The timeline of events is not crystal clear to me. It appears the man rented a vehicle in 2011from the airport. Then at some point later, possibly a few years, the man was charged with murder. In 2015, the article stated he requested records from Hertz related to his 2011 rental to prove he could not have committed the murder because he was renting a car at the airport. Due to the time difference between renting the car and when the receipt was requested, Hertz did not have an easy solution to obtain that record because it was old. The man ended up being convicted of murder and went to jail. However, the facts of what other evidence the state had against this man or how strong the evidence was is unclear. At some point in 2018 after the trial and conviction, Hertz actually found the receipt and provided it to the man. It appears his conviction was overturned based on new evidence produced of his location at the time of murder. However, the man is now suing Hertz under the premise that if it provided the receipt in 2015 he would not have gone to jail.
It is always important to have an innocent person released from jail. I applaud Hertz for continuing to look for the 2011 receipt and actually providing it when found. It would have been very easy for Hertz to simply stop looking. However, I have a hard time with the man now suing Hertz for not providing the receipt. I do not know the actual civil allegations made against Hertz in this lawsuit, but it seems to me that Hertz did not owe any duty to this man to keep 4 year old receipts easily attainable, unless a Michigan law states otherwise. It's possible this man is just mad at everyone involved in this murder investigation and Hertz is an easy target.