1. You go to a car dealership, sign a contract to purchase a car, put down a deposit on the vehicle with the VIN# ABC-123.
2. The dealer agrees that the car will be prepped and ready for you to pick it up a week later.
3. You show up a week later, only to find that the dealer has sold the car to someone else, and it's sitting out there in the parking lot waiting to be picked up. Maybe another buyer offered more money. Maybe the owner of the dealership sold it to a golfing buddy.
4. The dealer offers you a similar car with the VIN# XYZ-789. But you are adamant that this isn't good enough, and you have a binding contract in your hand.
If this were to happen you'd have plenty of recourse. You'd be entitled to your money back, either in cash or as a credit for another purchase. Maybe the contract contained a provision that said the dealer has to give you a full refund plus an extra $500 for your trouble. Whatever it is, you're either leaving the dealership made whole or you have plenty of legal avenues you can pursue.
One option you absolutely do not have is to climb behind the wheel of car #ABC-123 in the parking lot and tell the dealership staff that you're not leaving unless they give you the keys and let you drive the car away.
The management of the dealership will call the police to deal with you, and the police will deal with you as they see fit -- even if they have to drag your ass out of the car and injure you in the process.
Dr. Dao learned that he wasn't going to be driving the car off the lot that day.
You forgot one. The Dealership beat the crap out of you.
Yep, good example.
Another one I came up with:
Let’s take the case of an Uber driver. Dao calls and puts in an order to pick him up at LaGuardia and drive him to Staten Island.
The driver picks Dao up but halfway to getting to the destination, the driver gets a phone call. It is either (1) a medical emergency by the driver’s wife and he must immediately drive home or there is great risk or (2) a buddy of the driver calls and says he got Yankees-Red Sox tix but you gotta get here now, or I’m giving your ticket to Joey. It doesn’t matter which one it is.
So the driver immediately stops the car halfway there, and tells Dao to get out.
Does Dao have to get out? Or does he have the right to fight with the driver and resist being removed from the car? Does he have some sort of property right in the back seat of the driver’s car, and can prevent being evicted from the car, solely because the driver didn’t finish driving him to his destination?
Of course Dao has to get out. It’s not his car. He can sue for damages, he can file a complaint with consumer affairs, he can organize a picket protest of Uber’s office. He can do a lot of things, but one thing he cannot do is fight with the car owner and refuse to leave the back seat of the car.
Close, but no cigar. The management of the dealership will call some rent-a-cops who will Tazer you, break your front teeth, your nose and sinuses, and give you a concussion before dragging your ass out of the car in front of your family. Then the dealership will send a memo to its employees praising them, demeaning you, and have its attorneys spread disinformation about you to the internet.
Until, of course, other customers spread videos of what the rent-a-cop goons actually did. Then the dealership does a 180.