Towing companies are able to charge “additional fees for exceptional services” separate from the hourly rate set by the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), according to a recent ruling from the Connecticut Supreme Court.
The case involved towing company Modzelewski’s Towing and Storage, Inc., which used specialized equipment to remove a dump truck carrying hot asphalt from the highway and tow it to their storage facility. The truck rolled over and spilled hot asphalt across the road, requiring Modzelewski’s to clear it and upright the truck. Modzelewski’s sent the plaintiff, represented by Sentry Select Insurance Company, a bill for specialized services related to the tow. Sentry Select paid the bill under protest and appealed to the DMV, which regulates rates for non-consensual tows and for storing towed vehicles.
The hearing officer who heard the complaint found Modzelewski’s charges were “unfair and unreasonable” and concluded they had created their “own rate schedule for non-consensual towing services that was based on the special equipment they used, rather than on the hourly rate for labor set by the commissioner.” The hearing officer disallowed most of the charges, including any “deemed to be an equipment charge and not an hourly labor charge.”
The DMV’s rates for non-consensual tows are based on distance and vehicle weight. There is a base tow charge for the preparation of the vehicle for towing and up to two miles in distance of towing. After the first two miles, there’s a set mileage rate. Additional hourly charges can be incurred for vehicles over 10,000 pounds.
In addition, if a tow requires winching or other ‘exceptional services,’ towing companies can charge an hourly rate based on labor.
The DMV sets a maximum hourly rate that companies can charge.
Under DMV regulations, licensed towing companies can charge “additional fees for exceptional services, and for services not included in the tow charge or hourly rate, which are reasonable and necessary for the non-consensual towing or transporting of a motor vehicle.” The regulations also stipulate that additional fees are “itemized in accordance with the hourly charge for labor” posted by the towing company.
Modzelewski’s appealed the decision to the trial court, which dismissed the complaint, and then to the appellate court, which also dismissed the complaint. They then appealed to the Connecticut Supreme Court, which overturned the decisions reached by the two lower courts.
The supreme court found the appellate court incorrectly ruled that fees for exceptional services, as outlined in the DMV’s regulations, exclude “costs associated with the procurement and maintenance of special equipment used to provide those exceptional services and that such fees must instead be based on the hourly labor rate for non-consensual towing determined by the [DMV] commissioner.”
The appellate court found that the DMV’s regulatory language about additional fees for exceptional services was unambiguous, but the supreme court disagreed, finding the language was “subject to more than one plausible interpretation.”
The state’s highest court found that the “more reasonable interpretation” of the language permitted towing services to charge additional fees “for exceptional services that are reasonable and necessary for non-consensual towing provided that those additional fees are itemized and posted on a sign” in conformance with statute and “provided that such additional fees are itemized separately in the invoice submitted to the owner of the vehicle that has been towed.”
They also found that an interpretation of the statute that didn’t allow towing companies to charge additional fees for exceptional services would mean they would likely “be unable to recoup the costs of such equipment and would therefore likely not engage in the provision of such exceptional services.”
During the case, the DMV commissioner argued that towing services could recoup those costs through hourly rates. The supreme court noted that if the commissioner were to set the hourly rate to allow this to happen, it would mean vehicle owners whose cars were towed and did not require specialized services would effectively subsidize tows requiring specialized services.
The supreme court’s decision remanded the case to a DMV hearing officer for further action in Sentry Select’s challenge of the towing charges.
Connecticut recently created a towing ‘bill of rights,’ intended to protect consumers against unreasonable towing fees, largely for tows from private property. The passage of a sweeping bill overhauling the state’s towing practices followed reporting from the Connecticut Mirror in partnership with ProPublica showing “lax standards and predatory practices” that particularly impacted those living paycheck to paycheck. Those practices included allowing towing companies to sell cars after just 15 days, one of the shortest time frames in the country, and requiring people to pay cash to retrieve their vehicles after they had been towed.
The new law was specifically targeted at tows from private property, now requiring a written authorization form for each tow and 14-day notice before a vehicle is towed specifically for having an expired registration. It also banned booting a vehicle on private property and required a 72-hour notice before a vehicle is towed for having an expired residential parking permit.
Additionally, the law allows municipalities to regulate towing and storage and directs the DMV to create separate rate schedules for tows ordered by police and those involving trespassing on private property.
Another bill introduced last session would have required the DMV to set separate rate schedules for the non-consensual towing of medium- and heavy-duty vehicles that reflected reasonable operating costs for those tows. It would have clarified what services are included in the hourly rate and clarified that the charge for exceptional services can include an hourly rate for labor and the use of specialized equipment as long as they were itemized, reasonable and necessary to the tow.
Modzelewski’s lawsuit, then still before the Supreme Court, was cited in the bill analysis. The company supported the bill, which died on the Senate calendar.
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