Someone hit my parked rental car. Police won’t help.
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Someone hit my parked rental car. Police won’t help.
I was visiting Montgomery, AL for a family function and while my car was parked in a hotel lot someone hit it. I was not in the car when it happened. The hotel has the incident on their security camera footage and know the identity of the person who did it. The police were also called and saw the damage to the vehicle and reviewed camera footage but no official report was filed and I still haven’t gotten a straight answer as to why. No one from the hotel or Montgomery PD will get back to me. I live in PA so it’s not like I can just show up. I am at a loss here and need some advice on what my next step should be because otherwise I am responsible for
paying for the damage.
Asked on December 6, 2018 under Accident Law, Pennsylvania
Answers:
SJZ, Member, New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 6 years ago | Contributor
You can file a lawsuit against a "fictitious person"--e.g. "John Doe"--who hit your car, then in the course of the lawsuit, issue a subpoena to the hotel to get the security camera footage. When you have that footage, if you can identify the perpetrator, such as from his license place (it may take another subpoena to the DMV with the license plate number to get the information), you can then sue the person who hit your car (i.e. amend the complaint which started the case to replace "John Doe" with the person's actual name/identity and serve it on that person). This is a complicated, multi-step process, but would the only way to force cooperation, possibly find out who hit your car, and potentially sue them for compensation.
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