Quote:
Originally Posted by PrinzII
After reading the whole thread, I am looking at it this way:
a) The dealership is liable no matter how you slice it. First, the safeguards for the keys to prevent this from happening failed or were nonexistent. Second, whether or not the employee is on the clock, the fact remains that he is a representative of that entity and should be held liable.
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The problem is, you don't know what the safeguards were, so you don't know if they were adequate/reasonable or not. Again, the dealer, or anyone in possession of someones property, is only required to use reasonable care. Maybe they were lack, but maybe they weren't; you don't know. Those
facts have not been presented.
Quote:
Originally Posted by PrinzII
I understand 130R's points but the basic facts remain that the dealership is still liable due to the fact the car was in their care at the time and safeguards to prevent this failed.
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Not if it is found they exercised reasonable care. You have to show the dealer did something that was unreasonable, or negligent.
Examples of negligence would be: Someone at the dealership forgot to lock the gate, or, someone left the car on the street with the keys in the fender well.
Reasonable care is also dependent on the circumstances, or the type of business. For example, a bank locking it's money in an ordinary closet wouldn't be reasonable care. If I'm holding money for you, that would be reasonable care. A dealership locking a vehicle in the service bay is exercising reasonable care. If the keys are hanging in plain view through a window a passer-by can easily see, probably not.
Is a bank negligent that has a state of the art vault with 3' thick steel, a time lock, and every other possible safeguard negligent if someone manages to get past all the safeguards and steals the money anyway? No. A state-of-the-art vault meeting industry standards is reasonable care in protecting the money. If someone forgot to close the vault, that's a different story. Reasonable care includes making sure the safeguards are operational and utilized.
Again, the dealer isn't required to ship the car to Fort Knox, that's not reasonable. Besides, if the plane crashed on the way back to the dealer, people would be screaming: "WTF were they doing shipping the car to For Knox for the weekend?" ASSHOLES!!!