Lawsuit alleges Hardin, police chief discriminated against tow-truck operator

A lawsuit filed against the City of Hardin and its former police chief says they violated the civil rights of an owner of a tow-truck company after she publicly complained about getting kicked off the city’s rotation list, and lost a potential source of income.

Laurie Tschetter owns GV Towing in Hardin and filed a lawsuit in federal court saying that the former Hardin Police Chief Paul M. George, Jr., who has since moved to Bullhead City, Arizona to take over as chief there, booted her company from a rotation list. It goes on to say he insisted he was not obligated to add her company to the rotation, even though she held the proper state qualifications.

In its lawsuit, attorney Matthew Monforton, who represents GV Towing and Tschetter, allege that state law requires a tow-truck rotation system to avoid situations like this, and that city officials have refused to follow state law, as well as retaliating against her for using free speech to be critical of George.

The basis of the suit

Tschetter said the issue began in 2024, when George confronted her in a parking lot of a Hardin store, “berating her for allegedly failing to provide an estimated time of arrival for a towing job.” 

Tschetter told George there was a phone outage caused by Verizon and the failure was beyond her control, according to court documents. 

Around two months later, she claims George again “berated” her for filling a missing persons report with Big Horn County. According to court documents, George told her that she should have filed the report with Hardin Police because that was his jurisdiction, not the county’s. 

Tschetter, apparently upset with the interaction, filed a complaint against George with the Montana Public Safety Officer Standards and Training. 

Two months after Tschetter filed the complaint, George emailed the department, “GV Towing is ineligible to tow any vehicles.” In that communication, George said GV Towing had lost state certification. George also said that GV Towing would not be allowed back on the list without his approval.

Tschetter said her state certifications never changed. 

“George provided GV Towing with no notice of the removal and no opportunity to respond or be heard before it was effectuated,” the lawsuit said. 

Tschetter, as part of the lawsuit, alleges a competitor had been giving gift cards to law enforcement officers, based upon conversations with Big Horn County Sheriff Jeraie Middlestead. 

The Daily Montanan reached out to city officials regarding the lawsuit. It received no response. 

Tschetter continued on her quest to have the company restored to the rotation, appearing before the Hardin City Council on Nov. 4, 2025 to protest her removal and George’s conduct. 

“George responded during the same public comment session by accusing Ms. Tschetter of lying and twice threatening to investigate and prosecute her,” the lawsuit said.

She continued her fight and several days later Tschetter filed a records request for a log of all police department requested tow calls, including the makes, models of the vehicles towed, as well as the dates and times. 

City attorney Jordan Knudsen denied the request, saying no such list exists and the city “was not obligated to create one.”

Shortly before leaving, George decided that GV Towing’s removal from the list of towing providers “will remain permanent.”

George is being sued in his personal capacity. 

On April 7, Tschetter was invited to attend a Hardin City Council meeting in which it would take up the issue of an equitable rotation system, but three of the five members voted to table the idea as well as expressing support for George’s decision, according to court documents.

When Tschetter pressed the city for reasons that she should be excluded from the towing rotation list, Knudsen responded that the reasons for excluding her was based on information between George and the attorney’s office, which are protected by attorney-client privilege.

“Under well-established law, a party may not use attorney-client privilege as both a sword and shield,” Monforton wrote to the city in the days leading up to filing the lawsuit. “By expressly relying on the substance of purported documentation to justify its action, the city has placed those materials – and the basis for its decision – directly at issue.”

Equitable rotation system

Montana, like other states, has adopted a model for tow-truck rotations. The state adopted the policy in 1995 and Monforton told the Daily Montanan in a previous interview it was created to avoid this kind of dispute and to avoid favoritism or kickbacks. 

With the 1995 law, legislators created a tow truck complaint resolution committee. That committee hears complaints from the public and can adjudicate disputes ranging from tow truck practices to fees. Montana Title 61, Chapter 8, Part 9 regulates a variety of tow-truck related issues, including fees, towing and impound charges. 

Tow-truck operators who want to be assigned to law enforcement calls – from the state’s highway patrol to local police departments – need a letter of appointment from the state which certifies the operator meets certain requirements, including insurance, staffing and a place of operation that the public can access. 

According to the lawsuit, Hardin does not have a rotation system outlined by the state – a point which the City of Hardin doesn’t dispute in exhibits included in the court file. However, Knudsen, the city’s attorney, said Hardin does not have to follow or implement an equitable tow truck rotation system. 

“Since the City of Hardin is not obligated to participate in an equitable tow rotation system, the decision on which companies are used for towing has been up to the Chief of Police,” said a letter from Knudsen on April 16. 

Monforton argues that every day GV Towing is kept off the rotation, his client is losing money. 

“As a direct and proximate result of George’s unconstitutional conduct, GV Towing has suffered, and continues to suffer financial harm, including the loss of towing referrals and associated revenue that GV Towing would have received had it remained on the HPD rotation,” the lawsuit said.

The suit also names the City of Hardin because it alleges that the city had a duty to uphold Tschetter’s constitutional rights, which included due process and the freedom to speak out about the conduct of city employees.

“Chief George was operating HPD’s towing referrals without any procedural safeguards,” the lawsuit said. “The city took no corrective action, provided no training or supervision to ensure compliance with the act’s rotation requirements or with the constitutional requirement of notice and hearing before depriving a tow operator of its rotation rights, and made no effort to reinstate GV Towing to the rotation.”

The suit also says the city also admitted it was booting GV Towing because of complaints and public statements protected by the First Amendment. 

“The First Amendment prohibits government officials from subjecting an individual to retaliatory actions for engaging in public speech. This prohibition applies with full force to retaliation against a private citizen for speech directed at government officials and agencies,” the suit said. “Any doubt as to George’s retaliatory motive is eliminated by his own admission. In his March 31, 2026 letter declaring GT Towing’s exclusion permanent, George expressly identified Ms. Tschetter’s protected activities as ‘the primary factors influencing this determination.’’

The lawsuit asks for compensatory and punitive damages, attorneys’ fees and to restore GV Towing to the towing rotation.

Not the only case

This is not the only case before Montana courts on this issue. 

Monforton, a Bozeman-based attorney and former state lawmaker, is representing a towing company in Billings which was also suspended from that city’s rotation system. That suit said that a former district court Judge Russ Fagg, who also ran as a candidate for U.S. Senate, disputed a towing charge and the way Anderson Towing handled a situation involving Fagg’s family member.

The suit alleges that when he didn’t receive a satisfactory resolution, he complained to a longtime friend, Billings Police Department Chief Rich St. John who the suit accuses of using his authority to boot Anderson Towing from the city towing list. 

Federal judge Donald W. Molloy last year ruled that Anderson Towing must be restored to the rotation while the case is pending.