Good morning. Sometimes the system fails you, sometimes the bartender fails you and sometimes the LEGO box is full of pasta. Today's stories are about who ends up holding the bill.
On The Money Today:
A 300 lb. pole crushed her car and the city still won't pay
A nurse, 14 tequila shots and a $300K Carnival verdict
The LEGO pasta swap that netted $34K across 5 states
Let’s get into it.
A rusty Chicago light pole snapped and landed on Kyra Puetz's car. There was doorbell cam footage. There was visible rust. The city denied her $3,000 claim anyway. Her case isn't an isolated one — and what it takes to actually win against a municipality will surprise most people.
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Diana Sanders had a "Cheers!" drink package and spent nine hours across four bars on the Carnival Radiance. What happened next put her in a lawsuit against one of the world's biggest cruise lines — and the jury's decision raises some uncomfortable questions for anyone who's ever ordered a drink at sea.
An Irvine man allegedly bought high-end LEGO sets, swapped the bricks for dry pasta at home and returned the boxes for full refunds. He did it 70 times across five states before police found the real bricks stockpiled in his apartment. But his arrest is just one piece of a much larger picture.
ALSO MAKING THE ROUNDS TODAY
RETIREMENT: A couple bought cemetery plots 20 years ago — now someone else is buried there and they can't get their $1,800 back
HOW TO EARN MONEY: Americans are turning storage units into side hustles that earn nearly $700 a month on average
ECONOMY: JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon says the next credit crisis will be 'worse than people expect' — and big bank earnings tell an interesting story
RETIREMENT: Middling millionaires with $1-$3M tend to hand over the most to the IRS. Find out if the 'tax torpedo' is aimed at your nest egg
HAVE YOUR SAY
If you stumbled onto $34K worth of LEGO sets, what would you do?
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See you soon with another quick roundup of the financial news that matters.
