Aggregator

It all started with Hertz being less than helpful when a man was falsely accused of murder. Michigan resident Herbert Alford was arrested and convicted for a murder he didn't commit. He maintained his innocence, claiming he was at the airport in Lansing, Michigan during the time the murder occurred. And he could have proven it, too, if he had just been able to produce the receipt showing he had been renting a car at Hertz twenty minutes away from the crime scene.

It wasn't until Alford had spent five years in prison that Hertz got around to producing the receipt. Three of those years can be laid directly at Hertz's feet. The receipt was requested in 2015. Hertz handed it over in 2018. Alford sued.

That's not the only lawsuit Hertz is facing. It apparently also has a bad habit of accusing paying customers of theft, something that has resulted in drivers being accosted by armed officers and/or arrested and charged.

Nine months later, another lawsuit rolled in. A proposed class action suit -- covering more than 100 Hertz customers -- claimed the company acts carelessly and engages in supremely poor recordkeeping. The lawsuit, (then) representing 165 customers, contains details of several customers who have been pulled over, arrested, and/or jailed because Hertz's rental tracking system is buggier than its competitors'. Hertz takes pain to point out these incidents only represent a very small percentage of its renters. But that's essentially meaningless when this small error rate doesn't appear to occur at other car rental agencies.

This lawsuit is forcing Hertz to disclose exactly what this error rate is and how many renters it affects. It's a much larger number than the 165 customers the lawsuit started with last November.

In a ruling Wednesday, a federal judge in Delaware sided with the request from attorneys for 230 customers who say they were wrongly arrested.

The total still depends on whom you ask. Hertz said it reports to police 0.014% of its 25 million annual rental transactions - or 3,500 customers. Attorneys for the renters said they believe the number is closer to 8,000.

It may look like only a rounding error to Hertz, but each of these 3,500-8,000 incorrect reports represents a possible loss of liberty, if not a possible loss of life. Law enforcement officers treat auto thieves as dangerous criminals. Being falsely accused by a rental company's software doesn't alter the threat matrix until long after the guns have been drawn.

Sometimes the problem has a human component. If a rental agent does not see a vehicle they thought was returned, they may file a report. And when humans aren't involved, it's Hertz's computer system doing the dirty work.

Other times, [the attorney representing Hertz customers, France Malofiy] said, the confusion is caused by a customer swapping cars during their rental period or extending the time frame. If the credit or debit card charge fails to process correctly, he said Hertz's system generates a theft report.

Malofiy said the company does not update its police reports if a payment ultimately processes - leaving customers to flounder in the criminal justice system. In 2020, a spokesperson for Hertz told the Philadelphia Inquirer that a stolen-vehicle report "was valid when it was made" and that it was "up to law enforcement to decide what to do with the case."

And there's another data point to add to Hertz's perhaps inadvertent but very fucking real infliction of misery on thousands of renters every year. A man who has spent over $15,000 with Hertz since 2020 is currently sitting in jail thanks to yet another bogus Hertz theft alert.

All of this is at odds with Hertz's repeated claim it only issues stolen vehicle notices to law enforcement following "extensive investigations." If it did actually engage in thorough investigations of every generated theft report, it would not be currently facing a lawsuit from hundreds of drivers who've been arrested and jailed over bogus theft allegations. And the problem it claims isn't really a problem wouldn't still be getting people locked up for crimes they didn't commit.

Ask the experts from the Missouri Department of Transportation, St. Louis and St. Charles counties and St. Louis City your questions about highways and roads. The live chat starts at 1 p.m. on Wednesday.

Former Missouri U.S. Senator John Danforth has commissioned a poll showing a right-center candidate could win in November's general election.

St. Louis County’s mask mandate will come to an end on Monday, February 28. Citing a decrease in case numbers and advice from local health officials that we’ve seen the worst of the pandemic, St. Louis County Executive Sam Page said in a press conference on Wednesday morning he feels cautiously optimistic about ending the public health order.…

A St. Louis pub chain seeks to bar a Chicago ghost kitchen concept from using names associated with "Three Kings."

The five-minute commute to work at the State Capitol from the Governor's Mansion was a little different for Governor Mike Parson Wednesday. Instead of a car or SUV, he traveled by a tractor. Parson has proclaimed this week as National FFA Week in Missouri in a ceremony at the Capitol Rotunda. The Governor took a [...]

Proposals heard in a House committee Wednesday target restrictions on guns in churches and firearm business closures.

Houston, we have a problem: Disneyland’s Electrical Parade is ditching its patriotic float. Why that’s a good thing The most notable change appears to be happening with the Main Street Electrical Parade, which is doing away with an America-first finale that had survived a number of decades and featured a closing stars-and-stripes float of the ...continue reading "BREAKING NEWS: Disney hates real America"

With quit rates near record levels and surveys showing decreased employee engagement, CEO Scott Gutz said companies should be making retention a top priority.

Police identified the victim as Terry M. Brodigan, 40, of Arcadia, Missouri.

Damian Moore, 47, was struck by a car in the 5200 block of Goodfellow Boulevard on Sunday night.

ST. LOUIS – Another winter storm is headed for St. Louis Wednesday. It is supposed to impact road conditions Wednesday and Thursday. With extreme winter weather comes extreme road conditions. FOX 2 has a tool for motorists to check before heading out. Go to our website at fox2now.com and then click the traffic section. Once you are on [...]

Winter Storm Warnings and Advisories cover the entire area for this afternoon through Thursday.

Police said the woman broke into Samuel Williams' apartment and that he admitted to strangling her while two young children were inside the residence.

Six St. Louis-area chefs and one restaurant have been named semifinalists for the 2022 James Beard Foundation Awards, the culinary world's top prize.

ST. LOUIS---With the St. Louis region poised to enter a Winter Storm Warning from the National Weather Service starting at noon Wednesday, dozens of school districts in the FOX2 viewing area have decided to dismiss students early. You can find the complete list of closings here. Most of the districts are in the southern part [...]

With the launch of Donald Trump's ridiculous Truth Social offering, we've already noted that he's so heavily relying on Section 230's protections to moderate that he's written Section 230 directly into his terms of service. However, at the same time, Trump is still fighting his monstrously stupid lawsuits against Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube for banning him in the wake of January 6th.

Not surprisingly (after getting the cases transferred to California), the internet companies are pointing the courts to Section 230 as to why the cases should be dismissed. And, also not surprisingly (but somewhat hilariously), Trump is making galaxy brain stupid claims in response. That's the filing in the case against YouTube which somehow has eight different lawyers signed onto a brief so bad that all eight of those lawyers should be laughed out of court.

The argument as to why Section 230 doesn't apply is broken down into three sections, each dumber than the others. First up, it claims that "Section 230 Does Not Immunize Unfair Discrimination," which claims (falsely) that YouTube is a "common carrier" (it is not, has never been, and does not resemble one in any manner). The argument is not even particularly well argued here. It's three ridiculous paragraphs, starting with Packingham (which is not relevant to a private company choosing to moderate), then claiming (without any support, since there is none) that YouTube is a common carrier, and then saying that YouTube's terms of service mean that it "must carry content, irrespective of any desire or external compulsion to discriminate against Plaintiff."

Literally all of that is wrong. It took EIGHT lawyers to be this wrong.

The second section claims -- incorrectly -- that Section 230 "does not apply to political speech." They do this by totally misrepresenting the "findings" part of Section 230 and then ignoring basically all the case law that says, of course Section 230 applies to political speech. As for the findings, while they do say that Congress wants "interactive computers services" to create "a true diversity of political discourse" as the authors of the bill themselves have explained, this has always been about allowing every individual website to moderate as they see fit. It was never designed so that every website must carry all speech, but rather by allowing websites to curate the community and content they want, there will be many different places for different kinds of speech.

Again. Eight lawyers to be totally and completely wrong.

Finally, they argue that "Section 230(c) Violates the First Amendment as Applied to This Matter." It does not. Indeed, should Trump win this lawsuit (he won't) that would violate the 1st Amendment in compelling speech on someone else's private property who does not wish to be associated with it. And this section goes off the rails completely:

The U.S. contends that Section 230(c) does not implicate the First Amendment because “it “does not regulate Plaintiff’s speech,” but only “establishes a content- and viewpoint-neutral rule prohibiting liability” for certain companies that ban others’ speech. (U.S. Mot. at 2). Defendants’ egregious conduct in restraining Plaintiff’s political speech belies its claims of a neutral standard.

I mean, the mental gymnastics necessary to make this claim are pretty impressive, so I'll give them that. But this is mixing apples and orangutans in making an argument that, even if it did make sense, still doesn't make any sense. Section 230 does not regulate speech. That's why it's content neutral. The fact that the defendant, YouTube, does moderate its content -- egregiously or not -- is totally unrelated to the question of whether or not Section 230 is content neutral. Indeed, YouTube's ability to kick Trump off its platform is itself protected by the 1st Amendment.

The lawyers seem to be shifting back and forth between the government "The U.S." and the private entity, YouTube, here, to make an argument that might make sense if it were only talking about one entity, but doesn't make any sense at all when you switch back and forth between the two.

Honestly, this filing should become a case study in law schools about how not to law.

The Ohio Valley Conference is crossing the Missouri River and expanding west, with Wednesday's announcement that Lindenwood University will petition the NCAA to move up to Division I and join the conference starting in the 2022-2023 academic year.