Georgia Supreme Court says no ordinance, no boot

A unanimous decision by the Georgia Supreme Court on Dec. 14 dictates local businesses can now only use a boot if a city or county ordinance is in place.

This was put in motion by a 2018 lawsuit filed by Forrest Allen, whose tractor-trailer was booted when he parked it at a shopping center. The lawsuit claimed at least 250 people were illegally booted in the same parking lot in DeKalb County, Ga.

In court proceedings, attorneys for the defendants cited a common law from the 1800s to justify the use of boots.

However, Justice Shawn Ellen LaGrua wrote, “Defendants cannot immobilize vehicles, or demand a fee to remove a vehicle immobilization device, absent an enabling statute. There is no enabling statute or ordinance at the location where the plaintiff and all other class members were booted.”

More to come?

“We now have the Georgia Supreme Court’s guidance that this practice is illegal,” Matt Wetherington, an attorney for Allen, said in an Atlanta Journal-Constitution report. “Booting as it’s currently practiced is predatory and leads to violence between private citizens in dark parking lots. This decision makes Georgia a safer place.”

OOIDA Director of State Legislative Affairs Mike Matousek was in complete agreement.

“The plaintiff’s attorney said it best in that booting as it is being used is predatory,” Matousek said. “This is a growing problem in trucking so kudos to Mr. Allen and the state of Georgia for doing the right thing.”

Leander Richmond, a driver for Eagle Express and an OOIDA member from Michigan, has experienced these predatory practices firsthand – and very recently in fact.

Richmond recalled recently helping a tractor-trailer driver who he said was “hooked and extorted for $1,200.”

“This is great news, and I’m glad that Mr. Allen saw this through,” Richmond said. “This illegal action has not only taken millions from its victims but has created its own kind of criminal. I hope this can be used to catapult the change that is needed in this booting and hook extortion business.” LL