MAY have been negligent is what I said. Did they take reasonable precautions to prevent the theft? How do you know they did and aren't negligent Bonker, I don't even think they or their adjuster know at this point. For crying out loud, they didn't even know the boat was gone until EL went to check on it. Now how is that being responsible for someone's property?

Seems fairly negligent in LAYMAN'S terms. I am familiar with the legal arguments of this issue as I fish with my insurance adjuster and we hashed this one and Dangerous Dave's incident out pretty good. One could make a case for "attractive nuisance" on this one too as they apparently just parked it in a dirt lot across the street from the actual building. These places are frequent targets of theft and they have a responsibility to protect the property they are in custodianship of.

Whether or not EL wants to pursue legal recourse, the reputation of a business is really at stake here. Business people make decisions all the time regarding these situations, and many times they give a little to gain more in return. "The customer is always right" is practiced my many businesses because they know that word of mouth is either the best or worst advertising. In this case, it's not looking too good.

If that's being left field, well I'm in good company!