Safe Deposit Boxes Aren't Safe

As soon as there were multiple boxes with the same number in a single vault, this course of events was pretty much inevitable. If the bank is not competent enough to assign unique numbers to each box in the first place, of course they aren't going to be competent enough to only ever empty the correct one of several boxes numbered #105, or to handle to contents safely. It's difficult to comprehend how the bank thought having non-unique numbers would…

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> Bank of America then challenged the verdict, arguing that any recovery should be restricted by the terms detailed in its rental contract: “The bank’s liability for any loss in connection with the box for whatever reason shall not exceed ten (10) times the annual rent charged for the box.” The judge agreed, though she allowed $150k in punitive damages. Still well short of the millions apparently lost.

There's a bigger problem than stated here. In the 1930s, the feds were confiscating gold. They were forcing people to sell their gold to them at a low fixed price. FDR put out an executive order forcing people to open their safety deposit boxes in the presence of IRS agents. Here's the order: By Executive Order Of The President of The United States, March 9, 1933. By virtue of the authority vested in me by Section 5 (b) of the…