*** YOU MAKE THE CALL *** AAA screws up edition

[Dan Druff]

NOTE: This story is NOT about me, so don't try to read anything into it. I just found the story to be interesting.

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"John" was driving and his car broke down around 8:00pm. He was a AAA (auto club) member, so he called them to come check things out.

Someone representing a garage, which independently contracts with AAA, came out and assessed the problem with his car. In the process of doing so, the guy screwed up and damaged it further. The guy apologized to John and left, telling him to call AAA to have it towed.

John called AAA, but because it was now after 8:00pm, it was considered "after hours", and he was forwarded to a third-party company taking calls for AAA. This third-party company had a computer problem and it erroneously spit out that John's AAA card was expired. They also had no record that someone had just been there to look at John's car. They refused to send a tow truck for him.

John fought with them on the phone for hours, but got nowhere. He finally gave up and called a tow truck on his own. John was broke and could not pay for the tow on the spot. They refused to tow it to anywhere but their own lot, and dropped him off at home. John figured that he would simply call AAA in the morning, have them get the car out of the towing lot, fix it, and bring it back to him.



AAA refused to do this. While they admitted that his story might very well be true, they told him that it was his responsibility to have the car towed to his own house, and not to the towing lot. They refused to do a thing for him until he retrieved his own car, at his own cost, and got it back to his home. They also refused to pay for the tow itself, even though they acknowledged that there was a good chance that they erroneously had him listed as a non-member after hours.

John, who isn't good at handling these sorts of things, dug his heels in, and refused to pick up his car on principle. It has now been 30 days, and the towing company has been charging him a $50/day fee for storage. John now owes them $1500 for the storage (plus the cost of the tow), and it increases by $50 every day.

John is now going to sue AAA.

Let's say the case came up today and you were the judge.

Assume the following:

- John's story is 100% true.

- AAA admits that John's story is true, but still asserts that the tow and storage were his own choice, and they shouldn't be responsible.

- AAA has expressed a willingness to fix the damage to his car at their expense, and John believes they will, so this is not part of the case. It's about who is responsible for the towing/storage fees.

What would you rule?

Alvin Finklestein will give his opinion a little bit later.

[v12cl]

NOTE: This story is NOT about me, so don't try to read anything into it. I just found the story to be interesting.

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"John" was driving and his car broke down around 8:00pm. He was a AAA (auto club) member, so he called them to come check things out.

Someone representing a garage, which independently contracts with AAA, came out and assessed the problem with his car. In the process of doing so, the guy screwed up and damaged it further. The guy apologized to John and left, telling him to call AAA to have it towed.

John called AAA, but because it was now after 8:00pm, it was considered "after hours", and he was forwarded to a third-party company taking calls for AAA. This third-party company had a computer problem and it erroneously spit out that John's AAA card was expired. They also had no record that someone had just been there to look at John's car. They refused to send a tow truck for him.

John fought with them on the phone for hours, but got nowhere. He finally gave up and called a tow truck on his own. John was broke and could not pay for the tow on the spot. They refused to tow it to anywhere but their own lot, and dropped him off at home. John figured that he would simply call AAA in the morning, have them get the car out of the towing lot, fix it, and bring it back to him.



AAA refused to do this. While they admitted that his story might very well be true, they told him that it was his responsibility to have the car towed to his own house, and not to the towing lot. They refused to do a thing for him until he retrieved his own car, at his own cost, and got it back to his home. They also refused to pay for the tow itself, even though they acknowledged that there was a good chance that they erroneously had him listed as a non-member after hours.

John, who isn't good at handling these sorts of things, dug his heels in, and refused to pick up his car on principle. It has now been 30 days, and the towing company has been charging him a $50/day fee for storage. John now owes them $1500 for the storage (plus the cost of the tow), and it increases by $50 every day.

John is now going to sue AAA.

Let's say the case came up today and you were the judge.

Assume the following:

- John's story is 100% true.

- AAA admits that John's story is true, but still asserts that the tow and storage were his own choice, and they shouldn't be responsible.

- AAA has expressed a willingness to fix the damage to his car at their expense, and John believes they will, so this is not part of the case. It's about who is responsible for the towing/storage fees.

What would you rule?

Alvin Finklestein will give his opinion a little bit later.

Credit John the cost of the tow, explain to him the importance of not being broke, and how principles don't matter when you are dealing with tow truck drivers.

[v12cl]

NOTE: This story is NOT about me, so don't try to read anything into it. I just found the story to be interesting.

-------

"John" was driving and his car broke down around 8:00pm. He was a AAA (auto club) member, so he called them to come check things out.

Someone representing a garage, which independently contracts with AAA, came out and assessed the problem with his car. In the process of doing so, the guy screwed up and damaged it further. The guy apologized to John and left, telling him to call AAA to have it towed.

John called AAA, but because it was now after 8:00pm, it was considered "after hours", and he was forwarded to a third-party company taking calls for AAA. This third-party company had a computer problem and it erroneously spit out that John's AAA card was expired. They also had no record that someone had just been there to look at John's car. They refused to send a tow truck for him.

John fought with them on the phone for hours, but got nowhere. He finally gave up and called a tow truck on his own. John was broke and could not pay for the tow on the spot. They refused to tow it to anywhere but their own lot, and dropped him off at home. John figured that he would simply call AAA in the morning, have them get the car out of the towing lot, fix it, and bring it back to him.



AAA refused to do this. While they admitted that his story might very well be true, they told him that it was his responsibility to have the car towed to his own house, and not to the towing lot. They refused to do a thing for him until he retrieved his own car, at his own cost, and got it back to his home. They also refused to pay for the tow itself, even though they acknowledged that there was a good chance that they erroneously had him listed as a non-member after hours.

John, who isn't good at handling these sorts of things, dug his heels in, and refused to pick up his car on principle. It has now been 30 days, and the towing company has been charging him a $50/day fee for storage. John now owes them $1500 for the storage (plus the cost of the tow), and it increases by $50 every day.

John is now going to sue AAA.

Let's say the case came up today and you were the judge.

Assume the following:

- John's story is 100% true.

- AAA admits that John's story is true, but still asserts that the tow and storage were his own choice, and they shouldn't be responsible.

- AAA has expressed a willingness to fix the damage to his car at their expense, and John believes they will, so this is not part of the case. It's about who is responsible for the towing/storage fees.

What would you rule?

Alvin Finklestein will give his opinion a little bit later.

Credit John the cost of the tow, explain to him the importance of not being broke, and how principles don't matter when you are dealing with tow truck drivers.

Forgot to add in a little something for the fact their mistake created the problem, maybe enough to split it down the middle, with the company that damaged the car carrying the liability for that.

[Bootsy Collins]

I have good news. I just saved a ton of money by switching to GEICO.

[BCR]

I'll give him the tow and first night, but the lot is going to own John's car for being a jackass. Drawing the line in the sand on principle is a luxury John can't afford. He should have just got the car and then fought them for the tow and storage.

I actually had to call AAA a few weeks back and they also told me my card was expired despite the fact it wasn't. It was a Sunday, and now I'm curious as to whether I got AAA or the 3rd party company? I was actually angling AAA as it was for a friend who had just left my place, and I parked my car away from hers and said I was with her. AAA will cover the tow even if you're just a passenger, but I had to drive home and get my new card because I wasn't in their system, so I certainly believe it happened to him.

[Mad Dad]

This is a legal question. The answer depends only on three things.
1) the legal AAA membership agreement
2) the mood of the judge
3) the facts

John goofed by letting his car sit there for an extended time. Being stubborn doesn't make you smart or right - it just makes you stubborn.

Without knowing the details of the legal agreement, I can only guess the AAA agreement is a good one for them. I imagine they may not even be obliged to tow the guy under the agreement but might offer the towing fee as a way to settle and appear fair.

The law is not about what is fair or right or just - it is only about what is legally required. If this goes to a judge - John gets nothing.

[Alvin Finklestein]

Smart group of people over here.

The vast majority voted for the correct answer. A typical small claims judge would award John the cost of the tow and one day's worth of vehicle storage fees. This, of course, is assuming that AAA has already agreed to fix the initial problem they caused (the damage to the vehicle).

The legal concepts applying to this case would be negligence and comparative negligence.

Negligence is defined as "a failure to exercise the care that a reasonably prudent person would exercise in like circumstances". In layman's terms, it's when you screw up in some way, which ends up causing some sort of damage to another person or company.

John's lawsuit would be based upon negligence, and it's clear that AAA was negligent. He had purchased a service from them that provides free towing at any time of the night. When they failed to properly look up his membership and denied him the tow, that is a classic case of negligence. At that point, it was John's right to call a tow truck on his own, and for AAA to reimburse him.

What about the storage? Again, John's AAA membership is not contingent upon having access to cash when he breaks down, so it is reasonable that John's vehicle would have been held by the towing company if he could not pay. Therefore, AAA's negligence did cause that to occur, and again, they would be responsible to reimburse him for the first day of storage.

However, as far as the rest of the $1450 in storage fees, those would usually be John's responsibility.

This is due to the concept of comparative negligence. The definition of comparative negligence is a concept that "reduces the amount of damages that a plaintiff can recover in a negligence-based claim based upon the degree to which the plaintiff's own negligence contributed to cause the injury". In layman's terms, it means that you can't hold someone else liable for your own mistakes, even if your mistakes were part of a chain reaction caused by someone/something else.

For example, if you rear-end my car and injure me to the point where I have temporary blurry vision, I can sue you for the damage to my car and for my injuries and pain/suffering. However, if I go play poker right after that and misread the flop because of my blurry vision, and then lose $10,000 because of misreading the flop, I can't recover that from you through a lawsuit. It was my own choice to make a bad decision to play poker when I wasn't physically up to it.

Similarly, nobody forced John to foolishly leave his car in storage for a month. He should have removed his car himself the next day when it became clear that AAA would not pay. He can't just choose the most expensive course of action and expect AAA to foot the bill.

The only way John could win such a case fully would be if he could prove that he did not have the money at any point to retrieve his car. Even then, he would also have to prove to the court that he clarified this to AAA, and persistently pressed them to retrieve his car using their funds. Unfortunately, most people, even ones struggling financially, would not be able to convince a judge that they couldn't come up with a few hundred dollars in an emergency.