nuisance. See Lyman v. Village of Potsdam, 228 N.Y. 398, 127 N.E. 312 (1920); People ex rel. Hofeller v. Buck, 193 A.D. 262, 184 N.Y.S. 210 (4th Dep't 1920), aff'd, 230 N.Y. 608, 130 N.E. 913 (1921); Erie v. Marjorie's Grove & Catering Serv., Inc., 97 Misc.2d 329, 411 N.Y.S.2d 501 (Sup.Ct. Erie County 1978). Moreover, even if Officer Grant's blocking of the Lowths' driveway could be considered a nuisance, the right to abate the nuisance without notice is only available where the injury caused by the nuisance is substantial, see Wakeman v. Wilbur, 147 N.Y. 657, 663, 42 N.E. 341, 342 (1895), and where danger is imminent to health, life, or property, and the necessity of prompt removal [is] urgent, Childers v. New York Power & Light Corp., 275 A.D. 133, 89 N.Y.S.2d 11, 12 (3d Dep't 1949). Accordingly, though the car parked in front of their driveway may have caused the Lowths some inconvenience, it was not the type of serious public nuisance that could give Mrs. Lowth a right to drive the car without the consent of its owner. And this is especially so since the car's motor was running and Mrs. Lowth could reasonably have expected the owner to be nearby and available to move the car promptly. 18 Mrs. Lowth further contends that she did not violate § 165.05 because she believed that the car belonged to a friend of her daughter's, that she had moved that person's car once before without objection, and that she, therefore, had his implicit consent to do it again. But Mrs. Lowth's belief as to the ownership of the car cannot operate to make her arrest by Officer Grant unreasonable. Officer Grant had no reason to know at the time he saw her driving the car that she believed it belonged to someone that she knew. The only information available to Officer Grant when he arrested her was that Mrs. Lowth was driving a car that did not belong to her, and that she was doing so without the consent of the car's owner--Grant himself. Given this information, Officer Grant certainly had probable cause to arrest Mrs. Lowth for violating § 165.05.