Can/Should We Sue?

[Mgmny]

First and foremost I have say that never in my life have I had the desire to sue anyone before, and frankly I've sort of thought people who do are kind of skeezy.

Here's what happened: my wife picked up her car (it's a company lease, so it's not even really "her" car, per see, we don't own it) from the dealership tonight after them having it for 3 weeks. They had to replace the engine due to a coolant issue apparently. That's not really important.

She starts driving away from the dealership, and about two minutes into her drive the car dies. Completely unresponsive. The vehicle is in motion and the power steering goes out AND THE BRAKES. Nothing works on the car. She successfully navigated traffic until the car glided to a spot a few blocks away from the car dying.

The car stopped right in front of a busy intersection. If it had died a few seconds later, her car would have landed her in the middle of this intersection without being about to move.

To make matters worse, she's 30 weeks pregnant, so tensions are high and a car accident would have been much worse.

I'm livid right now, and for the first time in my life I feel like sueing someone. My wife and my unborn son could have easily died.

The dealership put my wife into an unsafe vehicle. What can I do about it? I would think I'd have a much stronger case if she actually did get into an accident and suffered physical damage, but thank goodness she didn't. Furthermore, she's been an emotional wreck about this for the past two hours.

Can we sue? What should we do?

[Paul der Krake]

I am neither a lawyer nor a mechanic, so take the following for what it's worth.

First, it sounds like by "the car died", it simply lost power. It's happened to me in the middle of downtown traffic, and it's not fun. The brakes were in all likelihood still working, but because there is no power you need to press the pedal really hard to stop the car. The emergency brake would have worked regardless. Your wife should know this in case it ever happens again, so she doesn't drive to her death needlessly.

Second, to sue someone successfully in a civil suit, you are going to need to show that you suffered damages. It sounds like nothing bad happened here, and you can't sue people for hypothetical damages.

[Mgmny]

I am neither a lawyer nor a mechanic, so take the following for what it's worth.

First, it sounds like by "the car died", it simply lost power. It's happened to me in the middle of downtown traffic, and it's not fun. The brakes were in all likelihood still working, but because there is no power you need to press the pedal really hard to stop the car. The emergency brake would have worked regardless. Your wife should know this in case it ever happens again, so she doesn't drive to her death needlessly.

Second, to sue someone successfully in a civil suit, you are going to need to show that you suffered damages. It sounds like nothing bad happened here, and you can't sue people for hypothetical damages.

Thanks for the reply. I was a few blocks away blissfully unaware of the situation, so I'm just going off of my wife's word that the brakes did nothing.

I brought up the emergency break to her as well, but to be honest after we talked about it we don't think she has one. There is an electric parking break button in the center console, but no have break or e-break pedal. It's a 2016 Ford Edge. I'm thinking if the power died then the electric parking break wouldn't have worked either.

I figured you were correct that there needed to actually be an accident, but that doesn't make me feel better I guess. Someone almost got my wife and unborn son seriously hurt, and I thank God they weren't, but I am still angry and feel like someone needs to own up to this and "pay" (in quotes because I don't mean money, I just mean take responsibility and somehow fix how I'm feeling).

[ysette9]

Have you contacted the dealership?

[WalkaboutStache]

Lawyer here, but this is not legal advice and you are not my client.

It sounds like she almost got hurt and you almost suffered damages, but not really.

If you sue you will almost get compensation, but not really.

You will certainly lose some money in fees and will waste time too.

Let it go.  She got lucky not to get hurt.  The dealership got lucky that nothing happened. 

[bogart]

I'm so sorry this happened to your wife, it sounds utterly terrifying and I totally understand why she -- and you -- are upset.

I'm glad she is OK.

I agree with others (though I have no particular knowledge or legal training of any kind) that it seems really unlikely you could successfully sue. 

[Mgmny]

Have you contacted the dealership?

Yes, this happened at 615 pm, they supposedly close at 8:30, but the phone operator said, "no one is here." So I calmly left a voicemail for the manager expressing my frustration and disbelief. We'll see today what happens in their response.

[Mgmny]

Let it go.  She got lucky not to get hurt.  The dealership got lucky that nothing happened.

Ok. This is probably the best advice, and I try to be stoic in life, and I'm not easily rattled, and I'm sort of surprising myself that I'm "out for blood" when usually my emotions are well managed and tempered.

I think it's probably the fact that she's pregnant and there's nothing I can do to help....

[Mgmny]

I'm so sorry this happened to your wife, it sounds utterly terrifying and I totally understand why she -- and you -- are upset.

I'm glad she is OK.

I agree with others (though I have no particular knowledge or legal training of any kind) that it seems really unlikely you could successfully sue.

Ok no sueing.

Is the best advice to just let it go? Is there ANYTHING we can do?

It's dumb because I could see them saying, "oh we'll give you a discount on your bill, etc." But because it's a company lease, we aren't paying the bill anyways, so this doesn't matter...

[former player]

That was a nasty incident and I understand your anger - only good luck prevented it from being worse.

The time limits for suing are in years not days.  Make sure you have a full and accurate written record of what happened, with supporting documents, contact details of any witnesses and a short memorandum of what each witness could say.  Then put it away in your filing records and forget about it.  In 20 weeks time you will be busy with a new baby and this will be a distant memory.  In a year or two you will find the written record and throw it away with a quiet word of thanks that no harm came of this incident.

(I'm a lawyer.  However angry I've been in the moment I've known since I started studying law that litigation is a disaster for everyone involved, even the winners, because it consumes time, money, emotions and energy in quantities you cannot even imagine.)

Is there anything you can do other than suing? Not really.  Sorry.

[405programmer]

So to echo what other much smarter people are saying, don't try to sue them. You don't have any damages other than a scare and unless that stress harms mom or the baby there's nothing to actually sue over.

But if you want to ruin the dealership's day like they ruined yours... Take this story to every outlet you can imagine. Social media. Local news. Hell, buy a billboard. None of those actions will make your wife's ordeal less stressful because it's already in the past. They might make you feel a little better. If you're desperate to be as skeezy as possible then you could probably make lots of threats about a smear campaign and get some free stuff. Not sure you want free car repair from this place though...

My advice? Write a very strongly worded email and delete it after you've torn the owner a new asshole in your head.

[Mgmny]

Is there anything you can do other than suing? Not really.  Sorry.

Well, that sucks.

[Mgmny]

So to echo what other much smarter people are saying, don't try to sue them. You don't have any damages other than a scare and unless that stress harms mom or the baby there's nothing to actually sue over.

But if you want to ruin the dealership's day like they ruined yours... Take this story to every outlet you can imagine. Social media. Local news. Hell, buy a billboard. None of those actions will make your wife's ordeal less stressful because it's already in the past. They might make you feel a little better. If you're desperate to be as skeezy as possible then you could probably make lots of threats about a smear campaign and get some free stuff. Not sure you want free car repair from this place though...

My advice? Write a very strongly worded email and delete it after you've torn the owner a new asshole in your head.

Yeah, i'm not skeezy and it's probably not worth the time/effort to orchestrate a smear campaign.

We will just move on. The manager left a voicemail for my wife to call him back. I'll keep everyone updated with what happens when she musters up the courage to call him back.

[Freedomin5]

When she does call back, you may want to do it over speaker with you sitting beside her. You don’t know what the manager has to say to her, and you may want to be on hand to support her if needed, given how emotional this whole ordeal was to her. In rare circumstances, she may become emotionally triggered, and she may appreciate having you at her side.

[frugaliknowit]

What happened sucks.

There is no case based on your account (sue for what?).

[getwiththeprogrammer]

They had the car for 3 weeks? If the car is relatively new you should look up the lemon laws in your state. Probably not the kind of consequences you were looking for, and I don't know much about the law, but if this drags on they might have to buy you a new car.

[Mgmny]

They had the car for 3 weeks? If the car is relatively new you should look up the lemon laws in your state. Probably not the kind of consequences you were looking for, and I don't know much about the law, but if this drags on they might have to buy you a new car.

Deets on the car: 2016 Ford Edge (Delivered on May 27, 2016). 62,000 miles.

Given to dealership on 9/4/18, still in their possession so it's been 17 days, not quite 3 weeks. I guess we had "possession" of it for like 5 minutes yesterday...

Quick edit: Minnesota lemon laws say it needs to be out of service for 30 days, and still under warranty and/or within 2 years of possession, and we haven't met any of those, so i think we're out of luck on a lemon law. Good thinking though!

[Car Jack]

it's a company car

[bogart]

Ok no sueing.

Is the best advice to just let it go? Is there ANYTHING we can do?

I mean -- here's the thing:  people make mistakes.  Sometimes people make horrifically disastrous mistakes that cause horrible outcomes.  Clearly in this case although there wasn't an actual horrible outcome (thank goodness), things were  bad enough that both you and your wife can picture the way the outcomes would have been horrible and that is, itself, horrible in its own way

(Also, horrible things happen that are no one's fault, and that too is horrible.  I know you are really upset about what happened and I understand why, but ... I am living where we have seen a number of people die in the past week because of the hurricane, and possibly more to come, and well, its just horrible.  If you want the world to be a just place, well -- it's not.  I'm not saying that I don't think anyone did anything wrong in this case because I do think someone did, but ... not every horrible (or near-horrible) thing that happens, has a solution.  That's hard to accept, and it can be particularly hard to accept as a parent, but it's still true...)

I personally have been upset about a lot of stuff in the past several years and mostly when I get really mad about something that's happened, I give money to a group that tries to prevent whatever I'm upset about having happened, from happening.  That may not be exactly applicable/relevant in this case, but I think if I were you and if you can afford to do so, I might make a contribution to an organization that helps needy parents and families.  You could even find out if there's a way to donate to a group that helps families that can't afford them, get carseats for their kids.  Life is dangerous.  People do dumb things.  Sometimes bad things happen even when people don't do dumb things.  We can't change those realities but we can make differences around the margins sometimes. 

[doggyfizzle]

I’d shy away from a lawsuit, but maybe suggest the dealership read the last recorded OBD codes from your car and see WTF went wrong so what happened to your wife doesn’t happen to someone else.

[letired]

Since it's a company car, is the company involved at all? If nothing else, this seems like it should go in their records of the car, and if it was an error on the part of the dealership, they might not want to do business with them in the future.

[Mgmny]

I’d shy away from a lawsuit, but maybe suggest the dealership read the last recorded OBD codes from your car and see WTF went wrong so what happened to your wife doesn’t happen to someone else.

I think they did this? The service manager called back on Friday afternoon and said that "It was human error - someone forgot to tighten a bolt"

It just irks me that on the paperwork it says, "TEST DRIVE ---- OK"

[Mgmny]

Since it's a company car, is the company involved at all? If nothing else, this seems like it should go in their records of the car, and if it was an error on the part of the dealership, they might not want to do business with them in the future.

Yeah, it's fleet car through Enterprise, and so my wife has to pick the dealership to get the work done at. There are a handful of Ford dealerships in the Twin Cities, so she'll be going to another one from now on.

[sparkytheop]

I brought up the emergency break to her as well, but to be honest after we talked about it we don't think she has one. There is an electric parking break button in the center console, but no have break or e-break pedal. It's a 2016 Ford Edge. I'm thinking if the power died then the electric parking break wouldn't have worked either.

Disclaimer: I know large generator systems, not cars.  But, with a generator, if the brake solenoid loses power, the brakes are applied.  I would hope that an electric parking brake would work the same way, that it applies on loss of power/open circuit/fail safe.  It may have a dedicated circuit that did not lose power, which could be why they didn't apply on their own in this situation.

I would ask about that for future peace of mind.