Apartment was broken into, I know who did it, can I take legal action?

[vlasich3090]

Indiana-Monroe County

During Thanksgiving break in 2010 my apartment was broken into. I lived with three other kids and we all had things stolen. We filed a police report with the local department and no result came of that. One of the items stolen, was my room mate's laptop. He had lojack on his laptop so that it could be tracked. Unfortunately they didn't find out where it was until recently. My room mate received his laptop back from lojack after they had traced it to a specific address. As it turns out, the address belongs to someone who we know, and that person is the one who broke into our apartment.

Basically I am asking, since it has been such a long time since the police report was filed. Is the address information provided by lojack enough to take this kid to small claims court? We know for certain that he is the one who stole our things because we called him out for it, and he admit-tingly smirked and walked out of the room. Among the things stolen from me specifically were the following:

-16gb Ipod touch -300.00
-Sennheiser headphones -350.00
-and some textbooks for school

If you add in what was take from my other room mates as well, the total breaks $1500.00

Is there any chance of me/us being able to take him to small claims court and getting reimbursement for the items he took? Just thought I would ask on here, sorry if my story is missing a lot of information my mind is all over the place right now. If you need any other pieces of information please just let me know.

 

[sandyclaus]

Indiana-Monroe County

During Thanksgiving break in 2010 my apartment was broken into. I lived with three other kids and we all had things stolen. We filed a police report with the local department and no result came of that. One of the items stolen, was my room mate's laptop. He had lojack on his laptop so that it could be tracked. Unfortunately they didn't find out where it was until recently. My room mate received his laptop back from lojack after they had traced it to a specific address. As it turns out, the address belongs to someone who we know, and that person is the one who broke into our apartment.

Basically I am asking, since it has been such a long time since the police report was filed. Is the address information provided by lojack enough to take this kid to small claims court? We know for certain that he is the one who stole our things because we called him out for it, and he admit-tingly smirked and walked out of the room. Among the things stolen from me specifically were the following:

-16gb Ipod touch -300.00
-Sennheiser headphones -350.00
-and some textbooks for school

If you add in what was take from my other room mates as well, the total breaks $1500.00

Is there any chance of me/us being able to take him to small claims court and getting reimbursement for the items he took? Just thought I would ask on here, sorry if my story is missing a lot of information my mind is all over the place right now. If you need any other pieces of information please just let me know.

You can certainly sue if you wish, but whether or not you would win is another thing entirely. You didn't say they outright admitted to stealing the items from you, and it's highly doubtful that they would do so before a judge that is going to make them pay for their mistakes.

Without definitive proof, the court is not going to award you anything. You would need the proof of who actually stole it. Is the company who lojacked the laptop willing to provide proof that can be presented in court? And even if they present that proof, all you have is that this person was in possession of stolen goods - NOT that they actually stole the property themselves. Even with that, you know that they had the laptop, but not the other missing items.

When you spoke with the police about the recovery of the laptop, what did they have to say about the situation?

So, let's say you have all of the above. You do realize that all you can sue for is the DEPRECIATED VALUE of all of your items, and not their replacement cost, right? The iPod Touch would have lowered in value over the year that it was missing, as would the headphones. And the textbooks most definitely lost their resale value once someone opens them up and starts flipping pages.