Towing Issues: Car winched into tow truck, tow truck driver, some unanswered questions

Question
My son went off a snow covered road in Wisconsin while driving a 1999 Subaru Forester. The tow truck driver came and told him to leave car running and put in nuetral.  It was snowing and he could not see out his windows.  The driver winched the car from the rear. My son said next thing he new the car had struck the tow truck.  The tow company insurance company is saying my son is at fault.  We feel the tow company is responsible since the car was hooked to his winch and he followed the drivers instructions.  Is our vehicle under the 'care,custody and control of the tow truck' while being winched?  Thanks

Answer
One suggestion is to let the insurance companies figure it out. Contact your carrier and pass the information along. There is a lot of room for speculation and because your son was in the vehicle increases the risk of error. Error with your son and the tow operator. Since it appears there were no other witnesses there are some unanswered questions? Did your son do something not instructed by the operator? Did the tow truck slide into the car? Was the operator not paying attention? Was your son giving it gas and the vehicle got traction and ran into the truck? After the winching did your son not place the vehicle in park and then rolled into the truck. I can keep going. Some information might be left out by your son and vise versa for the operator. Since the tow operator and your son know exactly what happened, sometimes litigation is necessary. Hopefully everything will get resolved between the insurance companies before it gets to that point. Then maybe you and the tow company can come to some sort of agreement with regards to repairs. Good luck.