The picture of the driver on his cell phone on the side of the road looks like a great Snickers commercial, "Not going anywhere for awhile?"

I'm pretty sure driving under a low overpass fails the reasonable person test for negligence. Unless your contract exempts them from negligence (unlikely), then all bets are off on the 60 cents per pound thing. I hope you don't have to lawyer up, but it may come to that.

Oops. That's really stinks!

Does your homeowner's/renter's insurance cover that kind of thing, in addition to the mover's insurance? Just curious?

Cheers!

Ouch, at least they can get a smaller place now.

Find a lawyer and take them to court for full re-reimbursement of your goods. Also, you should not have to pay for the move seeing as how the move didn't actually occurred. You may have to pay a small amount for the labor of the packing crew but that should be it.

That wreck was caused by total negligence on the drivers part. There is no way he should have attempted to cross under that bridge with that truck.

Good luck and let us know how it works out

@parliboy: I only disagree with one thing.

Lawyer up.

Now.

the trucker was in an accident, seems his insurance should cover it

Wait for the settlement offer ..... then hire a sleeze bag lawyer. Never know for sure but the settlement offer might be quite generous.

Wow they're beyond unfortunate. And to think, when I started reading this, I thought their biggest problem was the fact that they were moving to Oakland.

They already charged your credit card? For a service that they demonstrably did not provide? Chargeback.

find lawyer, get advice now. that's not reasonable damage you know. that's not oops we dropped the tv. that's oops we kind of did to your furniture what good sized housefire would do.

The picture of the sofa by itself on the road is so sad...

I used to commute down Storrow Drive into Cambridge and a week wouldn't go by when some idiot decided to ignore the laws regarding height limits on their vehicles and destroyed their vehicle, damaged the roadway or ruined goods they were carrying. I've seen entire tops torn off box trucks on this road, making very large sardine cans. This is BY FAR the worst I've ever seen. Since your driver ignored local laws and NUMEROUS overheight signs posted, they are subject to fines from the government and you may have charges of gross negligence against them. Contact a LAWYER (God knows there are enough in Beacon Hill).

To be fair, the movers did make it 1/3000 of the way to Oakland. (And about half their stuff made it another few hundred yards after that.) Prorate the cost! (and then sue for damages)

talk about fitting a square peg in a round hole... sheesh. i would sign nothing, get a lawyer asap.

Call your homeowners/renters insurance. They may actually be able to help here.

Chargeback + ask for reimbursement of goods (be ready to show proof of worth for each item damaged/destroyed)

Possibly get ready to sue

I think a moving company would be considered a common carrier... if that is the case the only times they are NOT liable are:
-An act of nature (self-explanatory... tornado for example)
-An act of the public enemies (terrorists blowing up your truck)
-Fault or fraud by the shipper (not packing your goods well enough)
-An inherent defect in the goods (shipping milk in a non reefer truck)

However... if they are a private carrier look over the contract.

Contact your homeowner/renter's insurance company immediately. They may be able to make it all right, plus, they have their own lawyers to handle stuff like this for you.

WOW, just wow...

This is honestly horrible. I thoughts go out to this family and I hope that everything turns out okay for them.

chargeback asap, thats a load of bs that they have to charge you in order to process the claim or whatever

As if traffic on Storrow Drive weren't already bad enough, sheesh.
This makes the 3rd time I've seen this happen.
I think it's (mostly) due to drivers following their GPS instead of actually, oh, reading posted signs.

Movers are bonded and insured. You will probably have to initiate the action through your insurance company and they will suck the cash out of the moving company.

@magic8ball: hold off on that. Depending on how their insurance works the payment might need to be processed for it to kick in (I know thats stupid, but it makes sense that they would need payment to activate the contract.)

there are clearly posted signs that Storrow is not for commercial vehicles. Regardless of how much insurance you took out, this was clearly a case of gross negligence as chieddy indicated

wow...

my heart goes out to you guys, best of luck.

@ffmariners: I just looked it up... Broadway Express provides moving services under their common carrier authority

lol ok, so who here from b0st0n lj community put this up? was reading it this morning on the community

I would think Home owners insurance would cover this, but that would depend on the policy.

I would consult an attorney as the drivers insurance should cover this as I'd imagine this business is insured and has driver insurance as well both should easily cover this however they don't see it this way see below.

I would believe that regardless of what you paid for insurance from this company should not matter, as this is a gross act of incompetence and if you took them to court you should win.

I'd sue for around 50k.

If you maintained your homeowner's insure, it may likely cover the damage.

It may also be worth paying for a consultation with a lawyer. The insurance you took out with the mover is generally understood to cover accidental damage that is routine in the course of a move. What happened here is gross negligence. Was the driver ticketed by police? Was a drug / alcohol test performed? Even if the police didn't do this, most companies who employ drivers require testing after an accident. Is this the company's policy and did they follow their own policy?

That makes me cringe. We had a cross-country move in 2004, from Columbus, Ohio to San Diego, California (yay, ocean again!).

What we thought was a moving company was actually an agent, and the deposit we paid was actually their fee for performing a service we could have performed ourselves. They said that everything would be shipped on the same truck all the way, and it wasn't, the shipment was a few weeks late, and we ended up having to pay a couple of thousand extra because the weight was underestimated, or so we were told.

Never again. Next time, we'll pack what we need in the cars and ship the rest using a freight company, which I've heard is a better option.

The first thing to do is get the trucking insurance and start from there. Usually all the insurance people will talk with each other and determine how much each of them are responsible and will come back with an offer. You are going to be dealing with at least three possible different carriers (voluntary moving insurance, trucking/auto policy, and the insurance the business has). As for paying before a claim...I would have laughed at them and went straight to their moving/trucking policy. Might want to get ready for a charge-back.

I would suggest NOT doing a chargeback. The charge is fraudulent, since they charged for a service (moving to Oakland) that was not delivered.

Once you intstitute a chargeback and it's sucessful, you now you have less to go after them for legally. (The credit card bill is no longer part of the damages, since you've remedied the problem before a lawsuit is filed).

@parliboy: Plus Storrow drive is clearly marked as "cars only." The driver is clearly, totally and completely at fault, and the moving company's insurance should cover everything.

Having worked at a moving company long ago (mid 90's), it will be a FIGHT for you to get more than the .60 cents per pound per article the insurance defaults to if you didn't buy more insurance. The moving companies hold this to be as self evident as the Constitution.

You MAY have better luck suing the driver for HIS personal negligence because the company guaranteed will say YOU signed off on the 60 cents.

You MIGHT be able to ge the company IF they provide the GPS for the truck if it's company owned.

I hope you do get your money back (obviously your stuff is ruined)

You should carefully read your contract, and contact your renter's/home owner insurance company as well (they typically provide moving insurance). Typically insurance covers accidents, however this was negligence by the driver, and so they should be fully liable for all expenses.

♪ Always look on the brite side of life... wistle...wistle..wistle ♪

At least they will have lots of closet space in their new place.

Everyone needs to remember they are a common carrier... which means they are automatically liable unless:
1) act of nature
2) act of enemy of the state
3) fault or fraud of shipper (the homeowners)
or
4) inherent nature of the goods

because of the gross negligence (unforeseeable) they should be able to sue for more than the 60 cents. It is foreseeable that a few things will get broken on the drive... just because of turns and bumps and yada yada and that is what the 60 cents coverage is for. But it is not foreseeable that the truck will break everything running into a bridge.... Let a judge decide!

> the trucker was in an accident, seems his insurance should cover it

This is NOT an accident, it is negligence. Truckers have access to maps indicating bridge heights, road weight limits, etc. so that they can plan their routes in advance. Nothing about hitting a bridge is ever accidental.

This person NEEDS a lawyer.

Wow...
If I move that far, I'd probably get rid of most of my possessions, especially the shelves, unfoldable tables, tvs, etc.
Good luck with the lawsuit!

@SkokieGuy: Probably the best advice on here.

Do NOT file a chargeback. This is downright negligence and because of the very low insurance coverage, a lawsuit will probably be your course of action.

Some people have mentioned homeowner's insurance, which you should definitely look into because that will probably end up being a lot easier for you to get reimbursed.

@SOhp101: In a lot of cases they will pay you THEN go after the movers for the money, and believe me INSURANCE COMPANY X is a lot scarier to a company then you are.

The driver should of known there wouldn't be enough clearance to make so why did he continue? You should never go anywhere without first knowing how tall your vehicle is. I don't know if they teach you this or not but thats one of the first things I was taught.

You did not receive reasonable satisfaction with the move you shouldn't have let them charge your card. Go find a lawyer a sew them with negligence in regards to the contract.

I hope to the heavens you read the contract and don't have to go through arbitration

Which part of 'cars only' did the driver not understand about Storrow Drive?

Looks like a fairly new Peterbilt medium duty truck set up for local moving only though. It doesn't have a traditional sleeper but is a four door "crew" type cab unless they converted the rear cab as a sleeper. Kind of odd setup for across country moving unless they do hotshot commercial deliveries and are picking up extra work moving consumers...

Believe me that this driver not only is on the hook for their belongings but he just totalled ($20-50,000 worth)the van (enclosed box area) body if the truck frame is not bent also...

additionally, contact these folks -

[www.fmcsa.dot.gov] [nccdb.fmcsa.dot.gov]

@MyPetFly: We had a good experience w/ our Pod/Relocube when we made our cross country move. Might save a bit if you only have a few rooms to move.

I would contact a lawyer, I would also research whether this moving company is actually allowed to truck interstate, because if they are not you have them by the balls to replace your stuff.

Where was your driver from? It's bizarre that a driver comes to pick-up in Boston, which you would assume he is familiar with, and proceed to drive on Storrow. Everyone knows you can't go on Storrow with a truck and if you don't know there are 500 signs, not to mention every car you pass will honk at you like crazy trying to get you to stop.