The Justice Department filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia alleging that Steve’s Towing Inc. in Virginia Beach, Va., violated the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) by failing to obtain court orders before auctioning off vehicles belonging to at least seven SCRA-protected servicemembers, including two vehicles belonging to a member of a Navy Seal team who was deployed overseas. The SCRA, which provides a variety of financial and housing protections to members of the military, prohibits towing companies from auctioning off servicemembers’ vehicles without a court order.
Federal law requires towing companies to