The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act is a federal law that offers certain protections for members of the military. One of those protections prohibits towing companies from selling vehicles belonging to active-duty military servicemembers without a court order.
It’s not all that uncommon for some towing companies to break this law, and there’s no excuse for it, according to Craig Powell, CEO of AutoReturn, a national towing management company. “There really is no excuse for not knowing [the law], particularly if you’re experts in this domain,” he said. But still, he thinks some smaller companies may not be aware of every regulation they need to abide by. Other companies may know about these rules but don’t have the infrastructure in place to find out if a car is registered to an active-duty service member before they tow and sell it. At that point, it can be complicated getting the car back.
“In that situation, now you’ve got a lot of different entities and parties that are in play, as opposed to being able to identify it in real time and head the issue off altogether,” he said.
Powell said even some service members don’t know they have these additional protections. But the DOJ has filed complaints on their behalf against several towing companies in Texas in recent years for violations of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act.“There really is no excuse for not knowing [the law], particularly if you’re experts in this domain.” – Craig Powell, AutoReturn
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In the El Paso case, the city hired two towing companies – United Road Towing and Rod Robertson Enterprises Inc. – which, according to the DOJ complaint, illegally towed and auctioned off 176 vehicles belonging to service members protected by the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act. It was illegal because the companies didn’t have a court order to do so. Neither of the El Paso companies could be reached for comment. The city of El Paso is listed in the complaint because it hired the companies.
According to the complaint, the city doesn’t have any policy on the books regarding compliance with the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act. Rod Robertson Enterprises Inc. didn’t have any policies to ensure compliance, either, and ended up towing and auctioning off 143 vehicles without court orders that belonged to active-duty service members between January 1, 2015, and April 15, 2019. United Road Towing did have such policies, but the company still ended up towing 33 cars that belonged to people protected by the federal law between May 20, 2019 and February 11, 2020.
Around the same time, similar activities were happening in Dallas in an unrelated case.
In September 2020, the DOJ filed a similar complaint against Dallas towing company United Tows LLC. According to the complaint, a service member was attending basic training in San Antonio when his car was towed by the company. When he reached out to the company to explain that he was an active-duty service member, the owner said she didn’t believe him, according to the complaint. So, without a court order, the company sold the vehicle. An investigation later found that the company had done this at least four other times between Oct. 4, 2014, and April 26, 2019. In July 2021, the DOJ reached a $50,000 settlement with the Dallas company for illegally selling the five cars.
The city of San Antonio also had to pay a settlement after the DOJ alleged similar violations took place there between 2011 and 2019. In that period, the city auctioned off at least 227 vehicles registered to people protected by the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act.
The DOJ is filing these complaints in other states, as well, with the latest brought against a North Carolina towing company in March 2023.
Part of the issue behind all of this, Powell said, is that each municipality handles towing a little differently. That means there's not a standard way of handling violations of the Servicemembers Civil Rights Act at the local level. “That puts the burden back on the active service member to self-advocate and really go push the issue in order to get that rectified,” he said. “Sometimes that can be very difficult.”
