7 ms·

I live in europe. If you get falsely arrested, and lose your realestate license because some huge company did something really wrong, I was under a steretypica

I live in europe. If you get falsely arrested, and lose your realestate license because some huge company did something really wrong, I was under a steretypical impression that lawyers would be calling you 24/7 to take your case and sue them for huge amount of money (and then take a huge cut out of that)... especially for the mother and 40days jail time. Is there more to these stories, or are we just waiting for "Hertz pays X millions to falsly arrested mother" to appear in the newspapers?

southerntofu 5y ago
I live in europe, too. That kind of lawyers can be very expensive for common people. Most of us don't dream to sue companies/cops and even less so with famous lawyers as legal advice. The closest we have is consumers associations who will take complaint and in some cases start legal actions. In this case it's even more complicated, because the company is at fault for making an administrative error in declaring stolen vehicles, but the heart of the scandal is that the police followed through on baseless claims and abused their power on random people. As always, the cops are the real criminals here, but where i come from (France) there's close to zero chance to get any form of justice against cops even in the most egregious cases of murder and rape. > are we just waiting for "Hertz pays X millions to falsly arrested mother" to appear in the newspapers? Now that a big newspaper has covered the story and revealed there's hundreds of cases, that's probably what's gonna happen.
oliwarner 5y ago
Also European. My indignation is at the police's use of force. Even if I wasn't arrested or jailed, being dragged out of a car at gunpoint is such an inappropriate response to a nonviolent theft report. It's dangerous. It's scary.
rendall 5y ago
The statement from Hertz at the end implies that they were not false reports after all. It's a pretty confident thing for a company to say. If true, then there will not be large payouts.
- jjk166 5y ago
  I mean what else are they going to say? To say that there are no false reports is provably incorrect, to say either that there are many false reports or they don't know how common false reports are is to admit guilt. This is just the corporate version of the narcissist's creed.
  - rendall 5y ago
    I'm at the point, unfortunately, that I would believe the statement of a retail corporation over a journalist's report. It just seems more plausible to me that this journalist is spinning sordid, dreary car thefts into a tale of monstrous corporate incompetence; than that Hertz representatives consistently and callously make false police reports.
bb88 5y ago
In the US, we have clear distinction between local/state and federal jurisdictions. So false arrest will be a local charge, not a federal one. Further local prosecutors are paid with local taxes, so won't have the resources that the federal prosecutors have. Further, 20 wrongful arrests are each 1 count in 20 different localities. I wish more courts would allow rocket dockets to plow through the cases. Very rarely in these cases are there questions of law actually involved. Mostly it's procedural delays. The longer you can delay the better your chance the other side gives up -- so you don't actually have to argue the merits of your case.
wccrawford 5y ago
I live in the US, and there are plenty of billboards for lawyers all over the place. I find it hard that a lawyer wouldn't be all over it here... Unless there was more to the story than the 1 side that journalists usually give. I've learned to pretty much just ignore all the stories that seem unbelievable because they probably are. There's almost always more to them.
- grayfaced 5y ago
  The article addresses it, 191 cases. Maybe you shouldn't have been so quick to dismiss news because of your belief in billboards.
  - wccrawford 5y ago
    I didn't say I disbelieved it. I just said I ignored it. The default state is not belief of disbelief, it's no stance.
javajosh 5y ago
>I was under a stereotypical[sic] impression that lawyers... Hertz may want to settle out-of-court in the mothers case, but even then these stories don't have the legs they used to. The attack on truth since Trump has been ongoing and severe, and I think most people are either a) in a head-space where everything seems to be falling apart, and so anything shy of video-taped murder is ignored, or b) in a head-space where nothing is real or true and the lamestream media is just manipulating everyone all the time with everything. In both cases, the public has been severed from it's own interest. It's funny because I grew up watching movies where the good guy was often trying to get some proof to expose the bad guy, who was willing to do anything to stop the leak. But now? What happens in a world where no proof is believable? The entire equation goes out of balance, and politicians, ever the practical ones, respond to different incentives, and avoid issues like this one that don't play to anyone's base and antagonize money.
- tzs 5y ago
  OT: when you insert "[sic]" after something you quote that was misspelled in the original you are supposed to leave it misspelled. "[sic]" means "this spelling error is in the source". When you want to fix the error in the quote, the way to denote it is to replace the misspelled word with the correctly spelled word in square brackets, like this: > I was under a [stereotypical] impression that lawyers... This raises a question. In addition to "sic" in brackets meaning "this error is in the source" it also can be a verb meaning "set an animal to attack". What happens if someone misspells that, and you want to correct it when you quote them? Just putting it in brackets might be interpreted as you saying that the word before it is misspelled.
- ratsmack 5y ago
  >The attack on truth since Trump... Seriously... did you have to?
  - robbedpeter 5y ago
    The guy lives rent free in people's heads. It's truly bizarre.
- 5y ago
kube-system 5y ago
That's exactly what this story is about -- people who have sued Hertz for wrongdoing. Hertz is going through bankruptcy proceedings. During this process, a court will prioritize which debts Hertz is going to be paying off, and in what priority. Some of these debts are people who have sued Hertz for these issues. The court will be determining who gets paid and whose debts are written off under bankruptcy law.
- Justsignedup 5y ago
  this is the thing that bothers me the most. if a person fucks up, massive consequences. A company? I'm pretty sure the CEO and board got plenty of cash, and lots of protections against all their wrongdoings
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    If they make a pattern of it they're likely to get smacked with punitive damages or a similarly large class action, see McDonalds coffee for a good example. If you write off the punitive damages as a cost of doing business the judgements are going to go up exponentially from there (assuming the next claimant's lawyer is smart enough to find and read the last judgement).
  - edoceo 5y ago
    And a nice salary along the way. And many times the company will provide additional insurance/benefits just in case.
  - kube-system 5y ago
    That's not necessarily true. The vast majority of individual people that file chapter 7 don't give up a penny. US bankruptcy law is surprisingly progressive for the little guy -- even compared to other progressive countries.
    - netizen-936824 5y ago
      You but we aren't discussing bankruptcy. If you call the police and give them false information to get someone else arrested. I'll bet that when they find out, you'll be the one getting arrested. These CEOs and board members don't even get fined personally, the company usually pays

southerntofu 5y ago

I live in europe, too. That kind of lawyers can be very expensive for common people. Most of us don't dream to sue companies/cops and even less so with famous lawyers as legal advice. The closest we have is consumers associations who will take complaint and in some cases start legal actions. In this case it's even more complicated, because the company is at fault for making an administrative error in declaring stolen vehicles, but the heart of the scandal is that the police followed through on baseless claims and abused their power on random people. As always, the cops are the real criminals here, but where i come from (France) there's close to zero chance to get any form of justice against cops even in the most egregious cases of murder and rape. > are we just waiting for "Hertz pays X millions to falsly arrested mother" to appear in the newspapers? Now that a big newspaper has covered the story and revealed there's hundreds of cases, that's probably what's gonna happen.

oliwarner 5y ago

Also European. My indignation is at the police's use of force. Even if I wasn't arrested or jailed, being dragged out of a car at gunpoint is such an inappropriate response to a nonviolent theft report. It's dangerous. It's scary.

rendall 5y ago

The statement from Hertz at the end implies that they were not false reports after all. It's a pretty confident thing for a company to say. If true, then there will not be large payouts.

jjk166 5y ago
I mean what else are they going to say? To say that there are no false reports is provably incorrect, to say either that there are many false reports or they don't know how common false reports are is to admit guilt. This is just the corporate version of the narcissist's creed.
- rendall 5y ago
  I'm at the point, unfortunately, that I would believe the statement of a retail corporation over a journalist's report. It just seems more plausible to me that this journalist is spinning sordid, dreary car thefts into a tale of monstrous corporate incompetence; than that Hertz representatives consistently and callously make false police reports.

bb88 5y ago

In the US, we have clear distinction between local/state and federal jurisdictions. So false arrest will be a local charge, not a federal one. Further local prosecutors are paid with local taxes, so won't have the resources that the federal prosecutors have. Further, 20 wrongful arrests are each 1 count in 20 different localities. I wish more courts would allow rocket dockets to plow through the cases. Very rarely in these cases are there questions of law actually involved. Mostly it's procedural delays. The longer you can delay the better your chance the other side gives up -- so you don't actually have to argue the merits of your case.

wccrawford 5y ago

I live in the US, and there are plenty of billboards for lawyers all over the place. I find it hard that a lawyer wouldn't be all over it here... Unless there was more to the story than the 1 side that journalists usually give. I've learned to pretty much just ignore all the stories that seem unbelievable because they probably are. There's almost always more to them.

grayfaced 5y ago
The article addresses it, 191 cases. Maybe you shouldn't have been so quick to dismiss news because of your belief in billboards.
- wccrawford 5y ago
  I didn't say I disbelieved it. I just said I ignored it. The default state is not belief of disbelief, it's no stance.

javajosh 5y ago

>I was under a stereotypical[sic] impression that lawyers... Hertz may want to settle out-of-court in the mothers case, but even then these stories don't have the legs they used to. The attack on truth since Trump has been ongoing and severe, and I think most people are either a) in a head-space where everything seems to be falling apart, and so anything shy of video-taped murder is ignored, or b) in a head-space where nothing is real or true and the lamestream media is just manipulating everyone all the time with everything. In both cases, the public has been severed from it's own interest. It's funny because I grew up watching movies where the good guy was often trying to get some proof to expose the bad guy, who was willing to do anything to stop the leak. But now? What happens in a world where no proof is believable? The entire equation goes out of balance, and politicians, ever the practical ones, respond to different incentives, and avoid issues like this one that don't play to anyone's base and antagonize money.

tzs 5y ago
OT: when you insert "[sic]" after something you quote that was misspelled in the original you are supposed to leave it misspelled. "[sic]" means "this spelling error is in the source". When you want to fix the error in the quote, the way to denote it is to replace the misspelled word with the correctly spelled word in square brackets, like this: > I was under a [stereotypical] impression that lawyers... This raises a question. In addition to "sic" in brackets meaning "this error is in the source" it also can be a verb meaning "set an animal to attack". What happens if someone misspells that, and you want to correct it when you quote them? Just putting it in brackets might be interpreted as you saying that the word before it is misspelled.
ratsmack 5y ago
>The attack on truth since Trump... Seriously... did you have to?
- robbedpeter 5y ago
  The guy lives rent free in people's heads. It's truly bizarre.
5y ago

kube-system 5y ago

That's exactly what this story is about -- people who have sued Hertz for wrongdoing. Hertz is going through bankruptcy proceedings. During this process, a court will prioritize which debts Hertz is going to be paying off, and in what priority. Some of these debts are people who have sued Hertz for these issues. The court will be determining who gets paid and whose debts are written off under bankruptcy law.

Justsignedup 5y ago
this is the thing that bothers me the most. if a person fucks up, massive consequences. A company? I'm pretty sure the CEO and board got plenty of cash, and lots of protections against all their wrongdoings
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  If they make a pattern of it they're likely to get smacked with punitive damages or a similarly large class action, see McDonalds coffee for a good example. If you write off the punitive damages as a cost of doing business the judgements are going to go up exponentially from there (assuming the next claimant's lawyer is smart enough to find and read the last judgement).
- edoceo 5y ago
  And a nice salary along the way. And many times the company will provide additional insurance/benefits just in case.
- kube-system 5y ago
  That's not necessarily true. The vast majority of individual people that file chapter 7 don't give up a penny. US bankruptcy law is surprisingly progressive for the little guy -- even compared to other progressive countries.
  - netizen-936824 5y ago
    You but we aren't discussing bankruptcy. If you call the police and give them false information to get someone else arrested. I'll bet that when they find out, you'll be the one getting arrested. These CEOs and board members don't even get fined personally, the company usually pays