FacebookTwitter

About Nick Porto

Nick Porto is the co-founder of TowLawyer. TowLawyer is the one-stop shop where you’ll find legal resources and answers to your towing and recovery legal questions and concerns.

Read Your Tow Contracts: The Fine Print Can Cost You Money

In 2011, the municipal tow contract of a municipality in the Kansas City area went up for bid. This contract had stringent requirements. For example, eligible bidders had to have a tow lot which had a minimum of two (2) acres of hard based surface (i.e. asphalt or concrete) located in the municipality. Moreover, eligible bidders had to have this lot in place and ready for inspection at the time of bid, meaning a tow company could not have a lease or other real estate option contingent on winning the tow contract.

By |2017-02-10T17:00:10-06:00December 19th, 2016|Billing & Collections|0 Comments
Read More

Discriminating Against Non-Resident Tow Companies

It is not uncommon for tow companies to complain that a City, State, or Law Enforcement Agency is discriminating against them because the tow company is not a resident of the City, State, or Law Enforcement Agency’s jurisdiction. In fact, laws requiring a tow company to be a resident in order to perform law enforcement towing are common.

By |2017-02-10T19:18:12-06:00December 2nd, 2016|Other Legal Issues|0 Comments
Read More

Towing Bids and Minority or Women-Owned Towing Companies

Most municipal bid contracts contain something like the following: “ABC City demonstrates a continued commitment to the success of minority and women owned (MBE, WBE) businesses by promoting contracting opportunities for vendors certified DBE/WBE.”

By |2017-02-10T19:18:33-06:00November 14th, 2016|Other Legal Issues|0 Comments
Read More

Making the Employee Pay for Damage to Company Property

The tow business involves expensive equipment and employees that are compensated to operate it. A tow company’s profit margin is dramatically affected by how well this equipment operates. It might make “sense” that a tow company should be able to charge its employees for damage they cause to company property. Unfortunately, these is not always a place for “sense” in the law and, as a result, often times a company charging an employee for damages to company property is illegal.

By |2017-02-10T19:22:40-06:00October 6th, 2016|Human Resources|0 Comments
Read More

The Use of Social Media in the Tow Business

At the Tennessee Tow Show in Chattanooga, Tennessee, we were asked to lead a discussion on the use of social media in the tow business. The term “social media” can refer to many things but in this context we mean communicating and/or posting information, including photographs, on various internet platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, websites, and blogs. With the advent of the camera phone and the speed in which information may be disseminated on the internet, having a well-crafted social media policy is necessary.

By |2017-02-10T19:22:52-06:00September 28th, 2016|Other Legal Issues|0 Comments
Read More

Lanktree v. I-70 Towing: Minimum Wage Claims for On-Call Time and How to Avoid Them

A group of disgruntled former tow operators, an unsuspecting tow company, and a commission based payment system where the tow operators were not making minimum wage: the perfect storm of a wage and hour case. Unfortunately, this perfect storm came into fruition for I-70 Towing of Columbia, Missouri in Lanktree v. I-70 Towing, 2011 WL 4729726 (U.S.D. Mo. 2011).

By |2017-02-10T19:23:28-06:00September 14th, 2016|Human Resources|0 Comments
Read More

Good Faith and Reasonable Efforts to Locate a Vehicle’s Owner

When claiming a possessory lien on unclaimed motor vehicles, most state statutes require the tow company to inquire with their state’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to determine the vehicle’s owners and lienholders. If the DMV’s records indicate “no record found,” most states allow a tow company to proceed with a lien sale if the tow company publishes an appropriate public notice and the subject vehicle is not retrieved in a certain number of days.

By |2017-02-10T19:23:41-06:00September 5th, 2016|Vehicle Impounding & Liens|0 Comments
Read More

Paying Tow Drivers as Independent Contractors: Don’t Do It

Classifying a tow truck driver as an independent contractor is tempting. Independent contractors don’t require worker’s compensation insurance. Furthermore, employers don’t have to deduct withholding taxes, etc. from independent contractor’s paychecks. However, when it comes to classifying tow truck drivers as independent contractors, the towlawyer has some very simple advice: don’t do it.

By |2017-09-07T12:28:40-05:00August 22nd, 2016|Human Resources|0 Comments
Read More

Go to Top