Chevy dealership has man arrested for theft.

I wonder how many heads rolled after someone made the decision to have this man arrested ? I hope the guy gets every penny he is suing for.

Don

http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/10/09/man-arrested-for-accepting-a-good-deal-at-car-dealership/

A better solution would have been to fire the guy who made a mistake, and write off the loss.

The next time I get a really good deal on a car, I guess I should be looking over my shoulder.

I bet the owner of that dealership had some choice words for the guy who made the decision to call the cops and have the guy arrested. The guy had to go through being arrested, booked, and jailed for something that was clearly a civil matter, not a criminal matter. The police should have known the difference too between theft and a contract mistake.

No question that I would also be suing them for as much as I could get, and probably would be suing the police dept too.

Don

That's what I was thinking about the police department as well. But the dealership may of filed a false report.

21willys said:

That's what I was thinking about the police department as well. But the dealership may of filed a false report.

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The police should have done some investigating before arresting the guy. What happened to innocent until proven guilty? Bet they never asked to see a contract. Maybe the constable should get a little community service or something.

car lots make me think of Fargo and Wood chippers

I’ll reframe from my long winded rants, but a contract is binding if both parties signed regardless of errors and I hope this guy takes the dealer to the cleaners. It discusses me on how the law can be manipulated into a weapon against the public any more. I recently had a situation here, if the officer wasn’t so hell bent on not listening and would have taken 5 minutes to make one phone call, a ton of BS could have been avoided. In the end it was found out the person had made false allegations and filed false court papers, did anything happen to this person you may ask, absolutely nothing, just like the dealer is probably going get.

Should the police be sued and if so what grounds, the only blame I would place on law enforcement is being a pawn in a false report and this should prompted them into looking a little deeper when things don’t add up. I would think that when the man was approached buy the officer he probably tried to explain what was going on. And seeing how he was arrested at his home, it would have only taken a few minutes to resolve this by showing the paperwork on the suv.

I understand law enforcement is no picnic and is a difficult job. This is probably that one in a million case, but when we can start picking up a phone and start having people arrested by pointing a finger it is time for a change.

I worked in dealerships for a number of years. This doesnt surprise me. I hope too that the guy gets every penny he can

This is all a big load of crap. While I don't think the man deserves the $2.2million that he is suing for I do believe he deserves something! I hope he gets as much as he can, but not that much!!

The 2.2 million was probably a figure thrown out by his Attorney to get their attention............and I bet it did !! He will obviously end up with less but what is it worth to be arrested in cuffs, booked, jailed, and have to have a court appearance and post bail ?? I'm sure his neighbors who saw him being taken in now wonder who the criminal living next door is.

What surprises me about the cop thing is that this was clearly a civil matter not an out and out theft. It wasn't like the guy took the car for a test drive and never came back. He filled out the paperwork and signed it, they shook hands, then he drove away with their blessings. The cop should have seen that and told the dealership they need to take it to civil court and let them decide.

I sorta had a similar situation in 85 when I bought a new Cougar. After having it for a few days Ford Credit called and said the dealer forgot to add some BS prep charges and dumb stuff like floor mats. It told them to pound sand, I had a signed contract and that was that. I never heard back from them.

Don

It will be interesting to see who actually signed the statement of fact to get the warrant. Cops don't just arrest someone without a warrant unless they actually witnessed the crime. There's a lot more to this story than we know. Be interesting to see how it all plays out in court.

far as I know a sign contract is a done deal.

WIKI knows the answer to the question...

Mistake of Fact: Where both the parties into an agreement are under a mistake as to a matter of fact essential to the agreement, the agreement is void.

A unilateral mistake is where only one party to a contract is mistaken as to the terms or subject-matter contained in a contract. This kind of mistake is more common than other types of mistake. One must first distinguish between mechanical calculations and business error when looking at unilateral mistake. For mechanical calculations, a party may be able to set aside the contract on these grounds provided that the other party does not try to take advantage of the mistake, or 'snatch up' the offer (involving a bargain that one did not intend to make, betrayed by an error in arithmetic etc.). This will be seen by an objective standard, or if a reasonable person would be able to know that the mistake would not make sense to one of the parties. Unless one of the parties 'snatched up' the one-sided offer, courts will otherwise uphold the contract.

Conversely, when a party is guilty of an error in business judgment, there is no relief.
The test to determine the allocation of risk is as follows: A defendant should bear the risk of the mistake if: (i) the agreement allocated the risk to the defendant; (ii) the defendant was aware of having limited knowledge with respect to the facts to which the mistake related but treats his limited knowledge as sufficient; or (iii) the court finds that it is reasonable under the circumstances to allocate the risk to the defendant.As any area of law, any doctrine has its exceptions. In Speckel v. Perkins,[Case 4] there was a unilateral mistake by one of the parties. However, the mistake should have been apparent to a reasonable person in the position of the party who did not make the mistake. The court determined that the offer of US$50000 was, on its face, clearly a mistake. The correct amount, as both parties were aware, was for US$15000. The question raises, at what point will the unilateral mistake become so apparent that it leaves unilateral mistake theory and enters into mutual mistake doctrine?

Uh...

What did you just say??? And did you just uniladeraly mistake me for the kind of person that has limited knowledge...



So did he get to keep the car?

Kurt

Kurtm333 said:

So did he get to keep the car?

Kurt

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IDK but judging by those legal standards It could be ruled a mutual mistake that the neither party knew that the substitute car was more expensive.
But then again if the salesman should have known, if his job requires him to check something like that first and get it cleared before he signed it then that would fit the part where it says "being in doubt but thinking that your knowledge is adequate doe snot free you from the obligation".

The employer could argue that the salesman did not have the authority to sign the contract without clearing it first and that would invalidate the contract.

I would say that the dealership had the law on their side and if they would have billed the car owner for the difference and let the court figure it out they probably would have won.
but saying the guy stole the car and all that. I think they Borked it.
Ain't no way they can come back from that

Strictly legally speaking, Torchman is right, strange as it might seem. I took some law courses and one example that the Professor gave was this one:

Farmer A has a prize Holstein cow that is worth $15,000. But, the cow turns out to be infertile, unable to have calves, so that makes her worth much less. So he sells the cow to Farmer B for $ 500 and they both understand that she is just meat and not breedable.

However, 6 months later she miraculously gets pregnant and has a calf, and Farmer A demands his cow back. Is he able to do so ? Answer is YES, because the sale was based on a mutual mistake, so the sale is null and void. They both thought the cow was barren but she wasn't, so the basis of their agreement was flawed.

That is why I didn't go on to become an Attorney because that didn't seem logical to me, and I never understood legal versus logical. But regarding the Chevy dealer having the guy arrested, I think they crossed the line by calling it criminal theft instead of a civil disagreement.

Don

donsrods said:

.... I never understood legal versus logical.
Don

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That's because legal isn't always logical!

ssimpala said:

It will be interesting to see who actually signed the statement of fact to get the warrant. Cops don't just arrest someone without a warrant unless they actually witnessed the crime. There's a lot more to this story than we know. Be interesting to see how it all plays out in court.

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Cops do arrest, without warrants, based on information and belief that a felony may have occurred. Misdemeanors, cops have to witness the crime or someone must make a private persons arrest.

They also do "reasonable cause arrests" for felonies which may have been committed. An example: On a traffic stop, the officer notices several car stereos on the floorboard of the back seat. He also sees screwdrivers, wire cutters, slim jim, gloves, etc.....scattered about. Based on the officers observations, he may arrest believing that the driver may be a car burglar. This gives the officer 72 hours to find victims.

What would be interesting is to see what the police report read. What did the salesman say and what did the victim/suspect say at the time.

Cops do make mistakes! I had a Deputy bring in a guy for having a switchblade knife (felony). I asked him where he found the knife. He said it was in a backpack in the rear seat. I told him to read the penal code, a switchblade MUST BE ON YOUR PERSON. It's the only weapon described in that section that has to be on your person. He had to take the suspect back where he found him, minus the switchblade, of course.

We Want To See It Made Correct - But Let's Be Correct In Our Thinking Here....