'Comedy of errors': Court orders towing company to pay $10K after vehicle sold without owner's knowledge

The Manitoba Court of Appeal has awarded a Winnipeg used car dealership more than $10,000 in damages to be paid by a towing company, after it says a "comedy of errors" led to the sale of an unclaimed BMW by the towing company without the owner's knowledge.

In the Dec. 11 decision, Justice Christopher J. Mainella wrote Tartan Towing was required to notify the used car dealership, Kobi's Auto Ltd., prior to the sale of the vehicle, and the ad the company placed in The Manitoba Gazette didn't qualify.

"After the vehicle was towed, what can be described as a comedy of errors ensued, ultimately resulting in Tartan causing the vehicle to be auctioned … without the plaintiff's knowledge," he wrote.

Tartan Towing towed the vehicle at the request of the Winnipeg Parking Authority in November 2014, when the vehicle was issued a parking ticket. At the time, the vehicle was being leased by Kobi's to Sonja Pecanac, but Pecanac couldn't afford to reclaim the vehicle, Mainella wrote.

Pecanac didn't tell the dealership the vehicle had been towed, and Tartan didn't tell Pecanac it would be auctioned off if she didn't reclaim it, the decision says.

The person running Tartan's day-to-day operations, Rob Campbell, wasn't informed of Pecanac's four phone calls on the matter to the towing company in December 2014 and January 2015, the decision says.

Manitoba privacy law forbade Winnipeg police or MPI from telling Tartan who owned the vehicle, and Tartan's contract with the City of Winnipeg forbade it from going into the vehicle to look for documents to identify the owner, Mainella wrote.

And when Tartan searched the vehicle identification number in Manitoba's Personal Property Registry, it didn't turn up Kobi's as a security interest, either: the dealership had entered the number incorrectly when registering it, the decision says.

'Unsatisfactory state of the law'

The decision, also signed by Justices Michel A. Monnin and Jennifer A. Pfuetzner, allowed Kobi's appeal of an earlier judgment against it. The decision awards Kobi's $10,177.69 in damages, to be paid by Tartan.

The court also overturned an earlier judgment against the woman who had leased the vehicle, Sonja Pecanac, which had required her to pay $24,664.40 to Kobi's. Mainella wrote requiring both Pecanac and Tartan to pay would result in Kobi's being paid twice for the same vehicle.

In the decision, Mainella commented on the "unsatisfactory state of the law."

"There is a good deal of common sense in [Tartan employee] Campbell's evidence that the effect of the current application of privacy legislation has gone too far," he wrote.

The legislation makes it "unreasonably difficult" for tow-truck operators to tow vehicles for the Winnipeg Parking Authority, the decision argues. Even when tow-truck operators are towing or storing vehicles at the request of a peace officer — who can lawfully access the identity of a vehicle's owner — the information can't be shared with the tow-truck operators.

"Some reasonable accommodation by policy or lawmakers of this problem is necessary," Mainella wrote.