An insurance company in Michigan has sued the United States Justice Department over a wrecked Ferrari. An FBI agent totaled the car while moving it from one location to another. The Justice Department is now refusing to pay the insurer the $750,000 it is asking for.
There are a lot of people who would list a Ferrari as their dream car. It was a 1995 Ferrari F50. There were only 50 of these vehicles in the entire United States. Therefore, it was a very special Ferrari that was involved in an accident.
In 2003, the rare Ferrari was stolen from a car dealer that was in Rosemont, Pennsylvania. Five years later, in 2008, the Ferrari was located, somewhere in Kentucky. There was an ongoing investigation about exactly what happened with this Ferrari, and so, the FBI was keeping the vehicle.
In May of 2009, an FBI agent named Fred Kingston moved the Ferrari from the garage that it was being held in. I’ve no idea exactly what the reason was that required the Ferrari to be moved, or where, exactly the new location was going to be. In any case, the FBI agent invited Assistant U.S. Attorney J.Hamilton Thompson to go with him for what has been described as a “short ride” in the Ferrari.
Unfortunately, this is when the accident happened. The FBI agent was driving, and he lost control of the vehicle seconds after leaving the parking lot. The Ferrari was going around a curve in the road when the rear of the vehicle began sliding. It fishtailed, slid up onto a curb, and eventually ended up next to a row of bushes and a small tree, when it finally came to a stop.
The Assistant U.S. Attorney was unharmed in the crash, and the FBI agent only required a few stitches on his head. The Ferrari, however had so much damage to it that it has been declared a “total loss” by the insurer, Motors Insurance.
Now, normally, when someone totals a vehicle, there are claims filed to the insurance company. Or, if the person who totaled the vehicle wasn’t the owner, then this could mean that the person would have to pay the insurance company that covered the vehicle. That is not what happened here.
Motors Insurance says that since the Ferrari F50 was a “race vehicle” and that it isn’t built the way that a typical car, or truck, or SUV is built. This was the reason why Motors Insurance was asking for $750,000 from the U.S. Justice Department for damages to the Ferrari that the FBI agent destroyed.
The Justice Department, however, says that it is “immune” to tort claims that are in regards to certain types of goods that are in the hands of law enforcement when the goods are damaged. In other words, the Justice Department isn’t planning on paying Motors Insurance $750,000. A judge will hear this lawsuit sometime in June, 2011.
Image by Anthony Joh on Flickr