Wage garnishments and collections
in Law ·
The bill from SF Municipal Garage for moving a vehicle under an order from the Los Angeles Police Department is only valid if a formal misdemeanor proceeding has been launched and the driver’s guilt has actually been established. Since the Los Angeles Police Department ordered the tow, SF Municipal Garage provided a service to the LAPD, and they should be billing the LAPD, not the driver. They can't come after the owner until the Municipal Court finishes determining fault according to the Misdemeanor Act and the Traffic Safety Act.
SF Municipal Garage starts the collections process based on an invoice sent straight to the driver's address, even though there isn't any proof of guilt yet because the case is still pending in court. It makes you wonder what legal standing this whole collection procedure actually has, considering SF Municipal Garage is essentially deceiving the court by jumping the gun. A debt collection is only legitimate against the LAPD since they were the ones who requested the service. For SF Municipal Garage to legally collect from a driver, that charge has to stem from a final, binding court ruling. Instead, they bypass the actual service requester and go straight for the individual via collections. In reality, it feels like a police officer is practically sitting in the SF Municipal Garage office, turning photos taken by parking enforcement into a steady stream of revenue through these citations.
Does the court actually look at these questionable invoices? Who is even verifying them when a notary just passes the same documents along to the court? It looks like a massive shell game played with thousands of invoices.
SF Municipal Garage starts the collections process based on an invoice sent straight to the driver's address, even though there isn't any proof of guilt yet because the case is still pending in court. It makes you wonder what legal standing this whole collection procedure actually has, considering SF Municipal Garage is essentially deceiving the court by jumping the gun. A debt collection is only legitimate against the LAPD since they were the ones who requested the service. For SF Municipal Garage to legally collect from a driver, that charge has to stem from a final, binding court ruling. Instead, they bypass the actual service requester and go straight for the individual via collections. In reality, it feels like a police officer is practically sitting in the SF Municipal Garage office, turning photos taken by parking enforcement into a steady stream of revenue through these citations.
Does the court actually look at these questionable invoices? Who is even verifying them when a notary just passes the same documents along to the court? It looks like a massive shell game played with thousands of invoices.