AAA Mid-Atlantic Loses Lawsuit Over Diversion of Service

[Tow411]

Topic Created by Alan 407 in October of 2007:

 

AAA Mid-Atlantic, which provides emergency roadside assistance (ERS) to millions of AAA members in six states, lost a lawsuit last week alleging that AAA illegally diverted thousands of service calls to its own fleet of tow trucks and away from a AAA contractor in Philadelphia.

After an eight day trial in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, the jury unanimously found that AAA violated the terms of its contract with Seiple's Collision & Restoration Inc., of Lansdowne, Pennsylvania, by assigning thousands of service calls in Seiple's contractual territory to the AAA fleet of service vehicles instead of to Seiple. The jury awarded Seiple $123,000 in lost profits for the time period 2002 to November 2004, when AAA abruptly terminated Seiple's contract because it complained about the diversion.

The jury found that AAA violated the terms of the standard ERS contract AAA used for all of its contractors in Delaware, Maryland, Washington, D.C., and parts of Virginia, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, from 1999 until 2007 by assigning calls to the AAA fleet of service vehicles without amending the agreement. The standard ERS contract provided that AAA could assign calls in the contractual territory only to other ERS contractors, and only if service conditions required. At the time Seiple entered into its contract with AAA, AAA did not own a fleet of service vehicles. That changed in 2002, when AAA acquired a large fleet of service vehicles, and Seiple noticed a precipitous drop in the number of service calls it received from AAA in its contractual territory. AAA tried to persuade the jury that Seiple provided poor service and therefore service conditions required reassignment.

According to Seiple's attorney, David Concannon of Wayne, Pennsylvania, the jury's verdict was vindication for Tom and Cathy Seiple, owners of Seiple's Collision.
SOURCE: David G. Concannon