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Car Flooded in Parking Lot - My Rights?
Lindsay Lohan
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So, my wife works at a summer camp at a college. She (and other counselors) were parked in one of the school's parking lots when there was a large thunder storm. Unfortunately, the drains were apparently blocked or not working correctly and the end result was her car sitting in water up to just above the gas pedal. This happened yesterday.
We scooped out the water with the promise from her boss that he would get a shop vac and suck up any remaining water from her car and a coworker who had gotten it the worse because they had the lowest built vehicles. She just called me, upset, because he hadn't done that, and her car now has a puddle of orangey/dirty water in the passenger side (which I think is just crud from the engine that's seaped in), mold forming in the back seat and her boss hasn't done anything. Oh, and her air bag light is lit for some reason.
I've called my insurance and made them aware, but we have a $250 deductible. My opinion is that at the very least the school/their insurance should be covering a professional cleaning and to have her car checked out and the light deactivated. Am I in the right here? She's feeling awkward pushing this to her boss - but frankly it's only a summer job and one that she might not even do next year.
We scooped out the water with the promise from her boss that he would get a shop vac and suck up any remaining water from her car and a coworker who had gotten it the worse because they had the lowest built vehicles. She just called me, upset, because he hadn't done that, and her car now has a puddle of orangey/dirty water in the passenger side (which I think is just crud from the engine that's seaped in), mold forming in the back seat and her boss hasn't done anything. Oh, and her air bag light is lit for some reason.
I've called my insurance and made them aware, but we have a $250 deductible. My opinion is that at the very least the school/their insurance should be covering a professional cleaning and to have her car checked out and the light deactivated. Am I in the right here? She's feeling awkward pushing this to her boss - but frankly it's only a summer job and one that she might not even do next year.
Lindsay Lohan on
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Also, take pictures of everything, especially those non-working drains.
I'm not a lawyer, by the way.
If the insurance company does get them to do something, great, but be prepared to pay your deductible.
I think the get-out-of-jail-free-card for stuff like that would be voided completely by the blocked drain.
Blocked drain that should be checked regularly results in damage to multiple vehicles? Lot owner's fault.
River floods and damages multiple vehicles? Not lot owner's fault.
Likely, you could do something like this:
Lot owner takes hammer to windshield and causes damage to car? Lot owner's fault.
Some crazed lunatic breaks into your car? Not lot owner's fault.
Of course, this is speculation, I'm not a lawyer, and your mileage may vary.
If the drains had been clogged for weeks and the property owner new about it, then you could possibly claim negligence.
But, if the rain that night caused leaves to flow into the drain and clog them, then there's not much the lot owner could have been expected to do.
Without pictures or proof either way, do you really want to get into a "he said, she said" situation?
Your deductible is pretty low, I would just pay it and be done with the whole situation.
That's if they were negligent. He says "Unfortunately, the drains were apparently blocked or not working correctly" not "they were obviously full of debris and not cleaned out anytime recently," so it could easily be that the drains were simply backed up from the system being completely full of water.
If the insurance company discovers that that was the case, then of course they can pursue that path. But if not, then that's that -- they can't do anything more if they can't show that the school was being negligent in their drainage care.
They usually do that with regard to what others do to the car (break-ins, accidents unless the lot is designed in such a way that it facilitates accidents, etc.), but this sound like a fault in the facility itself that resulted in damage to the vehicles, which it doesn't really matter what the facilities policy is; it could easily be challenged in court. Flooding like what the OP described can sometimes be considered a hazard in and of itself. It depends on what they find out about how the drains were blocked, but it actually does sound like the facility should be held responsible.
I got their total report and the prices they gave for comparible vehicles were insanely low - like I would never find them for the price they list. I argued up to supervisor level and was told that if I could show them proof that the numbers were unrealistic they could push for an adjustment.
Today, I did just that - and I got an average that was $1200 more than they started with. My question is how likely am I to get them to budge? I took their numbers from their report for adjusting the list price (for example when comparing my car to a 2000 - they subtracted $525 from the 2000's value). I think I was more than fair - in fact I threw out the bonuses I got for my optional features altogether!
Is there any other outlet I should be pushing this with? Should I be speaking with Geico directly as well?
Kevin Smith got some of the money to shoot Clerks when his car got flooded and the insurance company paid off.
The insurance companies don't go by the average that a car is necessarily on sale. They typically total a car based on the Blue Book value, which is supposed to be somewhat based on market average, but not entirely. I would start there, look up your specific car (including features), and see how close it is, if you haven't done this already.
Unfortunately, I don't think there's much more you could do other than hire a lawyer and take the lot owners to court, but I don't know if you want to go that route.
Actually, they did go by the average of vehicles on sale. They take a report from a company called CCC which basically takes 3 vehicles in your area, adjusts them to make them the same as your car and then averages it. The problem is that the 3 listings they used are significantly lower than the listings I find and when I did an average using Autotrader and DIDN'T cherry pick cars like they did, the average is $1200 higher. I've emailed my findings to the adjuster - I should be getting a callback today.
However, we are currently fighting with our carrier (Geico) over how much the car is worth. Currently, the adjuster and his manager are reviewing my findings from Autotrader and they have also requested a re-evaluation from the 3rd party that started the value of my car at $2025. I've requested they adjust that to a minimum of $3200 based on my recalculations. I'm supposed to get some form of answer either tonight or tomorrow morning.
congrats