Austin Garrett, right, sheriff of Hamilton County, runs a general warrants program outlawed by the state constitution and T.C.A. § 40-7-103. (Photo HCSO)
Radio journalist David Tulis is falsely arrested and falsely imprisoned by defendants sheriff Austin Garrett, deputy Brandon Bennett and Hamilton County, Tenn., without probable cause and without a warrant as required under T.C.A. § 40-7-103, with Brandon Bennett, pretending to act under authority of Tennessee code annotated as employee of Hamilton County government, admitting three times within the space of the first two minutes in a “traffic stop” that petitioner is not involved in commercial activity in his predawn use of the road for private purposes.
[This complaint filed in U.S. district court in Chattanooga may be — just may be — a model complaint for people in other states. It tackles the warrantless arrest plague —prohibited as “general warrants”forbidden by law — and traffic stops, which are administrative interactions between the state and holders of driver licenses, this relationship co-opted by local governments that crimnalize the proceedings, creating much heartbreak and grief among the citizenry especially the poor.— DJT]
The pretext for the false imprisonment and false arrest is a missing piece of red plastic on a functioning taillight that Mr. Bennett alleges is a violation of the Tennessee “light law” under presumption that petitioner is acting on the privilege subject to the state law while Bennett admits petitioner is not involved in the privileged activity in commerce subject to that regulation.
The complaint names Austin Garrett, employed as sheriff of Hamilton County, who in his personal capacity apart from the immunities that attach to his office affects to operate a policy against petitioner of Arrest on sight (“general warrant” or “Redcoat warrants”) forbidden by the U.S. constitution fourth amendment and Tenn. const. Art. 1, sect. 7, and;
Ultra vires enforcement of the motor vehicle laws that in Tennessee are directed against privileged activity of hauling, carrying or transporting goods or passengers for hire, for private profit and gain affecting the public interest, pursuant to 49 U.S.C., transportation, and the code of federal regulations Title 49.
Mr. Garrett’s policy of arrest on sight against private parties on the roads absent a crime is one that violates state and federal law, and offends complainant’s rights to be free of false imprisonment and false arrest in the enjoyment of protected federal rights.
Mr. Garrett, who holds elected office, and Mr. Bennett, who holds office as deputy under terms of employment under defendant county, act as men apart from law and under coloration of law to injure complainant in his federal rights of movement, communication, ingress and egress. They do so maliciously, intentionally, knowingly and in bad faith, having been put on awares of limits to their authority by administrative notice created and served by plaintiff.
I am reporter with Eagle Radio Network — marvelously playing rock hits in Chattanooga, and online at https://www.eagleradionetwork.com/
They serve the third defendant, Hamilton County, Tenn., a municipal corporation that is subject, in the time relevant to this suit, to state and federal laws requiring respect of due process rights of the citizenry, which county is liable for projecting corrupt, wicked, pernicious practice upon complainant and other men and women in like station who live in or visit Hamilton County.
Defendants, in enforcing privilege law in Tenn. Code Ann. §§ Titles 55 and 65 (chapter 15), motor and other vehicles and carriers, respectively, abrogate the uniform administrative procedures act (“UAPA”) at Tenn. Code Ann. § 4-5-101 et seq, which law regulates accusations and controversies arising from the for-hire or commercial use of the public roadways, which body of law is civil in its operation, and not criminal, defendants pre-empting operation of that law in exercise of police powers and physical violence ultra vires.
The petition is for damages at law and also for injunctive relief in equity so that federal rights will in future be protected for petitioner’s benefit and also for benefit of all those in like station.
The injunctions proposed in the relief requested part of this complaint are for (1) a command that defendant county obey the federal 4th, 5th and 9th amendments and Tenn. const. Art. 1, sect. 9, warrants, and state law at T.C.A. § 40-7-103, which require a warrant for any crime or offense in the presence of the officer that is not a “public offense” or a “threatened breach of the peace,” and, (2) an order that defendant county recognize state and federal constitutional and statutory limits and restrain employees Garrett and Bennett, in their county uniforms, from acting in personal capacity to injure petitioner again and members of the public by obstructing their free use of the roads in Tennessee if their activities are not under privilege, nor required to be.
This complaint demands they be required to obey the limits of Tenn. Code Ann. §§ Titles 55 and 65 if they have any such authority whatsoever under statute. Today, administration of said laws is promiscuously imposed upon all members of the traveling public as if all enjoyment of ingress and egress rights and other protected interests are privileged, or required to be enjoyed only under privilege of operating or driving a motor vehicle as carrier in the regulated occupation and vocation of driver/operator of a motor vehicle.
Defendants have a longstanding policy and practice of
➤ (1) interfering with interstate and intrastate commerce as well as obstruction of travel and commerce rights of private parties not subject to privilege, and do so on both counts with malice and bad faith, having been put under administrative notice by petitioner as to limits under law as creatures of the state and servants of the public welfare; also,
➤ (2) a custom and usage of general warrants, imposed in “traffic stops” and many other circumstances in Hamilton County, forbidden by longstanding and well-known law.
The fact that proper and timely legal administrative notice has had no effect in putting defendants on awares on Tennessee and federal law makes this petition significant in the sense of its being a defense of the public at large, and the rights and property of its members.
Defendants boldly reject the disabilities in the federally integrated motor vehicle law as to their police powers and regulatory authority, and with malice and bad faith have been heedless of the state and federal constitution guarantees allowing petitioner and others in like station to enjoy by free movement by automobile and unobstructed liberty exercise their God-given, constitutionally guaranteed unalienable and inherent rights as men and women to not be falsely imprisoned and arrested in use of the public way as if under a bill of attainder.
Petitioner asks for temporary, immediate injunction upon Hamilton County and Messrs. Garrett and Bennett in their persons to cease violating the well established law banning general warrants or its functional equivalent pending resolution of this case. He gives notice he intends to ask for permanent injunction upon Hamilton County to prohibit ultra vires enforcement of Tenn. Code Ann. §§ Titles 65 and 55 with respect to the right of private movement and communication and rights exercise the enjoyment of which defendants reject.
This suit demands an order and assignment of a federal master regulating defendant county and other municipal parties upon whom plaintiff intends to serve injunction, so that longstanding abrogation of the rights of the people of Tennessee cease.
Defendants Bennett and Garrett are sued in personal capacity as the wicked deeds of each in arresting complainant or organizing routines of false arrest in the department are outside of law and under coloration of law, they having stepped outside office as deputy and sheriff, respectively, injuring petitioner on their own personal authority and prejudice, arbitrarily and capriciously, for which harm they and their estates are liable personally. He sues Mr. Garrett as sheriff in official capacity; he does not sue defendant Bennett in his official capacity, because he is already under command in that capacity of state and federal law, and it would be redundant to sue him thusly.
Jurisdiction
The court has jurisdiction to hear this case because of the deprived fundamental federal rights, privileges, or immunities involved.
The breach invokes the 1st amendment to the U.S. constitution applicable to the states and defendants, via the 14th amendment, grants to this court power and protections to plaintiff that “[n]o State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
The federal first amendment protects plaintiff from false imprisonment and false arrest in exercise of free speech and press rights. Seizure cancels plaintiff’s 7 a.m. “Tulis Report” on Nov. 22, 2023, at NoogaRadio Network, with studios in Hixson.
An official without a warrant or probable cause, in making an arrest, violates the 4th amendment of the U.S. Constitution, whereby, “the right of the people to be secure in their persons *** against unreasonable *** seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the *** persons or things to be seized.”
Land rights, ingress-egress rights
A federal role exists in the carving out of North Carolina the state of Tennessee. The bill of rights at Tenn. art. 1, sect. 31, states “that all the territory, lands and waters lying west of said line, as before mentioned, and contained within the chartered limits of the state of North Carolina, are within the boundaries and limits of this state, over which the people have the right of exercising sovereignty, and the right of soil, so far as is consistent with the Constitution of the United States, recognizing the Articles of Confederation, the Bill of Rights and Constitution of North Carolina, the cession act of the said State, and the ordinance of Congress for the government of the territory north west of Ohio; Provided, nothing herein contained shall extend to affect the claim or claims of individuals to any part of the soil which is recognized to them by the aforesaid cession act” (emphasis added).
The privileges and immunities giving the court jurisdiction are a grant of congress, a domestic treaty with plaintiff, a disposal to plaintiff as an assignee forever of appurtenant ingress-egress rights, as well as the right of movement generally. Defendants’ commerce regulation practices cannot lawfully encroach on federally recognized granted rights to and exercised by plaintiff through congressional soil disposal to and exclusively possessed, and enjoyed by him. By the congressional land grant evidenced in the land patent, the court, being the trustee for the acts of government, is to protect it, above and apart from municipal legislation. The losses are not just an unwarrantable abrogation of right in the right to freely come and go, of ingress and egress on the public road, but theft of plaintiff’s exclusive possession, use, and enjoyment of the property. County and state in Tennessee impermissibly encroach on property and rights that fulfilled federal grant law acts exclusively disposed to plaintiff, as an assignee, and the court has authority and is duty bound to protect these exclusively disposed property and appurtenant rights, such as ingress and egress against encroachment and consistent with the state enabling act congress approved regarding its exclusive power to disposal of the soil.
The ninth amendment to the constitution prohibits a government actor from a state, county or city from abrogating enjoyment of any right not enumerated in the bill of rights. “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” The right of ingress and egress from his soil disposal in Hamilton County in use of state route 153 subject to the jurisdiction of and maintained by a public authority and “held open to public travel” pursuant to 23 U.S.C.A. § 402 is one in particular invoking the court’s jurisdiction.
42 U.S.C. § 1983 protects plaintiff against state actor abuse of petitioner’s federal constitutional guarantees, whereby “[e]very person who, under color of any *** custom, or usage, of any State *** , subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress[.]”
U.S.C. 49, transportation, is the federal law incorporated by Tennessee to be part of the unified carrier registration system of the United States department of transportation, in accordance with 49 U.S.C. § 13908. The Tennessee department of safety and homeland security (“DOSHS”) affirms semiannually that state law and practice confirms exactly with federal law, with the Tennessee highway patrol the exclusive regulator of motor vehicles.
The sheriff’s department run by Hamilton County is not part of this administration under federal motor carrier law.
Plaintiff invokes the court’s authority to deal with the common law harm of false imprisonment and false arrest under color of federal motor vehicle and transportation regulation and law.
This combined action for at-law damages and equitable forward-looking and injunctive relief for continuing irreparable harms is a “petition to the [g]overnment for redress of grievances” under the first amendment.
The value of the relief exceeds $75,000.
Parties
Complainant is a radio journalist reporting at the time of the tort alleged at NoogaRadio Radio Network (96.9 FM) in Chattanooga and living in a house in Hamilton County. He exercises protected 1st amendment press rights, and pursues a private vocation under Tenn. const. art. I, sect. 19. He sues in his proper person, sui juris.
Mr. Bennett is sued as a man in his person for acts that take place in Hamilton County in the Tennessee eastern Tennessee district of the U.S. district court. He is believed to live in Hamilton County and is served at his place of employment at HCSO patrol services, 6233 Dayton Blvd., Chattanooga, Tenn., 37343.
Likewise, Mr. Garrett is sued as a man in his person for acts in Hamilton County in the Tennessee eastern Tennessee district of the U.S. district court. He is also sued in official capacity as sheriff. Mr. Garrett is believed to live in Hamilton County, and is served at his place of employment at Hamilton County sheriff’s office, 600 Market St., Chattanooga, Tenn. 37402
Hamilton County is a government entity obligated to obey state and federal law in its service to the public and protection of the health, safety and welfare of its members and of its residents and others within its jurisdiction. It oversees the Hamilton County sheriff’s office (“HCSO”) that receives its funding from the county. It is served at the offices of its attorney, Rheubin Taylor, 625 Georgia Ave., Ste. 204, Chattanooga, Tenn., 37402l.
Introduction
This lawsuit exposes a longstanding program in Hamilton County to abuse members of the public arrested without a warrant when a warrant is required, men and women arrested in furtherance of a second mass harm. That second abuse is that of “traffic enforcement” in criminal jurisdiction, which practice has become effectively a bill of attainder.
The attainder operates by coercive commercialization of all automobile use under a rebuttable presumption, under an apparent legal fiction that all use of the road by private parties is commercial, that no use of the people’s roads exists apart from state privilege exercise, and that all private use by plaintiff and others in like station is criminal, deserving arrest, seizure of vehicle and criminal prosecution without probable cause.
Petitioner’s alleged breach of use of the road rules by having a damaged taillight is a matter subject to administrative claims by the aggrieved state of Tennessee, the agent of which (presumably, or by presumptive arrogation) is Mr. Bennett in role of deputy, an agent of defendant Garrett. By long custom, defendants imprison, arrest and seize plaintiff and distrain his property in a criminal matter.
One legal authority, Marcus Dirk Dubber, author of The Police Power; Patriarchy and the Foundations of American Government (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), describes this criminalization and overreach by local authority into state jurisdiction and as poaching.
The criminal matter proceeds in breach of the warrant requirement. A blinkered taillight and operation of a motor vehicle under a license are under T.C.A. § Title 55, motor and other vehicles, (specifically chapter 50, the Uniform Classified and Commercial Driver License Act of 1988), all actions by state of Tennessee subject to UAPA at T.C.A. § Title 4-5-101 et seq, and subject to accused’s right in defense to force state claim movants to exhaust their administrative remedies prior to seeking redress in criminal court.
Plaintiff in his pending demand for injunctive relief against ultra vires use of the motor vehicle law details the limitations in the law, and recognition in the law itself of the great liberties afforded under the Tennessee and U.S. constitutions.
Fact narrative of false imprisonment, false arrest
On Nov. 22, 2023, at 6:26 a.m., Mr. Bennett of Hamilton County sheriff’s office chases accused southbound on state route 153, running his blue lights. He arrests accused in a retail parking lot opposite the Hixson Wal-Mart store for “a broken passenger taillight in which white light could be seen.”
Mr. Bennett in “incident narrative” and affidavit of complaint describes the seizure as a “traffic stop” for a “passenger taillight” of a “vehicle” being “[operated]” by a “driver and violator.”
“I explained [to] Tulis he must be in compliance with Tennessee Law while operating a vehicle on public roadways. I then asked for Mr. Tulis’ driver’s license which he refused to produce. Mr. Tulis stated he did have a license, but did not want to give it to me. I advised *** I needed his license to identify him as the driver and violator. Mr. Tulis again refused so *** I asked him to step out of the vehicle, which he did,” according to the affidavit of complaint.
“What makes you believe right now that I’m traveling right now in commerce?” plaintiff, still behind the steering wheel, asks Mr. Bennett,
BENNETT “Well, I observed you on the motor way and *** I do believe you to be the person operating this vehicle as of right now.”
TULIS “I rebut the presumption, sir, I’m operating a vehicle. Right now, I would rebut the claim that I am driving and operating a motor vehicle. Is it not possibly prudent for you to determine whether or not I’m involved in the activity under the privilege right now? That would be under [Title] 55, chapter 50, and also under [Title] 65 under the Tennessee code annotated, which is ‘carriers.’”
BENNETT “You’re not. I’d say you’re not. You’re not. If I take this before a judge he’ll also state that. Yes, you are in violation of a traffic law under section 55 of—”
TULIS “The light law?”
BENNETT “— Yes.”
TULIS “— Yes, well. I rebut the presumption, officer ***. ”
Audio/video record shows Mr. Bennett stating three times that his accused is not acting in commerce.
Mr. Bennett, under color of office, orders accused from his car and binds his wrists, arresting and imprisoning him. Mr. Bennett takes accused to Hamilton County detention center, aka Silverdale, whereupon in name of State of Tennessee plaintiff is criminally charged and booked.
Defendants, in the name of state of Tennessee, charge plaintiff with failure to exhibit a driver license.
Every licensee shall have the licensee’s license in immediate possession at all times when operating a motor vehicle and shall display it upon demand of any officer or agent of the department or any police officer of the state, county or municipality ***.
T.C.A. § 55-50-351
Plaintiff also is charged criminally with having a damaged taillight, “Each lamp and stoplight required in this section shall be in good condition and operational” Tenn. Code Ann. § 55-9-402. The alleged offenses are Class C misdemeanors subject to prosecution by parties with authority under the title.
In Tennessee law, misdemeanors that are not public offenses require an arrest warrant. “(a) An officer may, without a warrant, arrest a person: (1) For a public offense committed or a breach of the peace threatened in the officer’s presence;” T.C.A. § 40-7-103. The arrest is without warrant as required as the alleged breach of the light law, T.C.A. § 55-9-402, not meeting the standard for public offense.
Blake Murchison, Hamilton County magistrate at the jail, holds a hearing from behind a window. He denies the accused a copy of the charging instrument. He denies him a view of his computer screen showing such charging instrument, which device apparently cannot be turned to display to the accused the writing of accusation. He denies the accused the right to confront the witness and accuser, the county employee deputy Brandon Bennett, to provide a judicial basis for probable cause.
State of Tennessee’s accused demands dismissal of the case for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and the failure to obtain a warrant under Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-7-103. The magistrate states he finds probable cause for the arrest, and releases accused on his own recognizance, setting a hearing date in Hamilton County sessions court.
Complainant at a Jan. 18, 2024, hearing before Judge Christie M. Sell demands she dismiss the case ministerially, as the court has no subject matter jurisdiction to hear it. The court is in receipt of the accused’s Pre-plea remedy and avoidance showing that the UAPA applies to all matters pertaining to granting and revocation of a state license, and matters in between. Before a silent assistant district attorney, complainant says the case State of Tennessee v. David Jonathan Tulis is unripe for criminal proceedings, as matters pertaining to driver licenses are subject to UAPA and are administrative in nature under contested case procedure. Accused insists on his right that movant state exhaust its administrative remedies.
Judge Sell refuses to dismiss. The court says it will set another hearing date with the officer present. Accused objects to setting calendar for any hearing. Accused demands indictment, inking waivers of the court to obtain grand jury review of his arrest as no probable cause is determined.
The district attorney’s office forwards him an e-mail indicating that the case is being dropped. Hamilton County criminal court judge Amanda Dunn signs an expungement order March 28, 2024.
Bad faith origins of traffic attainder, warrantless arrest regimes
SUMMARY. Defendants operate general warrants scheme, injuring plaintiff and other people in like station, and secondarily administer as poachers the state and federal motor vehicle laws in abusive and harmful custom against which plaintiff put the defendants under administrative notice as to transportation March 1, 2018, and as to warrantless arrest April 15, 2020, with parties persisting in two sets of illegal activity resulting in the false imprisonment and false arrest for which plaintiff seeks redress and reformation by order of injunction of defendants’ practices and policy.
The criminal prosecution arises from Hamilton County sheriff’s office colorable administration of Tenn. Code Ann. §§ Titles 65, carriers, and 55, motor and other vehicles. Tenn. Code Ann. § Title 55 regulates the privileged field of economic activity called transportation. The privilege is the trade, business, calling or taxable vocation styled “operating” or “driving” a “motor vehicle,” for which authority is state of Tennessee through the exercise of a state privilege via, among other laws, the Uniform Classified and Commercial Driver License Act of 1988, regulating transportation on Tennessee roads under state privilege (emphasis added).
Every driver license is commercial, starting with the Class D for vehicles up to 13 tons. Chapter 50’s original title is “Uniform Motor Vehicle Operators’ and Chauffers’ Licenses Law.” “The registration and the fees provided for registration shall constitute a privilege tax upon the operation of motor vehicles ” Tenn. Code Ann. § 55-4-101(2).
Driver licenses are equitable matters. “The driving of an automobile is a privilege, not a property right, and is subject to reasonable regulation under the police power in the interest of the public safety and welfare. *** [T]he court, considering the suit to be of an equitable nature, took jurisdiction to hear and determine the case upon the principles of equity under the authority of section 10329 of the Code” Sullins v. Butler, 175 Tenn. 468, 135 S.W.2d 930, 932, 933 (1940).
In Tennessee, controverted acts under licenses are administrative in nature. “[T]he grant or refusal of a license to use public highways in commerce is purely an administrative question.” McMinnville Freight Line, Inc. v. Atkins, 514 S.W.2d 725, 726–27 (Tenn. 1974).
In general sessions accused demands his right to have the dispute over a license be heard first by State of Tennessee under auspices of its department of safety and homeland security, responsible for issuing the license upon which claim was made, the county sessions court not yet qualified by ripeness of the allegations to determine if State of Tennessee has authority make a claim for which relief was to have been granted as a criminal matter.
A taillight defect does not meet the test for a public offense in the nature of a breach of the peace, allowing for arrest without warrant under Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-7-103.
Defendants’ act of false imprisonment and false arrest exposes improper customs and usages of defendant county, which defendants Garrett and Bennett pursue in their personal capacities, as their sequences of action to injure plaintiff are outside of the law.
Defendants run a general warrants scheme, prohibited in Tenn. const. Art. 1, Sect. 7. “That the people shall be secure in their persons, houses, papers and possessions, from unreasonable searches and seizures; and that general warrants, whereby an officer may be commanded to search suspected places, without evidence of the fact committed, or to seize any person or persons not named, whose offences are not particularly described and supported by evidence, are dangerous to liberty and ought not be granted” (emphasis added). The Nov. 22, 2023, arrest is a breach at Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-7-103, the state warrant exceptions law limiting Tenn. const. Art. 1, sect. 7, protections.
Plaintiff files a criminal complaint against defendants Bennett and Garrett with the Hamilton County district attorney Dec. 4, 2023, for which no action is taken by that office.
Aggravating circumstances basis for punitive damages, demand for injunctive relief
Plaintiff is long concerned as a God-fearing Christian and radio investigative journalist and about abuses against the people, especially minorities and the poor, and their constitutionally guaranteed rights by defendant county and defendant sheriff’s office. He takes steps March 1, 2018, and April 15, 2020, and other dates 2020, to apprise Hamilton County of law prohibiting the two strands of illegal conduct exemplified in this case.
Plaintiff does so by putting defendant county and Messers. Garrett and Bennett, by imputation, on administrative notice about the law pertaining to arrest and to the law regarding privilege in Tennessee, as privilege is managed by the carrier and motor vehicle laws and in no way implicate, derogate or abrogate the right to travel.
He goes further. As broadcast journalist on FM radio, NoogaRadio Network and later Copperhead and Eagle Radio Network, and as publisher of law blogs TNtrafficticket.us and DavidTulis.substack.com, focusing on Tennessee privilege law and rejection of it by defendants, plaintiff has put defendants under notorious publication about the rights of the people and the constraints of state and federal constitutions and law upon their police power or administrative authority. He has done so the past 2,455 days (since March 1, 2018),
Identification of plaintiff’s harms is aided by criminal statutes defendants violate to affect their continuing and irreparable harms upon plaintiff, namely:
Official misconduct – Official misconduct is a misdemeanor.
(a) A public servant commits an offense who, with intent to obtain a benefit or to harm another, intentionally or knowingly:
(1) Commits an act relating to the public servant’s office or employment that constitutes an unauthorized exercise of official power;
(2) Commits an act under color of office or employment that exceeds the public servant’s official power;
(3) Refrains from performing a duty that is imposed by law or that is clearly inherent in the nature of the public servant’s office or employment;
(4) Violates a law relating to the public servant’s office or employment
Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-16-402
Official oppression – Defendants act under color of law, in arbitrary and capricious policy to arrest plaintiff. The essential elements of official oppression, a class E felony, are as follows: “(a) A public servant acting under color of office or employment commits an offense who: (1) Intentionally subjects another to mistreatment or to arrest, detention, stop, frisk, halt, search, seizure, dispossession, assessment or lien when the public servant knows the conduct is unlawful; or (2) Intentionally denies or impedes another in the exercise or enjoyment of any right, privilege, power or immunity, when the public servant knows the conduct is unlawful.” T.C.A. § 39-16-403. Official oppression.
Defendants imprison and arrest plaintiff without probable cause, and without a warrant as required for an offense that is not a public offense under T.C.A. § 40-7-103, and they do so pretendedly under Tenn. Code Ann. § Title 55, the motor vehicle law, which obligates them to sue accused civilly, administratively under the UAPA for alleged breaches under a driver’s license, and not to falsely imprison and arrest him for a damaged taillight traveling privately as if he were a criminal.
Notice No. 1 arrest powers
Administrative notice on limits of arrest power in Tennessee under ‘public offense’ rule. This notice is served on Hamilton County commission on April 15, 2020 and on the Hamilton County sheriff’s office in correspondence with Coty Wamp, counsel, now state district attorney. The notice indicates the Tenn. const. Art 1, sect. 7 ban on warrantless arrest has exceptions at T.C.A. § 40-7-103, which limits defendants maliciously ignore. EXHIBIT No. 1
The exceptions law gives law enforcement officers an inch, disallows them from taking a mile.
(a) An officer may, without a warrant, arrest a person:
(1) For a public offense committed or a breach of the peace threatened in the officer’s presence *** [Emphasis added]
T.C.A. § 40-7-103
Deputy Bennett has to conduct two tests to determine if authorized to make a warrantless arrest of an alleged misdemeanor. One is “the officer’s presence.” The other is whether it is a “public offense committed.” The law itself defines a “public offense” as in the nature of a “breach of the peace threatened.” Plaintiff’s administrative notice lays out the jurisprudence indicating how a “public offense” is in the nature of a breach of the peace.
“‘A breach of the peace is “a violation of public order, the offense of disturbing the public peace. An act of public indecorum is also a breach of the peace.”’ Galvin v. State, 6 Cold. 294. The sale of intoxicating liquors has always been recognized as tending to provoke disturbances of good order and breaches of the peace. When such sales were lawful it was found necessary to impose upon them strict regulations to prevent breaches of the peace. Speaking of such a regulation this court long ago said: ‘This is a police regulation, for the good order and quiet of the city.’ Smith v. Knoxville, 3 Head. 247.” State ex rel. Thompson
The State ex rel. Thompson court goes for social color to a list of public offenses. “The term, ‘breach of the peace’ is generic, and includes riotous and unlawful assemblies, riots, forcible entry and detainer, the sending of challenges and provoking to fight, going around in public, without lawful occasion, in such manner as to alarm the public, the wanton discharge of firearms in the public streets, engaging in an affray or assault, using profane, indecent, and abusive language by one toward another, on a street and in the presence of others, or being intoxicated and yelling on the public streets in such manner as to disturb the good order and tranquillity of the neighborhood.” 8 Ruling Case Law, p. 285.
From State ex rel Thompson 135 Tenn. 653, *669; 188 S.W. 225, **229; 1916 Tenn. LEXIS 46, ***17
Administrative notice on “public offense” rule, p. 4
Defendants Garrett and Hamilton County correctly quote § 40-7-103 in sect. 205, warrants and warrantless arrest in the HCSO manual.
In practice defendants convert “public offense” to “offense” to avoid having to see and obey the restraints in law, and impose custom upon the deputy that he imprison and arrest plaintiff arrest on his own personal authority, without warrant or probable cause.
They eliminate one of the two tests a deputy must make before making an arrest without a neutral judge’s approval of deputy’s draft of the arrest warrant. Such act voids the law enumerating the exceptions and creates the county’s Redcoat warrants scheme.
If the public offense standard is deleted, the statute is altered to say an officer can arrest anyone for a misdemeanor at any time without a warrant for cause. If public offense is translated into offense, no law of exceptions would be needed whatsoever if a warrant is not needed for misdemeanors of the kind alleged by defendants. Defendants claim to have authority to affect an arrest on the spot by the present officer any time for any offense.
Notice No. 2 Transportation law limits
Tennessee transportation administrative notice. The notice is served personally on then-Sheriff Jim Hammond by plaintiff March 1, 2018, and also by notorious publication. The document is in the county record of Rhea County register of deeds, and published in Hamilton County by the Chattanooga Times Free Press legal classified ad. EXHIBIT No. 2
The administrative notice outlines the nature of transportation regulation and spotlights the line separating regulatory authority over one sector of the traveling public from that other sector of the traveling public upon which no authority is exercisable except for cause or under criminal warrant. Half of the recorded public document describes state and federal regulatory authority; the second half of Tennessee transportation administrative notice describes rights retained by the people. The state exercises authority up to clear limit. The people enjoy rights as against such police or tax powers. These rights include movement, locomotion, rights of ingress-egress from their soil disposal, moving from Point A to Point B, communication, self-propulsion, travel, pleasure and comfort, motoring, and others albeit unenumerated, protected by the federal 9th amendment.
Tennessee has two modes of taxation: Ad valorem and privilege. Tenn. const. Art. 2, sect. 28. Privileges are on occupations, callings and trades, upon for-profit activities that affect the public interest. Operating a motor vehicle is an occupation and trade, and use of automobiles is regulable when the movement of the automobile or conveyance down the public right of way is for private profit and gain, carrying goods or people for hire, affecting the public health, safety and welfare interest and subject to police power, regulation, taxation and surveillance.
Statutes and court cases separate the two sectors of travel as described in the leading court case on privilege in Tennessee, Phillips v. Lewis, 3 Shannon’s cases 230, 1877. See Appendix. A crucial point in the instant controversy is whether defendants have authority to administer the privilege of transportation absent any criminal warrant or administrative cause arising within defendants’ established peacekeeping or conservator of the peace role.
County traffic arrests like that highlighted in this case arise under color of state of Tennessee’s commercial regulation of the driving and operating a motor vehicle privilege.
Police power and regulatory authority under the Tennessee UAPA, Tenn. Code Ann. 4-5-101 et seq, are exercisable upon those “on the privilege” of driving or operating a motor vehicle. Phillips describes a privilege as an occupation, trade or calling such as the raising of bitches or jackasses for private profit and gain.This pursuit or occupation is taxed, not as property, but as an occupation. Another element in this occupation is, that its object and pursuit is directed to a profit to be made off the general public, the merchant having a relation, by reason of his occupation, to the whole community in which he may do business, by reason of which he reaps, or is assumed to reap, the larger profit by drawing upon or getting the benefit of the resources of those surrounding him. The same idea is involved in the case of the peddler, who may range over a whole county by virtue of his license. His is an occupation of like character, a peculiar use of his capital varied only in some of its incidents.
Id. Phillips at 240
Insofar as administering the driving and operation of motor vehicle privilege, per §§ Titles 55 and 65, his role is minimal.
A primary duty is keeping the peace. “(a) The sheriff and the sheriff’s deputies are conservators of the peace, and it is the sheriff’s duty to suppress all affrays, riots, routs, unlawful assemblies, insurrections, or other breaches of the peace, detect and prevent crime, arrest any person lawfully, execute process of law, and patrol the roads of the county. (b) The sheriff shall furnish the necessary deputies to carry out the duties set forth in subsection (a), and, if necessary, may summon to the sheriff’s aid as many of the inhabitants of the county as the sheriff thinks proper.” Tenn. Code Ann. § 8-8-213. Powers as conservator of the peace.
The sheriff’s authority list is T.C.A. § 8-9-201. He has duty to “execute and return, according to law, the process and orders of the courts,” “attend upon the courts” by keeping them “in order” and “[furnishing] them with fire and water,” “possess and exercise police powers to the same extent as *** police,” run the jail, “execute all writs and other process *** and make due return thereof.”
In No. 36 of his list of duties, is a list of other statutes that are part of his job description, including three in § Title 55. He “shall perform the duties set forth in” § 55-10-402 (jailings of DUI offenders), § 55-10-410 (probation conditions), § 55-10-420 (compliance-based ignition interlock services; provider licenses).
At § Tenn. Code Ann. § 8-8-201, duties, he enjoys the common law arrest authority to make arrests, shared by all citizens, for felonies and public offenses.
Tennessee law regulating the privilege of driving and operating a motor vehicle under Tenn. Code Ann. §§ Titles 65 and 55 is pursuant to 49 U.S.C. Transportation.
“[T]he HCSO [Hamilton County sheriff’s office] does not possess any records related to contracts, agreements, arrangements, delegation orders, or grants of authority between the HCSO and the U.S. Department of Transportation, Tennessee Department of Transportation, Tennessee Department of Revenue, nor the Tennessee Department of Safety,” the department says Oct. 30, 2024, via general counsel Brian Bush (bold in original).
No Tennessee statute gives authority for Hamilton County nor its employees to administer freight motor vehicle laws unless a motor vehicle or automobile is being used for commission of a crime, public offense or breach of the peace threatened.
On Nov. 22, 2023, the date defendants launch a criminal case against plaintiff, the moving parties fall under the two bodies of law about which they have been put on administrative notice, said notice warning them not expose themselves legally by tortious conduct and to not injure plaintiff in his God-given, constitutionally protected, inherent and unalienable federal rights.
Defendants in seizing plaintiff’s person obtain no evidence of commerce on part of their accused, declaim any desire to obtain such evidence, fail to establish that moment of seizure the essential elements of “driving a motor vehicle” that is an activity under privilege subject to the Tennessee highway patrol. T.C.A. § 4-3-2012, § 4-7-104, § 4-7-105 (“jurisdiction and authority [over] operators of motor vehicles for hire”), and § 40-7-103(c) (“Unless a law enforcement officer has probable cause to believe that an offense has been committed, no officer, except members of the Tennessee highway patrol acting pursuant to § 4-7-104, shall have the authority to stop a motor vehicle for the sole purpose of examining or checking the license of the driver of the vehicle”).
The scheme to deny exercise of ingress-egress rights, from congressional disposal of soil in Tennessee, belonging to plaintiff in enjoyment of his place in Hamilton County, advances the cause of defendants’ unconstitutional and notorious bill of attainder in Hamilton County in which all communication by automobile is commercialized presumptively, put presumptively under Title 55 privilege, and sheriff’s deputies impose police power on pretendly public commercial parties without warrant, probable cause or nonfraudulent exigency, creating criminal cases from what are administrative allegations of equitable nature.
Defendants’ arbitrary and capricious claims are made against plaintiff and against all similar parties who are nontrucking, non-shipping, non-commercial private travelers exercising callings and enjoying rights, as was plaintiff on the day of his false imprisonment and false arrest, outside the scope of the motor vehicle law at §§ Tenn. Code Ann. Titles 55, motor and other vehicles, and 65, carriers.
Insofar as plaintiff has a tag and a driver license, registering his car with department of revenue for privileged use under Title 55 and his person as a driver/operator with DOSHS, he is commerce ready.
He is “on” the license when doing the for-profit activity for which the privilege exists, carrying goods or passengers for hire in an automobile used as a motor vehicle. That one is “on” or “off” license is reasonable. Duty under privilege occurs not when a fisherman is eating breakfast at a wharf diner or trolling a shoreline, but once he flings hook and bobber upon the lake. A restaurateur is not “on” her license cooking burgers at home for a son’s birthday party. A pilot is not “on” license traveling by car from the airport. A podiatrist is not “on” his license looking at the foot of his neighbor’s son. Liability for privilege proof exhibit on demand occurs when the licensee performs the act or acts under privilege.
In defendants’ criminal disregard of (1) arrest warrant requirements and (2) protected rights of free movement or private activity by automobile or car, defendants separately and personally under color of office breach plaintiff’s absolute right to be free from false imprisonment and false arrest in the exercise of his constitutionally protected, God-given, unalienable and inherent rights of ingress and egress.
Their acts are not accidental. They are part of a pattern, are knowing and deliberate, and done in personal capacity outside of the law, to the injury of plaintiff. Their acts expose their persons and their municipal employer to claims for redress and relief.
Their ignoring administrative notice drafted and served in the public interest shows malice and bad faith. Hamilton County, Messrs. Garrett and Bennett run a “deputy-can-arrest-anyone-for–cause-at-anytime-without-a-warrant-if-it’s-in-the-officer’s-presence” scheme, aka general warrants, “arrest on sight” powers, aka Redcoat warrants. Mr. Bennett’s putting his hands on plaintiff and dragging him from cruiser to the jail door steps is materially no different than if Deputy Bennett had a blank arrest warrant in his pocket and fills it in with accused’s name on a crime scene, i.e., general warrant. General warrants are outlawed in the United States.
Itemization of harms to plaintiff
Count 1 – False imprisonment
This count incorporates by reference all the facts and allegations from paragraphs 1 to 106.
Plaintiff is falsely imprisoned by defendants in his Nov. 22, 2023, arrest, forced to go where he does not wish to go and prohibited from going to that place where he wishes to go. The imprisonment is apart from lawful authority, and is done with the use of armed threat and a pretense of the lawful use of police authority, a harmful and oppressive act, and an injury to plaintiff.
In falsely imprisoning plaintiff, Mr. Bennett acts against plaintiff in his personal capacity, outside his office, without warrant, and in a personal gesture effectively kidnaps plaintiff for no lawful reason and not in defense of any of Mr. Bennett’s personal rights or property, and does so knowingly and intentionally, if not by personal knowledge, then by legal imputation of administrative notice upon his principals and superiors, of whom he is agent, as to the requirements of a warrant under T.C.A. § 40-7-103 and Tenn. const. Art. 1, sect. 7, and the federal constitution 4th amendment.
Mr. Bennett, in making the arrest, denies himself the protection that the arrest warrant system at T.C.A. § 40-6-203. Informants; examination creates, whereby the arrest is judicially sanctioned ahead of time by the county magistrate, and the deputy in his person is immune if the proposed seizure is in error.
Mr. Bennett, pursuant to T.C.A. § 8-8-301, liability for wrongs of deputies – limitation, “shall be liable” for wrongs done plaintiff, though agent of co-defendant Garrett and co-defendant county, the wrongs done in personal capacity.
Mr. Bennett falsely imprisons plaintiff under color of office despite having been put under notice, actual or putative, about the disabilities of the motor vehicle laws and the constitutional protections of the traveling public; he does so under presumption of commerce that petitioner rebuts on the scene of arrest, which presumption leads defendant to act as though all use of the road is commercial, and that the alleged taillight infraction is under his authority, and is an arrestable crime, a crime of such nature as a “public offense” as to not need an arrest warrant.
Mr. Bennett falsely imprisons plaintiff without a warrant in plaintiff’s exercise of federally protected ingress-egress property rights and liberty, and or plaintiff’s refusal to yield to a baseless demand to exhibit a driver license, to which demand plaintiff is under no obligation to yield, as he is moving up the roadway on private business, not having committed any crime, and unwilling to yield — by the showing of such driver license, issued under T.CA. § 55-50-101 et seq — and place himself and his property at that hour into state and federal commercial privilege jurisdiction, the state of Tennessee refusing to prosecute defendant Bennett’s arbitrary allegations against plaintiff otherwise subject to the Tennessee uniform administrative procedures act and plaintiff’s right to face allegations regarding a driver license in a contested case at T.C.A. § 4-5-301, Conduct of contested cases.
That Mr. Bennett imposes false imprisonment despite notice about arrest warrants and ingress-egress automobility protected rights of plaintiff, which exercise is not a crime. These acts, in county-issued sheriff’s department uniform and vehicle, and under color of defendant county’s policies and orders, constitute an aggravating harm deserving extraordinary restitution and punishment.
In permitting imprisonment of plaintiff in the ordinary course of running the sheriff’s office, Mr. Garrett, having been put under administrative notice regarding T.C.A. § 40-7-103 and the limits of T.C.A. §§ Titles 55 and 65, knowingly and intentionally, and recklessly, allows or commands his employee Mr. Bennett to follow departmental policy, custom and training, giving Mr. Bennett pretended “authority” to affect plaintiff’s imprisonment, to plaintiff’s injury.
Whether by actual knowledge or by imputed knowledge per administrative notice on warrantless arrest authority in 2020, Mr. Garrett is personally liable to plaintiff for the harm done him in false imprisonment and a criminal prosecution initiated by his office and rejected by state of Tennessee district attorney as baseless.
Mr. Garrett is in his office as sheriff also liable to plaintiff for refusing to countenance black-letter law — in the constitution and in the statute — and limit the use of imprisonment authority pursuant to law.
In permitting imprisonment of plaintiff by its two employees, Hamilton County allows or encourages such acts, and does so with malice and bad faith, having been put under administrative notice about the requirements of T.C.A. § 40-7-103, and yet taking no steps to restrain the private acts of these men under color of law and under color of Hamilton County authority.
Defendant county makes routine and commonplace misuse of the motor vehicle laws its standard operating procedure. It criminalizes with false imprisonment private communication by automobile and taillight damage when technical defects, if they occur under any authority it may lawfully administer, are at best subject to verbal warning or as administrative matters handled by notice, letter or a contested case in DOSHS, or in a county office, if such arrangements have been made with state of Tennessee for such agency.
Hamilton County acts against plaintiff as if communicating by automobile, not under privilege, and not in commerce at the hour in question, were a crime
Count 2 – False arrest
This count incorporates by reference all the facts and allegations from paragraphs 1 to 120.
On Nov. 22, 2023, defendants arrest plaintiff. Mr. Bennett, under color of employment serving the county and under color of office, binds plaintiff by wristcuffs and takes him to jail for booking against his will and despite protest. Stating his refusal to cooperate with false imprisonment and false arrest, plaintiff forces deputies to carry him from cruiser up the concrete steps to the jail booking door. Plaintiff is denied the right to know the cause and nature of his arrest and denied his right to confront his accuser and witness. Plaintiff demands of Bennett that he stay to be confronted, but Bennett answers that everything he has to say is in his charging instrument. Blake Murchison, county magistrate and county employee, does not give the prisoner a copy of the charging instrument, does not show him the words on the document by twisting his computer monitor to make the document available for his reading, and does not compel defendant Bennett to come back to the jail so plaintiff can confront him as to nature and cause of his accusation under oath, does not dismiss Mr. Bennett’s two criminal charges on due process grounds, all of which constitute harms of false arrest.
Defendants premise their false arrest on authority in T.C.A. §§ Title 55, motor and other vehicles, and 65, chapter 15, carriers, which pretended exercise of authority is ultra vires and injuriously and illicitly applied upon plaintiff, of which misuse plaintiff argues before the magistrate to no avail — all such wrongs piece and parcel of false arrest.
In falsely arresting plaintiff, Mr. Bennett acts against plaintiff in his personal capacity, outside his office as deputy, without warrant, and in a personal gesture by which he effectively kidnaps plaintiff for no lawful reason and not in any way in self-defense or protection of his own personal rights or property, but maliciously, knowingly and intentionally, if only by legal imputation of written law and of administrative notice upon his principals and superiors.
Deputy Bennett fails to shield himself as a man from personal liability by putting the onus of the arrest on a detached and objective magistrate who could have given him an arrest warrant, as required by T.C.A. § 40-7-103 for any misdemeanor offense that is not a public offense.
Mr. Bennett binds, drags and jails plaintiff for refusing to yield his constitutionally guaranteed liberties and rights or admit himself into commercial jurisdiction that defendant Bennett himself repeatedly denies is the basis of his authority to make the arrest, all of which injure plaintiff.
In false arrest of plaintiff, Mr. Garrett recklessly and in bad faith ordains employee Bennett to follow departmental policy, custom and training to falsely arrest plaintiff, giving Mr. Bennett pretended “authority” to affect seizure, to plaintiff’s injury.
Defendant Garrett having been put on awares under plaintiff’s administrative notice regarding T.C.A. § 40-7-103 and a notice regarding the disabilities in motor vehicle Titles 55 and 65, engages in the act of false arrest knowingly and intentionally, maliciously as against law and the rights of plaintiff and all the people he pretends to protect.
The state of Tennessee, via office of its attorney in the district, Coty Wamp, rejects defendant Garrett’s criminal accusations against plaintiff and dismisses them, as they have no legal foundation or probable cause.
In permitting false imprisonment and false arrest of plaintiff by its two employees, Hamilton County allows or encourages such acts, and does so with malice and bad faith, having been put under administrative notice and yet taking no steps to restrain the private acts of these men against plaintiff’s rights against law and under personal or official capacity under color of law and under color of Hamilton County authority.
Relief requested
Punitive damages & costs
Plaintiff demands $500,000 in compensatory damages from defendants, and $24.5 million in punitive damages.
The punitive damages proposed are to encourage defendants to be mindful of the Tennessee and U.S. constitutions, with their high view of the citizenry and harsh view against their abuse via police power without warrant, and to force the taxpayers, county commissioners and sureties of public servants to be mindful of obligees’ acts under law.
Plaintiff demands reasonable and fair compensation for costs of this action, whether such costs be court fees, associated expenses, and his time handling the legal work in this case.
Injunction upholding ‘public offense’ standard in warrantless arrest
Contents of this section, to be separately filed:
- Motion for temporary injunction requiring obedience to warrantless arrest law at Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-7-103
- Brief in support of such motion on likelihood of success, and basis for claim
- Draft order of injunction
As warrantless searches and seizures are presumptively unreasonable, Tenn. const. art. 1, § 7, plaintiff submits a petition for injunction for immediate consideration in face of continuing irreparable harm to him as he carries himself by automobile up or down county roads, and affects to live in Hamilton County and that is a ban on plaintiffs’ general warrants scheme.
He gives notice, and hereby reserves the right, of filing a motion for injunction in course of these proceedings, that being to force defendants to exercise the duty to make distinction in “traffic stops” between regulable traffic (cars, trucks, vehicles carrying cargo or passengers for here in commerce) and private movement by automobile (bearing guests, personal chattel and private property for family purposes, for comfort or pleasure) by citizens and others exercising protected federal rights.
Blinkered tag bulbs, damaged taillights, expired registration plates, failure to use an indicator, tinted windows, speeding and like breaches are not arrestable crimes without a warrant per Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-7-103, unless they meet the public offense standard.
Obeying the warrant rule may be sufficient to cure defendants of the presumption that all users of the road are in commerce, subject to the low bar of privilege enforcement administration under statute rather than the high bar of probable cause or reasonable articulable suspicion for criminal acts. Complying with the warrant rule will sharply curtail abusive practices against the traveling public on the public road such as that exemplified by this case, and may obviate the plaintiff’s intent and right to motion for a separate injunction petitioning for an order for the deputy to make inquiry at a “traffic arrest” whether the person behind the wheel is engaged in commerce in a vehicle or freight motor vehicle, or merely in an automobile or other personal conveyance.
In sum, plaintiff demands immediate temporary injunction upon the general warrants scheme wherein defendants deny the vital role of the judicial office in Hamilton County in which judges and magistrates screen allegations of criminal activity and so protect two parties vital to life in Hamilton County.
The first party protected is the deputy and officer, who is employed in public service and who should not be legally on the hook for false imprisonment and false arrest torts because he has been misled by his municipal employer as to how the law works. The two men in this case, following their employer’s policy and longstanding Redcoat warrant policy, are personally liable to plaintiff for their injuring him, and would not face grief of this lawsuit had they read the law, obeyed the law, warned (1) by well known and published law, and (2) under administrative notice making restatement of their duty.
Secondarily, the warrant requirement protects members of the public from arbitrary and capricious acts by officers and spares these men and women the humiliation, shame and financial losses of arrest and imprisonment, which act for deputies is just another detail in a day’s work. Members of the public have a right to be arrested under judicial sanction after the accuser faces the task of going to the magistrate’s office in the jail, drafting a criminal complaint before such judge who evaluates it for sufficiency before issuing the arrest warrant.
“(a) Upon information made to any magistrate of the commission of a public offense, the magistrate shall examine, on oath, the affiant or affiants, reduce the examination to writing, and cause the examination to be signed by the person making it.” T.C.A. § 40-6-203. The magistrate examines the deputy or officer, securing the officer and also the member of the public from personal and private seizure. Under general warrants, judicial examination beforehand is avoided, and due process for the citizen is denied.
Injunction as to traffic enforcement limit
Contents of this section, to be separately filed:
- Motion for permanent injunction requiring defendants to make determination whether a person in an automobile traveling on the public road is involved in commerce activity subject to regulation
- Brief in support of such motion
- Draft order of injunction
Plaintiff gives notice he intends to ask by petition injunctive relief to prohibit ultra vires use by defendants of the state’s authority to administer the driving privilege under (1) the federal administrator; “‘Administrator’ means the federal motor carrier safety administrator, the chief executive of the federal motor carrier safety administration, an agency within the United States department of transportation.” Tenn. Code Ann. § 55-50-102, and (2) under the department of safety. Tenn. Code Ann. § 55-50-201. “This chapter shall be administered by the department of safety.” Tenn. Code Ann. § 55-50-201.
Misusing conservator of the peace powers, defendants deny ingress and egress rights of plaintiff, his right to come and go from soil disposal and place without plaintiff’s offending the Tennessee or U.S. motor vehicle and freight laws.
Defendants have duty to halt all poaching upon the authority of the Tennessee highway patrol and to cease and desist the practice of administering the motor vehicle laws as if they were agents of the departments of safety or revenue or the federal government, enforcing a law that makes freight subject to state troopers and enforcing the law as if users of the road are promiscuously subject to arrest or criminal citation, outside the clear boundaries of the privilege law infrastructure in Tennessee at §§ Titles 55 and 65 and its corresponding law federal law and U.S. CFR 49, transportation.
Injunction will require defendants distinguish between peacekeeping authority under law from administration of motor vehicle laws and commercial privilege management that plaintiff determines is improperly wielded, if defendants have any such authority to begin with.
Appendix
Excerpts Phillips v. Lewis, 1877
The leading Tennessee case on the state’s constitutional privilege-creation powers is Phillips v. Lewis, Shannon’s Code, Vol. III, p. 230, 1877, focusing on Tenn. const. art. 2, sect. 28. The case is mysteriously not available on Westlaw. It is a case between John W. Phillips v. W.G. Lewis, tax collector, January term 1877. Privilege jurisprudence and authority are ignored by defendants in this case.
238. The language is that hereafter the keeping of dogs shall be a privilege which shall be taxed as follows, etc. In this view of the question, the real point presented is whether the simple ownership of property of any kind can be declared by the legislature a privilege, and taxed as such, for if it can be done in the case of a dog, it may be done in the case of a horse, or any other species of property. It is clear this is what is done by this statute, except that [p. 239] it has gone even further, and taxed a party who shall harbor or give shelter to a cur on his premises. This latter privilege, we take it, is one that will not be much sought after, but to the main question. It is evident the words, “keeping of dogs,” in the statute mean simply ownership *** [.]
***
240 “Merchants, peddlers and privileges,” are the defined objects of taxation in the latter clause of the section. It is certain the merchant is not taxed except by reason of his occupation, and in order to follow or pursue this occupation – one of profit – in which it may be generally assumed capital, skill, labor, and talent are the elements of success, and are called into play by its pursuit. This pursuit or occupation is taxed, not as property, but as an occupation. Another element of this occupation is, that its object and pursuit is directed to a profit to be made off the general public, the merchant having a relation, by reason of his occupation, to the whole community in which he may do business, by reason of which he reaps, or is assumed to reap, the larger profit by drawing upon or getting the benefit of the resources of those surrounding him. The same idea is involved in the case of the peddler, who may range over a whole county by virtue of his license. His is an occupation of like character, a peculiar use of his capital, varied only in some of its incidents.
These occupations are taxed as such, and not on the ad valorem principle. So we take it the word privilege was intended to designate a larger, perhaps an indefinite class of objects, having the same or similar elements in them, distinguishing them from property, and these objects were to be defined by the legislature and taxed in like manner as might be deemed proper. But the essential element distinguishing the two modes of taxation was intended to be kept up. That is the difference between property and occupation or business dealing with and reaping profit from the general public, or peculiar and public uses of property by which a profit is derived from the community. ***
Page 241. The case of Marbury v. Tarver, 1 Hum. 94, was under the Act of 1835 *** prohibiting the keeping, or rather, using the jackass for profit in the propagation of stock. Here it is clear it was the keeping of the animal, and using him for profit to be derived from the public in a particular manner, that was declared to be a privilege and taxed as such. It is not a tax on the jack, or for owning him or harboring him as the case before us, but a tax upon the particular public use to which he is put, that makes the element of privilege in that case.
243 We may concede, as we understand the argument of the Attorney General to do, that an actual license issued to the party is not an essential feature of a privilege, but is only the evidence of this grant of the right to follow the “occupation or pursuit,” and the usual and perhaps universal incident to such grant, or that a tax receipt is, or even may be the evidence of the grant. Still, the thing declared to be a privilege is the occupation, the license but the incident to its engagement, described by statute, assuming, however, the license in one form or the other is to be had. We think it would be impossible to hold, in any accurate sense, that a man could only be entitled to hold and possess his property, paid for with his money and earned by his labor, upon the condition of obtaining a license, either from the county clerk, or a tax collector. His right is indefeasible under the constitution of the state. He can only be deprived of it by due process of law, or the law of the land as hereinafter explained.
244 [T]he tax is on the occupation, avocation, or calling, it being one in which a profit is supposed to be derived, by its exercise, from the general public.
