Earlier this week the North Carolina State Supreme Court heard the case of King v. Town of Chapel Hill, in which a local towing service is challenging the town’s ordinances on towing and cell phone use while driving.
Town Council members seem confident that the court will find in the town’s favor — and with good reason, a litany of similar cases around the nation have recently been brought to court and in every one, the state courts found in favor of towing regulations.
However, it would be foolish for the town and Town Council members to already count this as a victory. The other towing regulation cases did not also include a cell phone ordinance that is being argued to contradict the regulations. This alone could set the case apart from the others and possibly give it a different ruling.
There is no set timetable for when the ruling could come out. It could be issued within the month or in over a year. However, the best guess is to assume that the court will issue an opinion before the retirement of Chief Justice Sarah Parker in August.
The town should work to create a contingency plan by this time that would allow for some sort of protection against predatory towing in the event that the court does not rule in its favor.
This plan could include a variety of things and should account for many possibilities in the ruling.
One option may be to simply strike the cell phone ban from the book, which would no longer sit in odds with the towing regulations — as is being argued by the plaintiff.
Another possibility would be for the town to look to the previously mentioned successful cases and to model them closely.
Safe driving and protection from predatory towing are both important things for the town. They should have a presence regardless of the court’s ruling.
