auctioning or disposing of 148 vehicles of active-duty service members<\/a> stationed at Camp Pendleton, a massive military base housing about 42,000 active-duty military members, over a five-year span beginning in August 2020. Some of the cars were towed while soldiers were serving overseas, the lawsuit alleges.<\/p>\nOn Tuesday, federal prosecutors announced a settlement with the San Clemente-based company. <\/p>\n
The company agreed to pay about $160,000 to military personnel whose vehicles were towed by the company in violation of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, a federal law that provides financial and legal protections to active-duty military members and their families.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the company did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But in its response to the federal lawsuit, the company defended itself in court records, denying some of the allegations. The company said its contract with Camp Pendleton did not make any reference to the federal law. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis defendant will admit that it did its best to abide by [state laws] when it came to enforcing its lien rights on vehicles where the registered owner was properly notified and failed to retrieve their vehicle,\u201d court records read.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors said the company planned to shut down but agreed that if it decided to reenter the business it would adopt policies and procedures that would comply with the federal law.<\/p>\n
\u201cMembers of the U.S. Armed Forces have a legal right to be protected while they serve our nation overseas,\u201d First Assistant U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli said in a statement. \u201cThis settlement will provide compensation to impacted service members and serves as notice to all businesses to comply with federal laws that protect our military.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFor far too long, tow companies have sold or disposed of servicemembers\u2019 vehicles in violation of federal law,\u201d Assistant Atty. Gen. Harmeet Dhillon of the Justice Department\u2019s Civil Rights Division said in the statement. \u201cThis settlement sends a strong message that all towing companies must recognize servicemembers\u2019 rights and take the necessary steps to comply with the SCRA.\u201d<\/p>\n
The settlement comes three months after federal prosecutors filed the lawsuit, accusing the company of illegally selling, auctioning or disposing of vehicles owned by SCRA-protected service members. <\/p>\n
Prosecutors alleged in the court documents that the violations appeared to date back to the beginning of the company\u2019s contract with the Marine Corps Police Department at Camp Pendleton. The contract stretched from August 2020 to April 2025, court records show.<\/p>\n
The contract required that it comply with federal and state law \u2014 meaning, prosecutors said, that the company was required to verify an owner\u2019s military status before enforcing its lien by selling or disposing of a towed vehicle. The company also didn\u2019t obtain a court order before selling or auctioning the vehicles, the lawsuit alleges.<\/p>\n
The company said in court records that it had hired a third-party company that specializes in verifying the registered owner and notifying them that the vehicle was impounded and subject to lien if the owner didn\u2019t take action. <\/p>\n
Federal prosecutors said, since 2011, it had obtained more than $489 million in monetary relief for more than 152,000 service members whose rights were violated under the SCRA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the spring of 2024, a Marine Corps legal assistance attorney called a Southern California towing company with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399101,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[30691,7338,1804,4017,16054,3753,7738,14627,48,52,51,160245,47,50,49,1831,95450,5675,160246,178,8836],"class_list":["post-399100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-active-duty-military-member","tag-camp-pendleton","tag-company","tag-contract","tag-court-record","tag-federal-law","tag-federal-lawsuit","tag-federal-prosecutor","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-legal-right","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-owner","tag-service-member","tag-settlement","tag-socal-tow-company","tag-vehicle","tag-violation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399100\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}