ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ

In a lawsuit filed with in St. Louis County court last week, the moving truck and storage rental company named Michael Miller, of Overland; Paul Blair, of Breckenridge Hills; Anthony Finerson, of Hazelwood; Vanessa Arguelles, of Republic; and Gary Mitchell, of Springfield, Missouri.

According to the suit, Miller leased a 10-foot moving van from the company’s Overland location on May 29, 2024. Miller also purchased supplemental liability insurance of $1,000,000 per accident.

Later that day, Miller, with Blair as a passenger in the van, collided with a 2017 Kia Sorento driven by Arguelles, with Mitchell and Finerson as passengers, on South Calvary Avenue near North Broadway.

Police were called, and a report was filed. The next day, Finerson reported the incident to U-Haul. Finerson told the company that the U-Haul hit the Kia Sorento head-on after it swerved to avoid a third vehicle, whose occupant had thrown a bottle at the rental van.

Arguelles gave U-Haul a similar statement and claimed that she had been injured in the collision.

In the days that followed, Miller emailed U-Haul two different messages reporting the accident.

“I’m writing this email to inform you that I was rear-ended and pushed into the opposite lane and made contact with other vehicles. There were two other cars, they fled the scene,� he wrote.

Miller later told a special investigator hired by U-Haul that he had rented the vehicle to help move statues for his aunt, who later told the investigator that nothing Miller reported about moving items for her was true.

About a month later, Miller agreed to record a confession that he was paid $800 to drive the U-Haul vehicle on a route provided by Blair. None of the other defendants did so, and Arguelles told the insurance investigator she knew nothing about a fraudulent plan.

The driver and owner of the Kia Sorento, Arguelles, is making a bodily injury and property damage insurance claim, while the two passengers, Mitchell and Finerson, are also making bodily injury claims. The lawsuit states that Finerson and Arguelle have a history of making claims, including four made by Finerson that were referred to the National Insurance Crime Bureau for application misrepresentation, fictitious loss, fake damage and altered/forged documents.

U-Haul is asking the court to rule the rental contract and any policy of insurance entered between the U-Haul and Miller is canceled, null and void and that the company has no duty to defend or compensate Miller against any claim or third-party lawsuit filed by Blair, Arguelles, Mitchell and Finerson due to Miller’s breach of contract.