Can someone collect damages without providing receipts? This question could apply to any part of the United States, but particularly to California, which is unusually consumer friendly. Suppose I am involved in minor car accident (basically a fender bender). It's small enough that some drivers would let it go, but under California law, at least, the other person has the right to insist on even minor repairs. So the person quotes me a price. I dispute it by saying "I can get this done for $200 less. Can you provide a receipt. The other person can't provide a receipt. Do I have to pay the other person's quoted price? Do I have to the "$200 less" if I can document it?
If the accident was your fault, the person harmed by the accident has a right to sue you for the amount of damages incurred, and will prevail if they can prove your fault and their damages in court. You don't have to settle the case at all. You could simply wait for them to sue you, although doing so would result in a claim against your car insurance policy that could increase your insurance rates if they did, in fact, sue you. Whether or not you find their representation concerning the amount of damage they suffered sufficient is up to you. They will only get paid if you decide to write them a check in the amount that they are asking to have paid. Usually, you should also insist that a complete release of liability be signed by the party harmed in connection with any settlement payment.
As far as I know in the United States, no DMV provides test vehicles. You need a vehicle to take the driving test. Since you are not currently licensed, you can not legally drive yourself to the test alone... So logically, you must bring someone... anyone... willing to drive you to the test and provide a vehicle for you to test in. As others have stated in the comments above, worse case scenario is the hiring of a driving instructor. If you read the written instructions (and I remember correctly), it does state something along the lines of "must be accompanied by a licensed driver and provide an insured, registered, vehicle". Which is a bit more formal than the "bring a friend". Most people just naturally use more casual terms when speaking. I don't know your age, but it's probably more common to hear "bring a parent" than "bring a friend" when speaking face to face with the DMV staff. Also, not all insurance policies are driver limited. Some policies are on the vehicle regardless of driver. Typically Liability-only insurance is vehicle specific, not driver specific. [*1] You'd have to review the policies or call the insurance agents to confirm this. You may even do something as simple as add you to the current insurance for a month or two while you're practicing and testing. Just reimburse your friend for any increase in premiums during this time. Contact the insurance company/agent. The cost may be minimal. In addition, there are non-owner insurance policies which cover you even if you do not own a vehicle. This would provide insurance if none of your friends has a policy which would work. Realize that most people taking the test for the first time have probably already been added to a policy owned by their parents. So, your situation is a bit more unique. It's not meant to be inherently confusing but if you're "outside the norm" you have to do some deductive reasoning on your own. And finally, if an accident or damage were to happen during your practicing or testing, it would still be your responsibility. If you are in control of the vehicle, you are responsible for any damage to it or damage caused by the vehicle due to any negligence on your part, regardless of any insurance policy. You'd be a pretty bad "friend" if you caused damage and didn't financially make restitution leaving your "friend" holding the bag, so to speak. Restitution could be something as simple as paying the deductible on your friend's policy. Of course, if you are not covered by insurance any claim may be denied -- leaving you responsible for everything. The mindset that just because your friend owns the car they are totally responsible for anything that happens while your driving seem very, very self-serving and, well, I'd be apprehensive about loaning you my vehicle as well. In fact, I absolutely would not.
In California (where lost+found laws have been discussed quite a lot), this would be either "lost property" or "abandoned property". With abandoned property, you can do what you want. With lost property, it is legal to ignore it. If you take it, you have the obligation to try to return it to the owner. If you don't do that, it's theft. If you don't take it, you have no obligation whatsoever. Put it somewhere where the loser (the person who lost it) is more likely to find it, for example on the street. Don't take anything. Clarification for comments: There is a box. And the owner of the box is nowhere to be seen. That box is by definition lost or abandoned - it is abandoned if the owner got rid of it intentionally, it is lost if the owner is looking for it. We don't know. We can make guesses depending on the situation. No matter whether lost or abandoned, you are legally absolutely fine if you just ignore it. You have no reason to try to return it to its owner. If you don't make it your business, it's not your business. But if you decide you want the box, or bits of it, and it isn't abandoned (which is hard to know for sure), then you have to try to find the owner first, and if you don't find them, then you can keep it.
Agreement You say: my landlord added a clause stating: &quot;All moving must be done in rear of driveway or pay $250 (near basement door)&quot; Was this addition made at the time you signed the lease or subsequently? This matters because the terms of a contract cannot be changed unilaterally, they must be agreed. If the change happened after the lease was signed then , unless you agreed to it, it has no effect whatsoever. Since that resolution is boring; I will assume that it was always there. Enforcability Is this actually enforceable, since I did park in a public space and not necessarily on his property? Yes, it is enforceable. People can agree in a contract to do (or not do) anything so long as that thing is not illegal - that is what a contract is; a legally enforceable agreement for two people to do certain things. You agreed &quot;All moving must be done in rear of driveway ... (near basement door)&quot; and you didn't do what you agreed to do. Therefore you broke a term of the contract. It doesn't matter that you don't know why he wanted you to do this or if it was reasonable or if it meant that you couldn't use your parent's truck - if these were issues for you they should have been raised before you agreed to do it. If the clause said &quot;When moving out you will wear a blue double breasted suit with a yellow and purple bow tie&quot; then that is what you must do. Consequences There are a number of options open to the wronged party when the other party breaches a term of a contract. The most relevant in these circumstances is to sue for damages. So how much are damages? Well, they are an amount to restore the wronged party to the position they would have been in if you hadn't broken the agreement. In situations where damages can be hard to calculate, contracts can make a provision for liquidated damages; a pre-agreed amount of what the damage will be: in this case &quot;$250&quot;. However: In the United States, Section 2-718(1) of the Uniform Commercial Code provides that, in contracts for the sale of goods: Damages for breach by either party may be liquidated in the agreement but only at an amount which is reasonable in the light of the anticipated or actual harm caused by the breach, the difficulties of proof of loss, and the inconvenience or nonfeasibility of otherwise obtaining an adequate remedy. A term fixing unreasonably large liquidated damages is void as a penalty. This largely mirrors the common law rule, which applies to other types of contracts under the law of most US states. On the face of it, it would appear that $250 may be &quot;unreasonably large&quot; given the nature of the breach where it appears that the landlord has actually suffered no damage.
The fault lies with the people who vandalized your house. In general, whoever causes you damage is responsible (liable) for that damage. This is true whether or not you are selling your house, having guests over, letting a friend stay over for a night or a week, or whatever the circumstance is. Insurance is there to cover many such losses: if a friend trashes your house in a drunken rage, your insurance will cover the damage, but they will invoke the doctrine of subrogation whereby they get to go after the friend, and you have to cooperate. In a situation where nobody has a clue who did the damage, the only possible way that the agent has any responsibility is if they were negligent in their duty to take care of the house. For your specific case, you'd need to discuss the forensic facts with your attorney. But generally speaking, the issue would be whether the agent had breached his/her professional duty of care, which is best understood as comparing his actions (or lack) compares to actions of other professionals in the same circumstance. If a house has 3 or 4 sets of visitors simultaneously, it is really not possible for an agent to supervise all of them at once. So the question would be, was this the result of one concentrated vandalism attack, or serial vandalism. The former is more in the realm of "stuff happens", and the latter is indicative of an endemic lack of care. To repeat, the fault lies with the miscreants who vandalized your house. You, or your insurance company, may nevertheless have to bear the financial burden. Your insurance company will certainly have an interest in spreading responsibility to the realty firm, if warranted by the facts.
Such &quot;warranties&quot; are generally subject to separate laws, and they are not treated as a subcase of &quot;car insurance&quot;. Whereas homeowners insurance, vehicle liability insurance and so on are regulated in all states, extended warranties are regulated in over half of the states. There is a model law which tends to inspire state legislators in writing their own laws, and here is an instantiation in Washington state. At the outset, the law says that certain things are not covered, including warranties, maintenance agreements and service contracts (what then is covered??). There may be &quot;required content&quot;, for example Service contracts shall state the procedure to obtain service or to file a claim, including but not limited to the procedures for obtaining prior approval for repair work, the toll-free telephone number if prior approval is necessary for service, and the procedure for obtaining emergency repairs performed outside of normal business hours or provide for twenty-four-hour telephone assistance. There are sections specific to motor vehicles, which could be relevant, for example &quot;A service contract provider shall not deny a claim for coverage based upon the service contract holder's failure to properly maintain the vehicle, unless the failure to maintain the vehicle involved the failed part or parts&quot;. At the bottom of the Model Act document is a list of statuses in the various states: it's status in Connecticut is nonexistence, as of July 2014 (and no signs of such a law having been subsequently passed). There is a general law about express warranties, which doesn't impose any content restrictions on such contracts. So in CT, it depends on what the contract says.
There is no legal obligation of the police or any of its officers to reimburse you. It comes within a police powers exception to the 5th Amendment obligation to provide compensation for takings. Sometimes a government will compensate someone even though it has no legal obligation to do so, but this is unlikely to happen. A petition for certiorari from 10th Circuit decision of Lech v. City of Greenwood Village (10th Cir. October 29, 2019) recaps a lot of the relevant law and arguments for changing it (the petition was subsequently denied by the U.S. Supreme Court). The question presented in the petition was: Using explosives and a battering ram attached to an armored personnel carrier, the Greenwood Village Police Department intentionally destroyed Petitioners’ house. Afterwards, they offered the family $5,000 “to help with temporary living expenses.” The family sued, arguing that they were entitled to Just Compensation under the Fifth Amendment for the intentional destruction of their house. The Tenth Circuit, however, held that no compensation was due because the home was destroyed pursuant to the police power rather than the power of eminent domain. The question presented is whether there is a categorical exception to the Just Compensation Clause when the government takes property while acting pursuant to its police power. (To be clear, Texas is in the 5th Circuit and not the 10th Circuit, but there is not a circuit split on this particular issue between any U.S. Court of Appeals Circuits, and the Texas Supreme Court has not taken a contrary position.) Needless to say, that fact pattern was even worse for the innocent citizen, because law enforcement had more discretion and time to make a conscious decision about how to respond to the &quot;bad guy&quot; (an armed man wanted for shoplifting and resisting arrest) in the house to which the suspect had no connection. You could sue the &quot;bad guys&quot; who were involved in the shootout (if known) for causing an incident that foreseeably damaged your car, or you could make a first party insurance claim with your own car insurance.
The State of California is not responsible for injuries committed by private citizens Sorry to hear about your friend. Jamal may have a case (although the scope is narrow and timeframes are strict and tight) if someone employed by the state didn't do what they should have done. There is a whole raft of rules and regulations surrounding child welfare and Jamal would need to demonstrate exactly what they did that they shouldn't have done or what they should have done that they didn't do to have any basis for a claim. You will note that there is an obligation to make assessments -if they didn't make an assessment, they might be liable; if they made the wrong assessment, they aren't. Contested child welfare cases are difficult - caseworkers and social worlkers are presented with a lot of contradictory information and outright lies and the law accepts that if they make a good faith attempt to do their job, they haven't done anything wrong even if they make the wrong call. As for the court &quot;assuming&quot; anything, that is simply not true. The court would have heard the evidence (contested and contradictory no doubt) and made a judgement based on that evidence. It may have been the objectively wrong judgement but it was a perfectly legal one. In any event, you can't sue the court for a wrong judgement, you can only appeal it to a higher court subject to the time limits and your ability to pay. As a practical matter, child protection services are generally chronically underfunded, understaffed and overworked as are the courts that deal with such cases. A typical caseworker might have to deal with 50-100 cases similar to your friend every week - that gives them 5-15 minutes to (partially) read the file and try to decide what's best for the child. Sad to say, your friend is one of the lucky ones - came out the other end with a good relationship with one of his parents, isn't dead, isn't a drug addict and isn't homeless. And no, you can't sue the state for things being the way they are: that's what the voters want because if it isn't they'd elect politicians who would change it.