Coat checks warning I got into a debate with a friend about the disclaimer you see on coat checks, parking lot tickets, and other similar "contracts." There is often text printed on the back of the tickets you receive. Something along the line of, "We are not responsible for loss or damage." As I understand, that is not legally binding. When using their service, they are expected to provide a safe environment and if loss or damage occurs, they are responsible, regardless of the words on the ticket. I expect this might vary from state to state, but is there a consensus?
This is called a bailment. There is a pretty general outcome. First, I will discuss bailments. To get to the meat of the answer skip down to the horizontal break. Here is some info from a Maryland case. I omitted citations and added emphasis. Danner v. Int'l Freight Sys. of Washington, LLC (D. Md., 2012) Maryland is a state which may honor the fine print. There are three types of bailments, the most common one is the type you are asking about, the bailment for mutual benefit. (You watch my coat, I give you a few dollars. As opposed to, "Hey will you watch my computer while I go to the bathroom?) A bailment relationship can arise in a variety of ways. In modern usage, there are three general categories of bailments: (1) for the sole benefit of the bailor; (2) for the sole benefit of the bailee; and (3) for the mutual benefit of both. The property should be returned in the same condition as it was delivered. A reasonable standard of care applies. When the subject matter of a mutual bailment for hire is delivered by the bailor to the bailee, it must be returned by the bailee in substantially the same condition ordinary wear and tear excepted. Put another way, the bailee in accepting possession of the bailed property assumes the duty of exercising reasonable care in protecting it. If the property is damaged, the bailee (the person holding the coat) is automatically found to have failed to take reasonable care. They need to explain the damage and how it was not their fault. Then the bailor (the guy who owns the coat) needs to explain why, in spite of the excuses, the bailee is the one responsible. When the bailed chattel is either not returned or returned in a damaged condition without legal excuse, a prima facie case of lack of due care or negligence is made out. It is then the duty of the bailee to go forward with proof that the loss or injury was occasioned by a cause which excuses the bailee, thereby providing a complete defense as the bailee is not an insurer. The bailor is then, by reason of his burden of proof, required to overcome this defense by establishing by a preponderance of the evidence that the bailee failed to use ordinary care and diligence to safeguard the bailor's property, and that failure to perform his duty caused the loss to the bailor. So the bailee is responsible for negligence, but is not an insurer. As long as they provide the care that an ordinary person would provide in keeping their own coat, they are not responsible. A bailee may be liable for negligence, but is not strictly liable for loss of bailed property. This is because a bailee for hire is not an insurer of the safety of the property entrusted to its care, but . . . owes only such care as persons of common prudence in their own situation and business usually use in the custody and keeping of similar property belonging to themselves. Another case, this one from Washington, tells us a little about limiting liability. Eifler v. Shurgard Capital Management Corp., 861 P.2d 1071, (Wash.App. Div. 2, 1993) Again, internal quotes omitted and emphasis added. These are the guys who do not honor the fine print. The case tells us that the bailee, if the bailee is a professional bailee, cannot limit liability. A professional bailee is one (1) whose principal business is to act as bailee, and (2) who deals with the public on a uniform rather than individual basis. When a bailment for mutual benefit is also a professional bailment, public policy will not permit the bailee to limit his or her liability for negligence. The court cites a popular leading California Supreme Court case (Tunkl v. Regents of Univ. of Cal., 60 Cal.2d 92 (1963)) and provides a "test to be applied in determining whether exculpatory agreements violate public policy" - in other words, if that fine print gets thrown out. The more of these elements that are true about the situation, the harder it is for the fine print to cover the bailee's ass: 1) Service to the public, perhaps even necessary to some 2) Offers the service to pretty much any customer 3) The bailee has a position of bargaining power by virtue of the service offering 4) Standard exculpatory language, take it or leave it 5) No option to pay more money for better protection 6) Property is placed under the control of the bailee Bottom line is that if the state follows this model, the fine print is not enforceable. Thus, the attempted but invalid exemption involves a transaction which exhibits some or all of the following characteristics. It concerns a business of a type generally thought suitable for public regulation. The party seeking exculpation is engaged in performing a service of great importance to the public, which is often a matter of practical necessity for some members of the public. The party holds himself out as willing to perform this service for any member of the public who seeks it, or at least for any member coming within certain established standards. As a result of the essential nature of the service, in the economic setting of the transaction, the party invoking exculpation possesses a decisive advantage of bargaining strength against any member of the public who seeks his services. In exercising a superior bargaining power the party confronts the public with a standardized adhesion contract of exculpation, and makes no provision whereby a purchaser may pay additional reasonable fees and obtain protection against negligence. Finally, as a result of the transaction, the person or property of the purchaser is placed under the control of the seller, subject to the risk of carelessness by the seller or his agents.
I make a copy of any important receipt printed on thermal paper, since the terms of many sellers and manufacturers require receipts for disputes. But I'm not aware of any law that says they have to make it convenient to maintain a receipt or other proof of purchase. However, when a company makes their terms unclear, unexpected, or difficult to comply with it seems there is often a lawyer ready to step up and file a class action lawsuit. Here's one archive to give you an idea of what companies will settle. In the United States the FTC is also empowered by law to "protect consumers," which means that if "disappearing" receipts become a widespread problem for consumers they could take action on the government's authority: The Federal Trade Commission Act is the primary statute of the Commission. Under this Act, the Commission is empowered, among other things, to (a) prevent unfair methods of competition, and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce; (b) seek monetary redress and other relief for conduct injurious to consumers; (c) prescribe trade regulation rules defining with specificity acts or practices that are unfair or deceptive, and establishing requirements designed to prevent such acts or practices; (d) conduct investigations relating to the organization, business, practices, and management of entities engaged in commerce; and (e) make reports and legislative recommendations to Congress. Given the above, I wouldn't be surprised to see either a class-action lawsuit or FTC rule that requires retailers to provide "durable" receipts, or some convenient substitute.
Your question isn't quite as simple as it sounds; some civil cases are tried before juries, and though a judge can give directions to a jury to give a particular verdict, they are not always required to obey; there are eighteenth-century English cases on the point that established that principle for most related jurisdictions. But your last sentence does have a simple answer: No. A judge usually takes an oath on assuming office, to administer the law without fear or favour. That means he will investigate the relevant law (with the assistance of the parties' lawyers), and enforce what it says. "This law would be unfair to the customer, so I will ignore it" would be just as bad as "The mechanic threatened to hit me with a wrench, so I find for him". Of course, most jurisdictions do have overriding principles of fairness; it may be that this contract term was not shown to the customer, so is not enforceable, or it may be that it is contrary to public policy to be uncertain what repairs will cost. But unless there is an explicit legal reason, the judge will have to find for the mechanic. It would be neither improper nor unusual for the judgment to include the sentence "This result is clearly unfair to the customer, and I urge the legislature to look at closing the loophole; nevertheless, the law is clear, and I find the customer must pay the increased price."
In Austria they have a law about &quot;Kreditschädigung&quot; (website from the Austrian government, &quot;credit damage&quot;) translated by Google as: Because of credit damage, a person is liable to prosecution if he or she asserts incorrect facts and thereby harms or endangers the credit, the acquisition or professional advancement of another person. A prison sentence of up to six months or a fine of up to 360 daily rates is provided for the offense of credit damage. If you setup a webpage which lists things which might harm somebody's business, you have to proof that every single claim you make is correct (not just your individual experience). So if you have solid proof for each of your claims of your Q&amp;A, you might win a probable law suite. The way you wrote it, it might be difficult to proof because it seems to be your personal experience. See also here for details. (in German).
No. If the person who reviews the contract is in fact a lawyer, and does the review in his or her capacity as a lawyer so that there is in fact an attorney-client relationship, the lawyer would be subject to malpractice liability if the review failed to meet the required standard of care. This generally means that the lawyer made errors that no reasonably careful attorney would make. It would also require proof of loss caused directly by the negligent legal advice. See the Wikipedia article on Legal Malpractice. If the person reviewing the contract is not a lawyer, or there is clearly no attorney-client relationship, there is probably no liability (although there might be a case for unlicensed practice of law, depending on the jurisdiction). A lawyer might be able to use a written disclaimer to indicate that there is not an attorney-client relationship, but I am not at all sure of that. I am not addressing the issue of why a lawyer would be willing to provide such advice for free, nor the ethics of asking for such free advice, as mentioned in the comment by @Studoku above. If a lawyer is willing to give such free advice, that is his or her decision. This answer assumes US law, since no jurisdiction is stated in the question or comments. Details may depend on the specific state. Laws elsewhere will likely be roughly similar, but may not be. This answer is not to be construed as legal advice, but merely as a general opinion on the state of the law, for educational purposes.
If you are in the habit of paying people just because they ask you to, then I say you owe me $500 - if you want to pay I'll send you my wire transfer details. This is a facetious way of making a very simple point: You don't owe people money just because they say you do. If someone claims to be owed money by you, the legal onus is for them to prove both their legal entitlement and the amount. Normally, people agree that they owe money and that's enough, however, if the debtor disputes the debt then the creditor has to prove that it is owed: the debtor does not have to prove that it isn't. Their legal basis must come from either a contract or the tort of trespass. For the former they must prove that a contract exists and that you breached a term of it. For the latter they must prove that you committed the tort. In both cases, they are only entitled to recover their costs (including loss of profit) that your actions caused. As they are not a government they have no right to punish you with a fine: if they are asking for more than damages then this is a penalty and void. I am unaware of the consumer protection laws in Canada but presuming they are similar to Australia - a disputed debt is not a debt. It only becomes a debt when the dispute is resolved, usually by agreement or a court. Only actual debts can have enforcement action taken including such things as being pursued by a collection agency or being recorded by a credit reporting agency. In short: this is a scam. In 2012 I went through a similar process. This is the letter I sent: We are the registered operator of motor vehicle XXXXX and have received your letter dated 6/6/2012 for payment of car parking penalty number XXXXX that you allege we incurred on 6/4/2011. To the extent that we entered into a contract with you, which is denied, please take this letter to constitute a written appeal in accordance with the appeal process described on your website and/or in your documentation. We dispute incurring the alleged debt and we dispute entering into any contract with you. We will defend any action brought against us. You must cease all efforts to collect this alleged debt whilst it remains in dispute, in compliance with National, ACCC and NSW laws and guidelines. Except as specifically outlined herein, we are requesting that you cease all contact with us about the alleged debt. Any further contact should be strictly in conformity with the ACCC Debt Collection Guidelines (refer http://tinyurl.com/parking-01). Your contact with us should be limited to: acknowledging our letter and providing us with any documentation that we have requested informing us that you have ceased collection efforts on the alleged debt stating that you are taking a specific action in relation to the debt such as commencing court proceedings (note that you can only threaten court proceedings if you intend to start them otherwise you are in breach of the guidelines - refer page 33 "you must not threaten legal action if the start of proceedings is not possible, or not under consideration, or you do not have instructions to start proceedings"). You must also advise any debt collectors or lawyers you have collecting this debt to stop. If you or your agents continue to attempt to collect this alleged debt, we will complain in writing to the ACCC, to NSW Fair Trading, and to the car park owner (and if we receive a further letter from your lawyers, we will complain to the Legal Services Commissioner in the lawyer's home state). Please send us within 7 days: Confirmation of whether or not you still hold us responsible for this alleged debt. If you still hold us responsible, we require you to properly articulate the facts and matters on which your claim is based. Please forward us the following particulars: A copy of the contract we are alleged to have entered into. Photographs of any signs that need to be read in conjunction with the alleged contract. Details of the actual offence you are claiming. e.g. failure to buy ticket, expired ticket, parking in no-standing etc. As well as the usual particulars of date, time, precise location with the car park and other facts and matters giving rise to the alleged breach of agreement. An itemised breakdown of the debt you are claiming and details on how it was calculated. Show separately legal costs, court costs, administration costs, costs associated with identifying us as the car owner, patrolling costs and a breakdown of any other costs not already mentioned. Pursuant to the Privacy Act, a copy of all photos you have of our car and/or us. Indicate the date each photo was taken and the name of the person who took the photo. And forward us any other data that you hold on us that the Privacy Act requires you to disclose. The basis on which you allege that we ware a party to the agreement alleged to exist; Proof that the alleged debt was incurred by us. The name(s) of any lawyers or solicitors who received payments pursuant to any clause in your terms and conditions. Please show the amounts and dates on which these costs were incurred, and the dates when these payments were made. Please itemise the work that such lawyers or solicitors performed for you, and indicate which clause in your terms and conditions allows you to hold us liable for such payments. A copy of any agreement that the car parking company has with the owner of the car park which covers the handling of disputes and appeals. Indicate the amount of money the car park company would have been paid had we entered into the alleged agreement with it, and if the alleged terms and conditions had been followed to the company's satisfaction. (In other words, how much money do you normally receive for a car to park in your car park for the period of time we are alleged to have parked there for). The contact name, postal address, and phone number of each of the following: the car park owner, the car park manager, and the car park operator. A copy of your Appeal handing procedure. As well as setting out what factors are taken into account, state who is the judge or arbitrator and whether they are independent and any other relevant factors to the Appeal. In addition, please give us disclosure of any arguments being put by yourselves on this matter in the Appeal so that we might reply to any new issues which are raised. If you decide to dismiss our appeal, please send us the full reasoning in relation to each of the specific points raised in our letter. The name and address of the person you allege was driving our car at the time you allege our car was parked in your car park. If you are alleging an agent authorised by us was driving our car, please confirm this in your response and forward us a copy of the agency agreement, along with the name and address of the agent. We put you on notice that should you continue this claim, we will issue an application, seeking orders that: Any request for a statutory declaration or request from you to prove in anyway that we do not owe this debt is misleading or deceptive conduct, because you are not a government agency and that the burden of proof rests with you as the person who claims the alleged debt. The amount claimed pursuant to the alleged contract amounts to a penalty and therefore void at common law. Alternatively, the amount claimed is claimed pursuant to a consumer contract within the meaning of the Australian Consumer Law and that the amount claimed is an unfair term within the meaning of section 23 of the ACL and, accordingly, is void. Finally, this debt remains in dispute until we advise you in writing that we owe this debt. I received one further piece of correspondence which didn't address any of the things I asked for and which I ignored and that was the end of the matter.
Are you at fault for the fact that Car C read ended you? Close call. A jury could go either way. Can this accident which is now appearing on your insurance be disputed as Car A did not report anything? Essentially I'm just wondering what the odds are that this can removed from Car A's record. I think that it is unlikely that the situation you suggest would happen, even though anything is possible. Usually there needs to be a claim of actual damage for an insurance company to treat it as an accident. The usual rule is "no harm, no foul" (unless someone is cited for a traffic violation). Insurance company accident records are not regulated to the same extent as say, credit reports. You could threaten to sue the company for negligent misrepresentation, or the driver of Car C for defamation, in order to try to get this statement removed, but those would be hard cases to win since you are at least arguably at fault and fault is to some extent a matter of opinion. It would be much easier to win a suit like that if the accident didn't happen at all. Here, it would be undisputed that an accident happened at a particular time and place involving certain cars and drivers, and the dispute is only over who was at fault.
There are two separate questions here, it seems to me. First: are law enforcement officers required to respect your house rules and avoid making a mess? At least in the United States, the answer is unequivocally no. If the only "damage" suffered is that you need to sweep the floor, or put your clothes back in drawers, that's not the police's problem. You have not suffered any damages that a court is going to reimburse, and your best case scenario, even if you win a suit against the police, is an award of one dollar as nominal damages. Second: are law enforcement officers required to reimburse you for any physical damage they caused while executing the search warrant? The answer here is tricker, and depends on the search warrant. If the warrant is invalid, then the answer is yes. But remember: just because, for example, the cops are looking for the guy you bought your house from, who moved out a month ago, that doesn't mean the warrant is "invalid." Just because the cops got a bad tip, or suspected you wrongly, or were in some other way wasting their time--as long as the warrant is technically proper and they were able to convince a judge it was reasonable, the warrant is valid. Even if the warrant is invalid, you may need to sue the police to get anything reimbursed. If the warrant is valid, in practical terms, you will almost certainly need to sue the police to recover anything, and you will have to show the Court that the police's actions that damaged your property were so extreme that they were outside the reasonable scope of the warrant. For instance: the warrant is for a large item, like a stolen car: the police cannot smash holes in your walls to make sure the car isn't hidden inside. If they're looking for drugs, they may be able to. If the officers' actions are consistent with the scope of the warrant, then you are not going to recover anything. The warrant is, basically, permission from a judge to enter your home and perform those actions, and they will not be liable for them. A number of relevant cases are discussed in this article: http://www.aele.org/law/2010all01/2010-1MLJ101.pdf