Smith v. Santa Rosa Police Department

Introduction

Vehicle Code section 14602.6 provides for the removal, seizure and impounding for 30 days of a vehicle driven by a driver while unlicensed or while his or her driving privileges are suspended or revoked. (Veh. Code, § 14602., subd. (a).) Following notice by the impounding agency, “[t]he registered and legal owner of a vehicle that is removed and seized . . . shall be provided the opportunity for a storage hearing to determine the validity of, or consider any mitigating circumstances attendant to, the storage ....’’ (§ 14602.6, subd. (b).)

In this appeal from a peremptory writ of mandate issued by the Sonoma County Superior Court, we determine whether the registered owner’s lack of actual knowledge that the driver to whom he loaned his car was not validly licensed constitutes a mitigating circumstance under section 14602.6, subdivision (b), warranting release of the vehicle to the registered owner before expiration of the 30-day storage period set forth in the statute. We conclude, as did that trial court, that it does. We further conclude that section 14602.6 does not condition the operation of the mitigating circumstances exception to situations where the…