Expert: Richard Hixenbaugh - 3/3/2010

Question
My daughters Dodge Caravan was stolen from a friend house.  She delivers newspapers for a living and it broke down and she had it towed to a friends house who was going to attempt to fix it.  A few days later he called her an said it was gone, and that he'd reported it to the police.  She called our insurance agent and reported that her van was missing.  Our State Farm agent put in a claim. (An irony of this situation is that our agent of over 30 years died of a heart attack shortly after the claim was filed, so we lost our only advocate. After a long time and many interviews they said they weren't going to pay on the claim because they didn't believe it was stolen.  I can honestly say that my daughter would never do such a thing, but because she had purchased a used vehicle a few weeks earlier, State Farm believes that she had something to do with the theft.  Bote! on the same night 4 other vehicles were reported missing in the same area.  She hired a attorney to help her with her claim, but now the DA filed charges against her for reporting a false claim.  She couldn't afford the cost of going to trial and took a plea.  She has to pay $1,400 in fines is on probation, and the DA may pursue $2,000 for State Farm,  Her attorney has cost her $3,500 and she has no money.  All this for honestly reporting the facts.  The van was found and is parked in my driveway in unusable condition.  The police did little investigation.  They did  a lie detector test on the friend that she left the van with and he passed it.  I'm totally frustrated at the inequity of the situation.  Does she have any recourse? How can an innocent person simply reporting the fact of her car missing get into such a mess?

Answer
Hi Christopher,

Under the circumstances I'm not sure I can help. It sounds like you and your daughter have done everything you can. Since this case is in the hands of the district attorney and your daughter had agreed to a plea deal, she has essentially pled guilty. Any attempt to file any further claim related to this incident will likely be met with more denials and possible additional charges against your daughter. If she is unable to afford an attorney to fight this there is just not much you can do.

I know it sounds bad, but I think this is just a really bad, expensive learning lesson.

I hope this helps
Richard Hixenbaugh