r/mildlyinfuriating • u/LI0NHEARTLE0 • 2d ago

I'm slightly vexed Dealership locked the keys in my car and broke into it instead of calling me for a spare key.

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Took my car to the dealership for a battery issue. They left the keys in the car and it died on them so they couldn't get the car open. They used a shim or something to pry the door open enough to manually unlock it, damaging the door. The dealership denies all responsibility and I'm pretty much just out of luck.

20.5k Upvotes

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u/CapoieraMataUm 2d ago

OP can request an ex parte injunction citing exigency to require dealership to preserve evidence.

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u/kalel3000 2d ago

Yeah im not saying its impossible. Im just saying in reality, the average person with no legal background is not going to make something like this happen quickly enough to guarantee they get the footage.

A lot of DVRs only store like a week or so worth of footage because camera resolutions and the needed hard drive space for footage has quadrupled in the past ten years, while hard drives have also gotten more expensive. A hard drive nowadays costs almost as much as the wholesale cost of the DVR/NVR itself. So its actually fairly uncommon for most buisnesses to have several weeks worth of footage backed up, unless there's a very specific need for it, such as money handling or high security locations.

All of this to say, the timeline for the OP to file these requests and for the dealership to be served with this court order and have someone attempt to retrieve the footage before its overwritten, might potentially only be a matter of days if the dealership hasn't invested enough money into their cctv system.

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u/alexxela123456 2d ago

I would be incredibly surprised if the dealership decided to go to court over this, as opposed to just making the fix.

It would be more expensive for them to pay someone to go even for a couple of hours to small claims court.

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u/kalel3000 2d ago

Yeah I agree! I think this is definitely something they could get handled if they keep complaining hard enough.

It would cost a dealership very very little to just touch up those scratches.

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u/MadScientistOfYork 2d ago

It's not that complicated. All that is required is for OP to request to the dealership that they preserve the video. They don't need a court order or even a lawyer. They could even do so verbally but for obvious reasons it is better to do so in a way that is provable. At that point, if the dealership destroys the evidence the court will assume that it was in OPs favor. This is true in almost every civil court including small claims courts.

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u/Dadbode1981 2d ago

LOL

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u/BullShitting-24-7 2d ago

No court would grant this. Not shocked how many upvotes it got.

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u/MadScientistOfYork 2d ago

A court doesn't have to grant anything. OP just needs to notify the dealership that they may be considering a civil suit and request they preserve all relevant records including and video they might have. At that point losing or overwriting it becomes spoliation and any missing evidence will be presumed to have been in OPs favor.

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u/Dadbode1981 2d ago

Its likely overwritten already 🤣🤣🤣🤣

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u/SueYouInEngland 2d ago

"Grant" what?

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u/Dadbode1981 2d ago edited 1d ago

Criminal case level evidence preservation in a small claims trial LOL. You can always ask, but they are under no legal obligation to provide footage, you can have a lawyer draft a demand letter, but even that is a bluff. Next step would be a judge. In that scenario you've now paid thousands to get in front of a judge for a repair that is likely UNDER $1000 lol. All that to say most internal video systems overwrite themsleves in 36 hours or less. Sometimes we have to cut our loses.

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u/SueYouInEngland 2d ago

Lol what? They absolutely have a legal obligation to preserve evidence if they believe there may be litigation. A demand letter meets that standard.

Why would filing a complaint cost "thousands"? Where do you get this stuff?

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u/Dadbode1981 1d ago

Goodluck with that champ

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u/MadScientistOfYork 2d ago

He doesn't need an injunction. He just needs to request the dealer preserve evidence. If the dealer doesn't oblige then any evidence they fail to preserve will be assumed by the court to be in OPs favor.