Imagine this: you’re deployed overseas, serving your country, and back home someone’s auctioning off your car. Not because you owe money. Not because you broke any laws. Just because a towing company decided they could get away with it.
That’s exactly what allegedly happened to at least 148 military service members in Southern California.
The U.S. Department of Justice just filed a lawsuit against S&K Towing Inc. for illegally selling or disposing of vehicles belonging to active-duty military personnel and their families. Many of these vehicles were impounded from Camp Pendleton, one of the largest Marine Corps bases in the country. We’re talking about a pattern of behavior that stretched from August 2020 to April 2025.
The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act Exists for a Reason
Here’s the thing that makes this particularly infuriating: there’s already a law protecting military families from exactly this kind of predatory behavior. The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) requires tow companies to get a court order before selling or disposing of any vehicle owned by a protected service member.
It’s not a secret law. It’s not obscure. It’s been on the books because policymakers understood that military families face unique vulnerabilities. When someone’s deployed for months or years, they’re not home to handle unexpected problems. They can’t just run down to the impound lot to sort things out. They’re literally on the other side of the world, depending on the system to protect what’s theirs.
S&K Towing reportedly knew or should have known that many of the vehicles it was towing belonged to SCRA-protected service members. Yet they allegedly proceeded anyway.
”We Do This All the Time”
The most damning part of this whole thing might be what a manager at S&K Towing said when confronted by a military legal assistance lawyer in 2024. According to the lawsuit, the manager, who went by “Jesse,” simply responded: “We do this all the time.”
That’s not a one-off mistake. That’s not a clerical error. That’s a statement that suggests systematic, knowing violation of federal law. The casual tone of it is almost worse than the act itself. It implies routine negligence, a calculated decision that the consequences wouldn’t catch up with them.
Well, they have now.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli didn’t mince words in the announcement. “The men and women who serve in our nation’s military deserve peace of mind in knowing that their legal rights will be protected at home while they are away serving the United States,” he said. “It is unacceptable and illegal for a business to sell or dispose of these vehicles without abiding by the laws that protect servicemembers.”
Why This Matters Beyond the Headlines
This isn’t just a news story about corporate misconduct, though it certainly is that. It’s a symptom of how vulnerable certain groups can be when bureaucratic systems fail them. Military families already deal with enough uncertainty. Deployments. Relocations. Extended separations. The last thing they need is to worry about whether their possessions will still be there when they get home.
The lawsuit seeks monetary relief for the affected service members and a jury trial. S&K Towing hasn’t responded to requests for comment, and notably, they don’t appear to have legal representation listed in court records yet. That’s either a sign they’re scrambling to figure out their next move, or they’re hoping this goes away quietly. Neither option looks good for them.
What’s especially troubling is that this only came to light because a military legal assistance lawyer happened to contact the company about the violations. How many other similar situations exist that nobody’s documented yet? How many other tow companies operate with this same casual disregard for the law?
The Bigger Picture
Working Americans are already feeling squeezed from every direction. Rising costs. Unexpected expenses. The constant anxiety of financial instability. Add military service into that equation and you’ve got people who are literally sacrificing their time, their safety, sometimes their lives, only to come home and discover their already-stretched resources have been compromised by businesses that thought they could operate above the law.
The DOJ filing this lawsuit is the right move. It sends a message. But one lawsuit against one tow company doesn’t fix the systemic problem. It doesn’t restore the trust that military families should rightfully have in the basic protections that are supposed to exist for them.
What happens when a government fails to protect the very people who are willing to put themselves in harm’s way to protect everyone else?
