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News/Releases : General Business
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AAA Mid-Atlantic loses lawsuit over diversion of service calls
Description:
Philadelphia, PA, Oct. 10, 2007 – AAA Mid-Atlantic, which provides emergency roadside assistance (ERS) to millions of AAA members in six states, lost a lawsuit today 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, PA, 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 DC, 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, but the jury did not believe the often contradictory testimony of AAA’s witnesses.
According to Seiple’s attorney, David Concannon of Wayne, PA, the jury’s verdict was vindication for Tom and Cathy Seiple, the owners of Seiple’s Collision. Concannon stated, “AAA tried to cover up its own wrongdoing by blaming this Mom & Pop operation, which had provided faithful service to AAA members for over a decade, of providing poor service. The jury didn’t buy it. I wonder how many other AAA contractors experienced the same diversion of calls, and whether they will also have the courage to stand up to AAA and say ‘This was wrong!’.”
ABOUT US: The Law Offices of David G. Concannon, LLC represents businesses in Philadelphia and across the United States. The firm’s principal, David Concannon, has been recognized as a “Super Lawyer” in the area of Business Litigation. Since establishing the firm in 2002, Mr. Concannon has achieved more than $38 million in settlements and verdicts on behalf of the firm’s business clients, and he has successfully defended more than $100 million in claims asserted against the firm’s clients.
Reply to: concannonlaw@msn.com
Date: 10/10/2007 6:50:00 PM
Contact:
David Concannon
Law Offices of David G. Concannon, LLC
610-293-8084
200 Eagle Road
Suite 116
Wayne, Pennsylvania 19087
concannonlaw@msn.com
http://www.davidconcannon.com
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