- Jurisdiction
- California
My apologies if the following ends up confusing.
I'm helping someone who hired a moving company and had items lost. During moving day the family directed the movers which boxes and items were going to the dump and which to storage. Both piles were put in the mover's truck. Somehow, 2-5 very large boxes (like 4' tall boxes) meant for storage got put in the dump pile and were consequently taken away by the movers to be thrown away. These contained valuable and sentimental items--a piano keyboard, a computer, photo albums, etc. The moving company is saying that they organized things as directed and it's not their fault. An inventory list was signed and confirmed when the movers took everything away, but the 5 boxes are simply listed as "boxes misc," so it wasn't discovered they were the wrong boxes until they were delivered from storage recently.
I will also mention that there were some pieces of furniture missing that they had wanted to keep, but which don't seem to be on the inventory list and were thrown away. However, since the inventory list was signed and confirmed before the movers left, I don't think they have an argument on those items.
As for the incorrect boxes, my feeling is this will come down to a "he said, she said" situation. The movers will say that they acted as directed. The family will say the movers did not put the boxes where they told them.
Based on the above, what kind of case would they have if it went to small claims, for example?
I'm helping someone who hired a moving company and had items lost. During moving day the family directed the movers which boxes and items were going to the dump and which to storage. Both piles were put in the mover's truck. Somehow, 2-5 very large boxes (like 4' tall boxes) meant for storage got put in the dump pile and were consequently taken away by the movers to be thrown away. These contained valuable and sentimental items--a piano keyboard, a computer, photo albums, etc. The moving company is saying that they organized things as directed and it's not their fault. An inventory list was signed and confirmed when the movers took everything away, but the 5 boxes are simply listed as "boxes misc," so it wasn't discovered they were the wrong boxes until they were delivered from storage recently.
I will also mention that there were some pieces of furniture missing that they had wanted to keep, but which don't seem to be on the inventory list and were thrown away. However, since the inventory list was signed and confirmed before the movers left, I don't think they have an argument on those items.
As for the incorrect boxes, my feeling is this will come down to a "he said, she said" situation. The movers will say that they acted as directed. The family will say the movers did not put the boxes where they told them.
Based on the above, what kind of case would they have if it went to small claims, for example?
