Greedy Trial Lawyer
Has U-Haul Become We-Haul?
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The victims of highway accidents are often not experienced in gathering and preserving the physical evidence of the cause of the crash. Sometimes, if they survive the impact, they are physically incapable of doing anything but take a ride to the nearest ER in an ambulance. As a result, victims and their families must rely on others to do what needs to be done to gather and preserve the physical evidence from the accident scene (such as, the defective tire).
U-Haul knows all of this very well. But, it still manages to lose or discard important evidence, according to a report in the L.A. Times.
Key trial evidence goes missing
Injured customers suing U-Haul over accidents have sought key equipment, only to find it lost or discarded.A Kern County Superior Court judge declared in December that he would sanction U-Haul for "extreme negligence" in losing the evidence. Two weeks later, a federal judge in Ohio penalized U-Haul for similar conduct in a separate case.
U-Haul, the leader of the do-it-yourself moving industry, has repeatedly lost, altered or discarded truck and trailer parts sought by injured customers who sued the company, a Times investigation found.
In some cases, the company scrapped or repaired damaged parts in defiance of court orders that they be preserved as evidence.
At least twice, judges have imposed on U-Haul an exceedingly rare and severe sanction for misconduct in a civil case: throwing out the company's defense and entering judgments in favor of plaintiffs who needed the missing evidence to pursue their claims.
Companies have a duty to preserve evidence not only when a suit has been filed, but also when they know one is likely due to injuries or deaths. Even the inadvertent loss or destruction of evidence may be punished by the courts because it can deprive the other side of a chance to prove its case.
In its mass marketing the company is U-Haul. In its risk management it is We-Haul (The Evidence Away).
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