Any way to sue for damage causing value loss?

[bcwang]

Hi,

I'm the one who had my 04 Cobra repeatedly door dinged by my assigned parking neighbor. The final road here is taking them to small claims court. The current repair estimate is almost $1200, and involves repaint of both the front door, rear quarter panel, and side scoop. So that's two major panels requiring a repaint which equals instant value loss for the car.

So my question is, is there a way to sue for this value loss as well? It hurts that these people took a car with a flawless finish, added 12 marks and denied it. But even if I win the case to get the repairs made, that still doesn't change the fact that I lost value on this car. So if there is some way to quantify the value loss so I can try to get that back as well, please let me know. Anyone with experience for this kind of thing, please help out.

Thanks!

 

[venmos1]

sorry to hear about all this. i have no idea but hopefully there is something you can do. only thing i suggest is to just never get rid of it

 

[lizardbreath]

One day go out and add a couple of dents to his car and say you don't know what happened and give him a sad face too . If the bastard doesn't give a shit about your car you sure as hell shouldn't give a shit about his. I would be ****ing pissed especially if I had a fairly new 04 cobra getting ****ed up by some asshole at my work.

 

[fat rat]

i got rearended a long time ago and they gave me loss of value on the car was only about 800 but its btr than nothing

 

[bcwang]

I guess the difficulty in making that kind of value assessment makes this difficult to ask for. I'll just go ahead with suing for damages.

Man, those people just can't stop lying. I talked to him on the phone and he agreed that we would meet so he could look at the damage (his wife drives the car). I leave work early just to meet him, and when we get there, he doesn't want to look, all he wants to do is tell me "from this point on, I don't want you to call or talk to me, my wife, or my kid ever again". If he wanted to do that he could have done it anytime since we live in the same apt complex. Why did he have to make me leave work early just for that. In any case, at that point I handed him my demand for payment document with the estimate and 10 days later I'm pretty sure I'll have to give him court documents too. I can't believe anything those guys say, nothing has been honest out of their mouths, ever.

 

[mineralgrey01gt]

man that really sucks about that. I hate people like that. I think it may be a possibility to get extra money for loss of value. It sounds reasonable

 

[Jefe]

You have to be able to document what you lost at the time of sale. If you in fact had to lower the cost to sell the car because of the repaired damage then you could take that to small claims court.

 

[FordSVTFan]

Unless you have proof that his wife's car caused the damage, you are S.O.L. in small claims court. While you only need to prove your side by a preponderance (50.1%) of the evidence, you need that proof. He will simply claim because you car was driven elsewhere that is where the damage occurred.

If his wife's car cause all the dings while both cars were parked in the same spots, the dings will form a line. Although at different places on the car, the height from the ground should be the same as the same part of the edge of the door will contact your car in the same spot every time (heightwise).

Take a piece of string an line them all up and photograph that. The measure the diameter of the ding. Then take pictures of the leading edge of the wife's car and you should see visible paint chips even with her door closed. Take pictures of those. Measure from the ground up to her chips and the ground up to your dings, they should be the same. Take pictures of your measurements or better yet video of the entire thing.

Then with the cars sitting next to each other take the string from her chips on the door edge to your dings and ensure they line up with the string being parallel to the ground.

good luck

 

[harry gilbert]

Yeah, the local cable channel broadcasts the small claims court proceedings, and most cases are won / lost over issues of adequate proof, not allegation.

 

[Jefe]

Actually it will probably make you feel a whole lot better and less time consuming to take a sledge hammer to her back window. Just wait till youre moving out and send it right throgh that window. Peace!

 

[bcwang]

Unless you have proof that his wife's car caused the damage, you are S.O.L. in small claims court. While you only need to prove your side by a preponderance (50.1%) of the evidence, you need that proof. He will simply claim because you car was driven elsewhere that is where the damage occurred.

If his wife's car cause all the dings while both cars were parked in the same spots, the dings will form a line. Although at different places on the car, the height from the ground should be the same as the same part of the edge of the door will contact your car in the same spot every time (heightwise).

Take a piece of string an line them all up and photograph that. The measure the diameter of the ding. Then take pictures of the leading edge of the wife's car and you should see visible paint chips even with her door closed. Take pictures of those. Measure from the ground up to her chips and the ground up to your dings, they should be the same. Take pictures of your measurements or better yet video of the entire thing.

Then with the cars sitting next to each other take the string from her chips on the door edge to your dings and ensure they line up with the string being parallel to the ground.

good luck

Well, hopefully with less than 11k miles on a 2.5 yr old car, with pictures at the 1 year mark showing the perfect finish, it will help. I do only drive the car to work and back, and at work I park next to a wall on my right side, while at home I park next to a wall on my left.

All the damage on the front door lines up, all 6 of them. I'll make sure to take lots of pictures with a tape measure and try to take a video as well. The 6 back door damage points might be a problem because their door swings at an upwards angle, so the farther you open it the farther up it goes. The damage in that case is all different heights. I'm going to have to go to the saturn dealer to find the height difference between closed and full open to show the full range the door can hit. Plus, every impact on my rear quarter panel is pointy, and most cars don't have a sharp pointy back door.

I've got pictures of their car door edge, front and back showing substantial wear. The burden here is taking good pictures of my car damage because it's so much easier to see with your own eyes than with a camera trying to focus on a reflective finish. I'm going to definitely try to take more pictures than I already have. I hope their behavior comes into play on the judges ruling because on 3 separate occasions they refused to look and line up, and inspect the damage, once was while the two of us were already standing in front of the cars. Of course, they are persistant liars and they will probably deny that they refused inspection.

 

[lizardbreath]

If you lose do the same to her car and say you don't know what happened.

 

[bcwang]

Well, it looks like they've moved spaces. They now park in another spot. I'm just going to prepare my court papers to get ready to deliver to them. I'm pretty certain they aren't going to pay up.

Now, it looks like a new person may have taken their spot. It's an SVT contour though so I hope this person will be much more careful around my car. SVT owner hopefully means car lover.

 

[mblgjr]

SVT Does not always mean car lover, but your chances sound better.

You may have to sustain a couple more hits and need the offending car to start parking back in the original space to get them on tape doing the deed.

 

[PSI87]

I'd sue, no doubt about it. As long as you have the evidence do it. They might just settle. Since it's civil they have to answer all relevant questions you ask... but they will probably just lie so get the evidence. I'd sue for more than $1,200 too. I'd add every single thing you do involving the case.