File photo of a purple Lamborghini Aventador LP 700-4, not the car in the lawsuit. Credit: 先従隗始 / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)
Featured image: file photo of a purple Lamborghini Aventador LP 700-4, not the car in the lawsuit. Credit: 先従隗始 / Wikimedia Commons (CC0).
A Dix Hills, New York, man who left his purple 2018 Lamborghini Aventador with valet parkers at Gurney’s Montauk Resort & Seawater Spa on July 4 says it came back with a soaked interior, and he is suing the resort for at least $195,201.96. The suit, filed Oct. 27 in State Supreme Court in Suffolk County, alleges the attendants left the windows open through a July rainstorm, Newsday reported. The plaintiff is Ramin Wahab, the owner named in the complaint.
What the complaint alleges about the open windows
According to Newsday’s account of the filing, Wahab handed the car over in “excellent” condition. The complaint says rainwater entered through the open windows and soaked the dashboard, the center console and its electronic controls, the seats and the trim, and that the attendants did not close the windows, cover the car or move it under cover before the rain began or for a substantial period afterward. It also names the attendants as defendants, though their identities are unknown.
The complaint leans on the resort’s own general manager. It alleges Mike Bolick acknowledged in writing that the windows were left open during the storm and that the car was damaged as a result, and it quotes an email from him promising an investigation toward a resolution. The suit says no resolution followed and the resort has not paid. Those are allegations. Newsday reported that a Gurney’s reservationist asked its reporter to email the resort’s guest relations inbox and that the message went unanswered, and that Wahab’s attorney, Ara V. Naljian, declined to comment.
Why handing over the keys can shift the burden in New York
Handing over the keys is what triggers it. In a December 11, 2025 decision in Liberty Mutual General Insurance Co. v. Greenwich Street Garage, LLC, Civil Court in Queens County held that giving an attendant a card key and control of a car creates a bailment. Once a bailee returns the vehicle damaged, the court said, a presumption of negligence arises and the burden shifts to the garage to show it was not negligent. The garage lost on summary judgment. Its opposition rested on a CEO with no personal knowledge of the incident, and it filed nothing from the attendant, who still worked there. The court awarded $28,193.04.
On the complaint’s own telling, that framework would put Gurney’s in the position of explaining a car that went in dry and came back wet, with a manager’s email in the file.
The ruling comes from a trial-level court, so it does not bind a Suffolk County judge, and it does not address disclaimers printed on valet tickets. Newsday does not mention a ticket in Wahab’s case, and Backfire News has not seen one. Whether any claim-check language could limit the resort’s exposure is not answered by the documents available.
The question of who employs the valets matters too. In a March 19, 2021 decision, State Farm Indemnity Co. v. Parking Systems Valet Service, the Appellate Term for the Second Department dismissed the complaint against a funeral home whose guest’s car was damaged by valets, because the plaintiff had not proved the funeral home was responsible for their conduct. The owner there had watched the valet drive her car into a fence twice, and the award was $4,621.12. Newsday does not say whether Gurney’s runs its valet in-house or through a contractor, and the complaint as reported names the resort and the attendants. Both reported cases were brought by insurance companies, and whether Wahab’s insurer has paid anything is not stated.
What a wet Aventador costs
The repair estimate, as summarized in the suit, calls for replacing the upper dash panel, the center console operating device and both front seats, plus interior trim work, diagnostic scans and deodorizing. Newsday put the Kelley Blue Book value of a 2018 Aventador at roughly $360,000 or more, depending on condition and features, which makes the $195,201.96 estimate more than half of that by Backfire News’s math.
The suit asks for that estimate as a minimum and also seeks reimbursement for diminished value. Its argument is that an exotic’s market value depends heavily on its condition and history, so a car with a water-intrusion record will be worth less even after the repair. Newsday reported no dollar figure for that second claim. Exotic owners have turned up in court over damage before, including the owner of a $530K Ferrari who sued after kids turned it into a slide.
What to watch in the Suffolk County case
The case is at its opening stage, and Newsday reported no court date or response from Gurney’s in the filing. Watch for Gurney’s answer and Bolick’s full email, not just the excerpt in the suit. Also: do the valets work for the resort or a contractor, and does the ticket limit anything? None of the allegations has been tested in court.
Your car goes in dry and comes back wet. Whose job is it to prove what happened: yours, or the hotel’s that held the keys?
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