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Auto Transporter doesn't want to deliver

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litosj

Junior Member
What is the name of your state? CA
I contracted with an auto transporter to transport my car from Florida to California door-to-door. After 40 days (30 days my car is sitting here in CA terminal), I'm still waiting for my car. The transporter told me to pick-up the car myself in the terminal (being run by a sub-contractor)as they are no longer working with that terminal and my car was being held hostage. I don't want to pick-up my car as my contract is door-to-door and I don't know what kind of problems they are having.
Can anybody help me? What are my options here? Thanks in advance.
 


shortbus

Member
When they notified you that you had to pick up the car yourself, they breached the contract. From that point on, they incurred a liability to reimburse you for any costs associated with fetching the car.

However. Once they breached, YOU incurred a duty to mitigate your damages -- meaning picking up your car as soon as possible. You CANNOT get damages for loss of use of your car after the breach, since that was an avoidable consequence.
 

Some Random Guy

Senior Member
I bet that the car is incurring daily charges for sitting at the terminal. You better get that car picked up asap before the charges are more than your car is worth.
 

litosj

Junior Member
How can I incur daily charges, when they are the one who failed to deliver. And as far as I know, my contract is with the carrier(door-to-door) not with the terminal.
 

Some Random Guy

Senior Member
Ok, do it your way then. Sue the transporter. Then, when you win the coin toss in 6-12 months the judge might even be generous and award you the cost of the transport plus storage up until the date you were notified of the breach by the transport company. Which leaves yoou on the hook for 6 months of storage, plus your vehicle may be considered abandoned by the terminal, and it is either auctioned off or sold as scrap. Or they may just place really huge leins on it.

No judge is going to award you $10,000 in stoage fees just because you were loo lazy to get your car when you were notified that the transporter company broke the contract.
 

divgradcurl

Senior Member
litosj said:
How can I incur daily charges, when they are the one who failed to deliver. And as far as I know, my contract is with the carrier(door-to-door) not with the terminal.
You can sue the carrier for breach of contract AFTER you go and pick up your car like shortbus and Some Random Guy recommended. Get your car, pay what it takes to get the car out of the terminal, then sue the carrier for the amount of money you are out for picking up the car.

If you do it the other way -- sue first, get car later -- you will find out very quickly what "mitigate your damages" means...
 

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