Bank burglarizes house, refuses to pay proper restitution

[Panacea]

She tried to press charges and was told by the local police department that this was a civil matter not a criminal one.

I would have gone to the District Attorney and at least exhausted my options for a criminal case.

I can actually get somewhat behind that position. It's relatively clear that there was no intent to burglarize the home, so it wouldn't be a criminal matter. It was a mistake - yes, a very stupid one - but a mistake nonetheless. No intent involved, no crime committed (note: local laws may vary).

She's got a great case for gross negligence on the part of the bank employees in a civil case since they never actually checked the house number. Since the bank is the employer, the legal concept of respondeat superior (let the master answer) applies. She can sue the employees individually, and the bank under this concept.

(IANAL, but one of my legal nurse consulting cases that I'm currently working on is based on this legal concept).

Of course the bank should reimburse her for anything that was taken or destroyed, and I really hope she has the financial means to actually take them to court over this. I don't really get what they hope to accomplish through their refusal; the only reason I can think of is an attempt to drag this through courts until her resources are exhausted. Which is a very shitty way to deal with this.

The bank owes her replacement value for her property, and to repair any and all damage to the house. They can also be sued for punitive damages.

She's not likely to pay by the hour for legal representation. She'll probably get someone who will work on a contingency basis; who is only paid if he wins.

The bank will have to pay by the hour. This isn't Bank of America, this is a small town local bank. I doubt the Board of Directors will favor protracted legal battles; they'll offer to settle quick is my guess. They'd be stupid not to.

This is one of those cases where the defendants best option is to just write the check.

[D_Yeti_Esquire]

The problem with charging them with "other stuff" or anything in general is going to be proving they intended to illegally do anything to the victim in the first place. Trespass, theft, etc. require a guilty mind in the eyes of the law which is meant to protect innocent accidents from getting prosecuted. Think swiping someone's identical looking toolkit at a job site after leaving yours at home and forgetting that you didn't bring it.

In this case, the prosecution would have to prove criminal negligence (which is how you get around a corporation claiming a mistake) on the part of agents which sounds simple enough, unless those agents were following a procedure consistent with industry best practices. Five gets you ten relying on the GPS is pretty common as a tool in the industry (in NYC, just serving someone with a lawsuit requires it) and they are told to rely on the GPS because people can and do jack with signage. If that GPS was wrong or defective, proving it is going to be impossible.

A lot of things that we think of as unbelievably negligent are honest mistakes when you do things like that for a living. Just like most people make mistakes at jobs, guys that repossess things make mistakes and don't always have their A games. It's a colossal screw up that probably happened because some things were being taken for granted that are true 99.9% of the time.

[Nyoibo]

What happened to ignorance of the law is no defence?

[mikoyan29]

I don't think the law can read minds. I mean what's to stop a real criminal from hiding behind that sort of thing?

[D_Yeti_Esquire]

Usually what they did afterwards, how they did what they were doing, and their prior history would help establish that. In general, a repo man has a long history of legally repossessing items. You can always try the defense that you didn't intend to do something or it was a mistake and if the jury buys it, mens rea won't be found and conviction on the crime will be impossible.

But the reality is in a jury trial or trial by judge... well someone has to believe you. If you do that kind of thing for a job and it goes wrong... plausible. That you thought you locked yourself out of your house, broke in, and then left with items that didn't belong to you, probably not.

That's the problem, in a criminal trial in which the legal burden of proof is beyond reasonable doubt the "mistake" excuse is already way too plausible to start.

Sidebar: "Ignorance of the law" means you intended to do what you did but you were unaware it was a legal and is not a defense. That would be different than this case in which everyone is well aware what theft, trespass, etc. is but were mistaken as to the facts they were dealing with. In this case, the house they were repossessing was wrong.

[mikoyan29]

I would think that will all the lack of due dilligence that some banks have been showing in the foreclosure process, that this could be a show trial. But of course it would be the peons going to jail instead of the people that belong in jail.

[Andara Bledin]

That's the problem, in a criminal trial in which the legal burden of proof is beyond reasonable doubt the "mistake" excuse is already way too plausible to start.

Except that in the case of criminal negligence, the burden that they did due diligence is back on them. And the fact that both houses had numbers on their boxes, and those numbers were accurate, makes this a hard case for them to claim they even bothered to check beyond the GPS which are known to be less than precisely accurate.

Hell, according to the article, the idiots weren't even on the right side of the street. That's about as big a case for lack of due diligence as you can get, since anyone with half a brain and five minutes experience knows that odd and even numbers are not on the same side. But the GPS took them to that point in the street and her grass was unkempt (because they'd been on vacation for 2 weeks), so they just assumed that was the place.

At least these blithering idiots didn't demolish the wrong house. In that case, a neighbor even tried to tell the crew they were at the wrong address, but I guess double-checking things like lot numbers is just too much beyond some people. >_<

[mikoyan29]

One of the main causes of the financial crisis of 2008 is the lack of due dilligence on the part of many lenders and the entities that support them. In many cases they didn't bother checking income sources and the true value of hte houses or anything. Of course, when you are pawning that stuff off on other entities that sort of thing doesn't matter. Hell, there were many houses foreclosed that shouldn't have been and the only answer was a shrug and an "Oh well".

[hinakiba777]

I had read an article about the repossession of Ms. Barnett's home, as well as the demolition of Mr. Underwood's house, a few day ago. The whole this is just beyond me. I mean, I understand simple mistakes causing HUGE mistakes. But in both cases it really seems like negligence, especially in the demolition case.

First National must have quite a monopoly in Wellston that they can survive this much negative press.

[wolfie]

Five gets you ten relying on the GPS is pretty common as a tool in the industry (in NYC, just serving someone with a lawsuit requires it) and they are told to rely on the GPS because people can and do jack with signage. If that GPS was wrong or defective, proving it is going to be impossible.

Except that in the case of criminal negligence, the burden that they did due diligence is back on them. And the fact that both houses had numbers on their boxes, and those numbers were accurate, makes this a hard case for them to claim they even bothered to check beyond the GPS which are known to be less than precisely accurate.

Hell, according to the article, the idiots weren't even on the right side of the street. That's about as big a case for lack of due diligence as you can get, since anyone with half a brain and five minutes experience knows that odd and even numbers are not on the same side.

Due diligence involves NOT blindly relying on a SINGLE source. Some years back, I was running truck-specific GPS software with the "53 foot trailer" option selected (carrying 40,000 pounds of newsprint). Got to the turnoff it told me to take, saw a sign saying "trailers over 28 1/2 feet prohibited". Pulled onto the shoulder, checked my atlas - saw there was another turnoff further along that was highlighted as a truck route. Get there, see a sign "weight limit 10 tons". Pull onto the shoulder, check atlas again. There's yet another marked truck route I can take further on. No signs giving limits I can't meet, so I take it - get to consignee OK.

If the GPS says "Take highway X", on highway X there's a bridge with a sign "Clearance 10 feet 9 inches", and you keep going, it's YOUR fault that you ripped the top off the trailer.

The GPS told them they were at the right place, the long grass said it hadn't been mowed in a while, but the address on the mailbox said they were on the wrong side of the street (odd vs. even)? Call the office and get more details. Office digs through records (i.e. commercial online database of land titles, which person securing the site wouldn't have access to) and says the right house is the one on the north side of Mockingbird lane, and is the 5th house east of Maple street, but the one you thought it was is on the south side of Mockingbird? You've got the WRONG DAMN HOUSE!

If they were told to rely on the GPS due to possibility of signs being tampered with, the person telling them that is negligent because GPS DATABASES HAVE BEEN KNOWN TO BE WRONG (common for street addresses to be "shifted" down the road). If they followed such orders even when the GPS was in conflict with other, readily-available sources (i.e. house numbers on the door), rather than reporting the conflict and asking for further instructions (presumably directions obtained from a less convenient but legally definitive source), THEY are also negligent.

[Ginger Tea]

Not related to the case in the OP, but inaccuracies in databases like google maps, I have no idea if this was a user entered piece or a corporate one, I'm thinking the shop owner paid to have their shop listed as an icon, or did it themselves.
Thing is they got their icon damn near on my doorstep and they are a few hundred yards down the road from me, or they were, they seem to be closed now, perhaps people looking for them passed them on the way and never went back to the shop that has the same name when confronted with a house that has nothing to do with said business.

But I think it's more to do with the business and services they offered being out of character to the surroundings than anything like that, although I do have a bit of a giggle about it.