Court Opinion

ID: 9682594
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 08:14:30.417606+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:40.296856
License: Public Domain

BARHAM, Justice
(dissenting).
I find no statutory law or regulation of the Department of Public Safety under which a state trooper may authorize the towing away and impounding of a vehicle “located anywhere from four to thirteen feet from the blacktop portion of the highway”. The majority, which has also apparently failed to find regulatory authority *644for the removal' of such vehicles, has concluded “ * * * that the trooper’s action stemmed from a discretion vested in him by law”, but cites no specific statute which vests such discretion in the state police.
I must also disagree with the majority’s holding that the Louisiana trooper was “exercising the police power of the State”. Only the Legislature of a state can exercise “the police power of the State”, and the “power” of an individual policeman is not to be equated with that sovereign right. Neither the discretion to exercise police power nor the power itself — that is, to make police .regulations — can be delegated or bargained away to the caprice of individual employees of the state.
Mány jurisdictions provide by law or regulation for the removal of vehicles from highway rights' of way where their presence threatens the safety and welfare of others, .and Undoubtedly a state law or regulation of this nature would serve a useful purpose. Such law or regulation could provide the factors determinative of a decision to remove, the method and procedure of removal, and the place of impoundment, and could require payment by the owner of the cost of the vehicle’s removal and storage. Our state, however, has no such law or regulation, and a police officer is not and cannot be delegated the authority to determine or guess at what is violative of the law or to establish measures necessary for public safety. The police’ officer is obligated to act under and within the law and is not endowed with law-making power. He is not a public official vested with broad discretionary powers. To the contrary, his responsibilities are narrowly defined in order to protect the public from the possible abuse of discretionary exercise of power.*
I must conclude that the state trooper was without authority to have the plaintiff’s vehicle removed a'nd stored. The defendants’ refusal to surrender plaintiff’s vehicle to him when they held it without authority of law or order of court or any other valid authority constituted a conversion for which the plaintiff is entitled to relief.
I respectfully dissent.

 The instant case px-esents an excellent example of the abuse which can result from the exercise of police discretion totally uncontrolled by law or regulation. The trooper here did not engage the most convenient, the neax-est, or the cheapest wrecker service to tow away the vehicle, and in fact the vehicle was towed past another available wrecker service only 12 miles from the scene into another parish to the defendants’ truck stop which was 25 miles distant.