No more patrol towing
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled yesterday that states can outlaw patrol towing. This was specifically about a case in California, but it should affect us here in Washington, since we have a similar pending case involving the same company.
West Coast Towing was told to stop patrol towing by Washington State regulators, so they moved on to “clamping” or “booting” cars instead. Oops, that’s illegal here too. So they lost their towing license. Sucks to be them.
TBT Towing was also investigated on the same charge of patrol towing, and they may possibly lose their license as well. See previous posts about this topic here, here, and here. (That first one is the big one — 48 replies and counting!)
IANAL, but the Ninth Circuit’s decisions are binding on the Federal courts in Washington. This derails Tillison’s (West Coast Towing) claim that Federal law pre-empts state law and allows patrol towing.