Philly tried to gaslight ‘courtesy-tow’ victims. The judge didn’t buy it.

When it comes to the Philadelphia phenomenon known as courtesy towing, City Hall appears to have settled on a policy similar to Washington’s stance on Taiwan: strategic ambiguity.

Cars keep disappearing. Drivers are still wandering the streets for weeks. Some vehicles are never found.

But, instead of fixing this problem, Philadelphia officials have spent years effectively gaslighting the city’s entire driving population.

The argument goes like this: Courtesy towing doesn’t really exist … and, if it does, it’s not that bad … and if it is bad, drivers certainly can’t blame the city. And, by the way, how do you know someone didn’t steal your car?

Now, the jig could be up.

A federal judge recently denied the city’s latest efforts to have a pair of potential class-action lawsuits dismissed. That could force the city to finally address the issue — or risk an expensive verdict down the line.

The plaintiffs contend that Philadelphia’s “vehicle relocation” program — which is so dysfunctional it was featured on The Daily Show in September — is unconstitutional because their legally parked cars were towed without proper notice to unknown destinations. Some of those cars subsequently racked up hundreds of dollars in parking tickets.

The city has repeatedly argued that it should not be held liable for taking or losing the vehicles because there is no evidence that city officials were aware that was happening.

U.S. District Judge Mitchell S. Goldberg isn’t having it. In rulings issued last Monday and in early December, he sided with the plaintiffs.

“I find no merit to this argument,” Goldberg wrote of the city’s defense.

A courtesy tow typically occurs when legal parking spaces are deemed temporary no-parking zones due to roadwork, special events, tree trimming, or assorted other reasons. Cars might have been parked there before the temporary signs were hung up. They still need to be relocated.

They might get towed by the Police Department, the Philadelphia Parking Authority, or a private company hired by whoever obtained the temporary no-parking signs from the city, such as a construction firm or a homeowner who needs curb space for a moving van.

Private towing companies seem to cause most of the problems. They are supposed to report the new vehicle locations to police, so officers can relay that information to drivers when they call. But that does not always happen — and there appear to be few consequences for towing companies that do not comply.

“I just don’t understand how a big city can have this issue,” said Danielle Ditommaso, 27, whose Volkswagen Jetta was courtesy-towed from the Ben Franklin Parkway in 2022.

She never saw it again.

After a month of searching for her VW, police told Ditommaso it had been moved to Fairmount Park, apparently by a towing company hired by the city. The car wasn’t there, either.

Ditommaso, one of 17 plaintiffs suing the city, said she was shocked to learn that the city relies on tow truck drivers dropping off handwritten forms to police districts.

“I was very upset that my car was entrusted to someone maybe writing down [the location] on a slip of paper,” she said. “I reported it stolen to the police, by the police, which was weird. Then, they called me a couple days later and asked if I found the car. I was like, ‘I kind of thought you were on that.’”

Philadelphia officials have failed to address the issue in any meaningful way.

In 2022, the city paid $15,000 each to two courtesy-tow victims in an unsuccessful attempt to settle the first lawsuit. But two other plaintiffs declined the payment, so that case remains active.

The city then sought to pass the blame.

“[T]hey do not claim an injury that is fairly traceable to the City,” Anne Taylor, then-chief deputy city solicitor, wrote of the plaintiffs in 2023.

Goldberg, in his ruling, said that because the city distributes the temporary no-parking signs that precede most courtesy tows, it has a duty to keep track of the vehicles, whether they are towed by the police department, the parking authority, or a private company.

“Under any of these scenarios, the vehicle tows could be deemed to have been carried out by the city, either directly or indirectly,” Goldberg wrote on Monday.

Some of the plaintiffs have paid hefty fines after their vehicles were courtesy-towed to an illegal or metered parking spot. Appealing those tickets is difficult because the owners have no documentation of the tow. How do you prove you didn’t park your car where it was ticketed?

“The City’s alleged failure to adequately track or record vehicle relocations results in the Parking Authority routinely denying challenges to the tickets resulting from courtesy tows,” Goldberg wrote.

The Inquirer reported in 2021 that a Center City man had to pay nearly $1,000 in fines and fees to get his car back after it was courtesy-towed from his permitted spot to a loading zone, then ticketed, towed a second time by the PPA, and prepared for auction.

Some vehicle owners have been encouraged by police to report their cars stolen. After eventually locating their cars and informing police, they have been pulled over months later, apparently because police did not remove them from the stolen-vehicle database.

When a film crew for Adam Sandler’s Hustle was shooting on South Street, a towing company moved legally parked cars to a supermarket lot on Washington Avenue. Those cars were promptly ticketed by police for unauthorized parking, then towed again and impounded by George Smith Towing, which the shopping plaza uses to deal with cars parked there illegally.

Joseph Kohn, a lawyer representing the 17 courtesy-tow plaintiffs, said his office continues to receive calls from new victims, and he intends to add them to the lawsuit. He said that after the judge’s recent rulings, he was hopeful the city would take action.

“Top to bottom, their legal arguments were rejected, and the court said it’s clearly a city policy,” Kohn said. “We would hope that there is somebody in the city that can take ownership of this and fix it. It’s not hard to fix.”

A spokesperson for the city’s law department declined to comment, citing active litigation.

Indeed, cities like Phoenix and Chicago use online databases that enable drivers to find their towed vehicles.

The Philadelphia Parking Authority has been using a database since 2020 to track the cars it tows, and the police department is exploring a similar system, using $225,000 that Mayor Cherelle L. Parker included in her first budget.

But neither of those changes would enable drivers to locate cars that are courtesy-towed by private companies and dropped off at an unrecorded location.

“There is a system, but nobody is held accountable,” said David Rudovsky, cocounsel for the plaintiffs.

Both lawsuits are seeking class-action status on behalf of potentially thousands of victims. The judge has not yet ruled on that matter.

City Council recently approved a resolution introduced by Councilmember Jeffery Young calling for hearings on courtesy towing.

“Philadelphia drivers have been frustrated,” the resolution states, “with the bureaucratic nightmare of getting their vehicles back.”

The hearings have not yet been scheduled.