PIERCE v. EUGENE MUNICIPAL COURT (2026)

Defendant Eugene Municipal Court appeals a judgment of the Lane County Circuit Court remanding this case to the municipal court to determine whether the costs associated with the removal of plaintiff's vehicle from a public road imposed an excessive fine under the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Defendant raises two assignments of error: (1) The circuit court erred when it determined that the costs associated with impounding, towing, and storing plaintiff's vehicle constitute a fine that is subject to the Eighth Amendment; and (2) the circuit court erred when it remanded the case to the municipal court with instructions to consider in its excessive-fine analysis plaintiff's financial ability to pay the towing and storage costs. Because we hold that the impoundment and associated costs did not impose a fine under the Eighth Amendment, we reverse.

BACKGROUND

Plaintiff purchased the vehicle that is the subject of this case in August 2024. Before plaintiff purchased the vehicle, the City of Eugene (city) had cited it for violating Eugene Code (EC) 5.132(2), which prohibits storage on a public road of a vehicle that does not display a current state vehicle registration sticker. Three days after plaintiff purchased the vehicle, it was again parked on a public road without a current registration sticker, which led the city to cite the vehicle a second time for violating EC 5.132(2) and to impound and remove the vehicle from the public road. The city used a private party, Alpha Towing, to tow and store the vehicle.

Following an impoundment hearing, the municipal court determined that the impoundment was valid. Plaintiff argued that he was unable to pay the towing and storage costs that he was required to pay to reclaim the vehicle because he had spent the last of his money to purchase the vehicle. The municipal court waived the fine for violation of EC 5.132(2) but held plaintiff liable for the towing and storage costs. Alpha Towing auctioned the vehicle to recover its towing and storage fees, and the vehicle was subsequently destroyed.

Plaintiff appealed the municipal court's decision upholding the impoundment and fees to the circuit court. The circuit court held that the costs imposed to tow and store plaintiff's vehicle constituted a fine under the Eighth Amendment. The court remanded the proceedings to the municipal court to determine if those costs were excessive under the Eighth Amendment, and it instructed the municipal court to consider plaintiff's ability to pay those costs in its analysis.

ANALYSIS

In its first assignment of error, defendant contends that the circuit court erred in concluding that the costs associated with the impoundment and removal of plaintiff's vehicle from a public road constituted a fine. Defendant argues that costs incurred to remove the vehicle from the right of way do not constitute a fine because the removal and storage of the vehicle was solely remedial. According to defendant, “Impoundment is not a punishment or an additional sanction, it is simply a mechanism to remove a vehicle that does not comply with state law vehicle registration requirements from the public right-of-way, without causing or allowing that noncompliant vehicle to be driven.” Further, in its view, the costs cannot constitute a fine because they are not paid to the government but are paid directly to the private party that towed and stored the vehicle. See Browning-Ferris Industries of Vermont, Inc., v. Kelco Disposal, Inc., 492 US 257, 268, 109 S Ct 2909, 106 L Ed 2d 219 (1989) (“The history of the Eighth Amendment convinces us that the Excessive Fines Clause was intended to limit only those fines directly imposed by, and payable to, the government.”).

Defendant further contends that release of the vehicle does not depend on the payment of the fine for violating EC 5.135. Rather, “[r]elease of the vehicle is only based on payment of incurred towing and storage charges, which are entirely remedial; they are intended to compensate the tow company for the costs of towing and storage of the vehicle.” Finally, defendant argues that “[t]emporary forfeiture cannot function as a payment to the government because, in the case of a temporary forfeiture, the government has simply taken temporary custody of an individual's property and the individual can take action to get it back.”

Conversely, plaintiff contends that the city ordinance is intended, at least in part, to deter people from storing unregistered vehicles on the city roads and that deterrence is a punitive purpose that is not remedial. Plaintiff cites United States v. Ursery, 518 US 267, 286, 116 S Ct 2135, 135 L Ed 2d 549 (1996), for the proposition that “[t]he Supreme Court has adopted a categorical approach that found a civil sanction to be punitive if it could not fairly be said solely to serve a remedial purpose.” According to plaintiff, “Impoundment is not remedial, as it addresses no hazard, obstruction, or harm; it aims to deter and foil hypothetical violations of state law.” Plaintiff also argues that “the punitive citation and impoundment proceedings are one and the same.” Plaintiff points to the innocent-owner exemption in EC 5.665 ¹ to show that the “innocent owner exemption ‘focus[es] the provisions on the culpability of the owner in a way that makes them more like punishment.’ ” (Quoting Austin v. United States, 509 US 602, 619, 113 S Ct 2801, 125 L Ed 2d 488 (1993)). Finally, plaintiff argues that the costs associated with impoundment are punitive because they flow directly from the punitive impoundment, are part of the punitive scheme, and liability for those costs depends on the culpability of the vehicle owner.

The Eighth Amendment provides that “[e]xcessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” US Const, Amend VIII. “Deterrence * * * has traditionally been viewed as a goal of punishment.” United States v. Bajakajian, 524 US 321, 329, 118 S Ct 2028, 141 L Ed 2d 314 (1998). However, reimbursing the government for investigation and enforcement expenses has been recognized to be remedial rather than punitive. One Lot Emerald Cut Stones & One Ring v. United States, 409 US 232, 237, 93 S Ct 489, 34 L Ed 2d 438 (1972).

Under EC 5.135(2), “No person shall store or permit to be stored a vehicle on a street or other public property if the vehicle's registration sticker has expired or if the vehicle has no license plate or registration sticker.” “When a vehicle is found in violation of subsection (1) or (2) of this section an officer responsible for enforcement of this section shall issue a citation for the violation and may order the vehicle impounded after providing the notice required under sections 5.695 and 5.697 and, if requested, a hearing under section 5.698 of this code.” EC 5.135(3). Violation of EC 5.135 is punishable by a fine up to $500. EC 5.990(2).

Under ORS 810.010(3), the “governing body of an incorporated city is the road authority for all highways, roads, streets and alleys, other than state highways, within the boundaries of the incorporated city.” Here, the Eugene City Council has, by ordinance, prohibited the storage on public roads of vehicles that do not display a current state registration sticker. In addition to imposing fines for violation of the ordinance, the city has provided for the removal of offending vehicles from public roads by authorizing the impoundment, towing, and storage of them. Removing vehicles in that manner is not meaningfully different from that of a private landowner, such as a parking lot owner, that removes from its land a vehicle that is not authorized to be on its land. The removal of the vehicle remedies the unlawful presence of the vehicle on the land.

Plaintiff contends that the removal and storage of a vehicle under EC 5.135 is not remedial because the removal “addresses no hazard, obstruction, or harm.” We disagree. The harm at issue under the ordinance is the unlawful storage on public roads of vehicles that do not display a current state registration sticker. EC 5.135 remedies that harm by allowing for removal of offending vehicles from the public roads.

Governments impose fines to deter conduct, and a focus under the Eighth Amendment can be on whether the imposition of a particular cost is intended to have a deterrent effect and, hence, can be understood to impose a fine. See, e.g., Bajakajian, 524 US at 329 (concluding that “forfeiture of the currency here does not serve the remedial purpose of compensating the Government for a loss”). We recognize that impounding, towing, and storing vehicles under EC 5.135 likely will deter some people from violating the ordinance. That does not mean, however, that the costs that result from towing and storing vehicles constitute fines. While all fines imposed by the government for violating laws can reasonably be understood to be intended to deter conduct, not all financial consequences resulting from law violations that could act to deter those violations constitute fines under the Eighth Amendment.

To the extent that our decision differs from that of our Washington neighbors in City of Seattle v. Long, 198 Wash 2d 136, 493 P3d 94 (2021), it reflects an important distinction between the two cases. The Washington Supreme Court concluded in Long that impounding, towing, and storing vehicles under Seattle Municipal Code 11.72.440(B) served to impose a fine under the Eighth Amendment. 198 Wash 2d at 166. In reaching that conclusion, the court pointed to language in the Seattle ordinance—which stated that “[v]ehicles in violation of this section are subject to impound * * * in addition to any other penalty provided for by law”—and concluded that “the plain language shows that one purpose of the ordinance is to penalize violators.” Id. Here, the text of EC 5.135 does not indicate that impounding and removing vehicles from public roads serves the purpose of punishing or penalizing violators.

Our conclusion is bolstered by the Supreme Court's recognition in Browning-Ferris, 492 US at 268, that the Eighth Amendment prohibition against excessive fines concerns fines “directly imposed by, and payable to, the government.” Browning-Ferris, 492 US at 268. Here, the costs to tow and store vehicles flow directly from the city's decision to impound vehicles, but they are paid to the private party that tows and stores them. Further, those costs are limited to the towing and storage costs incurred to remove vehicles from public roads, making the costs a reimbursement rather than a penalty. For that reason as well, the costs are remedial and not punitive and, thus, do not constitute the imposition of a fine.²

Because we conclude that costs imposed under EC 5.135 to impound, tow, and store plaintiff's vehicle do not constitute the imposition of a fine under the Eighth Amendment, we do not reach defendant's second assignment of error challenging the circuit court's direction to the municipal court to consider plaintiff's ability to pay the towing and storage costs in determining whether those costs were excessive.

Reversed.

FOOTNOTES

1.   “The owner of a vehicle placed in violation of a parking restriction shall be severally responsible for the offense, except where the use of the vehicle was secured by the operator without the owner's consent.” EC 5.665.

2.   Plaintiff notes that there are some circumstances in which an impoundment of a vehicle may lead to payment of the fine imposed for unlawful storage of a vehicle on city streets, for example, when a vehicle is sold at auction by a towing company to recover its towing and storage charges and surplus funds are deposited with the municipal court to be distributed to claimants, see EC 5.980(4). We are not persuaded that that affects the remedial nature of the impoundment and removal of vehicles from city streets, the cost of which, as we have concluded, does not constitute a fine subject to the Eighth Amendment prohibition against excessive fines.

ARMSTRONG, S. J.