Well?
Legal action costs at least $200.00 per hour if you hire a lawyer.
In small claims court, you have to prove your case to collect for damages.
If you gave permission to a certain individual to operate your property while you’re involved in the operation of that property, and the result was that the property was damaged during that operation of that property, you have no case!
Tester
Does your friend own a vehicle? If he has no car it is unlikely he has any car insurance to search for unless he is a student and listed on his parents policy. It sounds like he is a common bum and he’ll disappear.
Are you saying OP should just let the guy walk away from the problem he created . . . ?
Sure, OP didn’t have collision insurance. But OP isn’t the one that wrecked the car
I think the guy needs to learn the hard way that it’s not okay to destroy other people’s property and just walk away without doing anything
As others have pointed out, we’re talking a lot of money here
If it was me, I’d at least try to “work with the guy” . . . and if he refused, then I’d talk to somebody in the legal profession.
One of my cousins drove around with no license, no insurance, nothing, for awhile. She got into an accident and caused lots of damage. Nobody was hurt, thankfully. There was a financial judgement hanging over her head for years. It took her a long time to crawl out of that hole. She learned a hard lesson, and she never made that mistake again.
+1 to db’s post. If the kid’s old enough to be borrowing cars and wrecking them, he’s old enough to face the consequences and take financial responsibility. It’ll help him grow up. And the OP should not be suffering because he made the mistake of loaning this clown his car.
That’s why I have the minimal liability insurance coverage on my 95 Nissan Pickup in Minnesota.
It makes sure that if I damage someone else’s property with my vehicle, my insurance company pay’s for those damages.
But I end up with the wrecked vehicle.
Tester
Worth a try, but I’ll be surprised if the OP’s friend is held legally responsible.
Why? He’s the one who totaled the car.
Well just my two cents again. If he would have hit somebody, the OP’s liability insurance would have covered it. Likewise if he gets charged for damage to the center barriers (which can be expensive). I do believe though that in order to not be liable for the damage, the driver would have had to be operating the car for the full benefit of the OP, such as taking him to the hospital and having a wreck in the process. The fact that he was just out for a test drive for his own benefit I believe makes him responsible. As an example (true) if I used the neighbors weed whacker for my weeds and wrecked it, I need to buy him a new one. If I used it on the neighbor’s weeds for his benefit, I would not owe him a new one.
Just the way it is, but I would get a judgement against him at least in small claims, which is cheap and need no lawyer, just for the fun of it. If you do, you can follow him forever. If not he can thumb his nose at you forever.
Interesting theory. And an excellent analogy.
OP? Was the driver driving the car at your behest?
EDIT: I should have thought before I wrote.
If you damaged the neighbor’s weed whacker through extreme carelessness or misuse, I would argue that you owed him a replacement even though you were doing him a favor.
Another thought I’m having is that vehicles have very specific laws that don’t always apply to other situations. For example, if the friend had no valid license or was drunk, and someone was killed, the OP would be complicit and could also be charged. Perhaps before saying the driver should be held responsible I should have asked for more information.
So if the OP had insurance, the borrower wouldn’t pay? But without insurance, the borrower would pay? Doesn’t sound correct.
Yeah. Like I said I was kind of giving them he benefit of the doubt that he would try to make this right, he was a bad driver and that was his fault. The fact we seemed to walk away with nothing happening as so far as no DUI, then again he didn’t seem like he was drunk (I was), nobody or nothing else injured is a good win. If he was more than just a bad driver, and was more intoxicated than I thought he should be happy that we didn’t get questioned more as he would’ve had very hefty bills.
Bad decisions were made. I already know going after him in court would not solve my immediate problems and only actually recover something if he had assets. I was just more curious because some people are like there may be a chance his insurance would have to be on the hook.
The question about a loan is that if there is a lien against the car, you would have to fully insure it. So no, it was the last of my savings and why I was able not to have collision.
"more intoxicated than I thought"
I think I found the root cause of your problem. If you take this to court, and it’s disclosed that you let someone “more intoxicated than [you] thought” acknowledging that you yourself were drunk, drive your car and he crashed into a bridge abutment, well… if I were the judge…
Get on your knees and thank God nobody innocent was maimed or killed. Then accept the loss, write it off as the cost of an education, and LEARN FROM IT!!! IMHO you yourself are the root cause of what could have been a very serious accident. Some innocent person’s kid(s), or parent(s) could have been killed.
I dont think your legal analysis will hold up. My consent to letting someone else drive, does not absolve him from his legal responsibility. Further, I did not have more than one beer with him, which would leave him in the legal limit.
My impaired judgement was still smart enough to not drive myself. Nobody forced him to drive. I am sorry but you are in way humble or have a strong understanding of law. What is even more offensive is how you (unlike every single other person has said) would love to justify his at minimum poor driving skills or responsibility.
Please don’t even bring god into this because him running away clearly shows his lack of morals anyway.
*no way
I wish you had told the whole story right from the start
it would have saved a lot of responses
Correct me if I’m wrong . . . both you AND your friend were drinking. You were admittedly drunk, and he seemed okay to drive. At least you thought so. But realistically, you weren’t able to make that kind of judgment
In all likelihood, he was probably also dui. Which led to poor decisions and poor driving on his part, which led to a wrecked car.
Based on this new information, I completely changed my mind
Do NOT go to small claims court
Do NOT consult a lawyer
If he wants to help pay for some or all of the repair, fine
If not, let it be
Because we know that NONE of you should have been driving the car, or ANY car, for that matter
I agree with mountainbike. Thank your lucky stars that nobody was hurt
If the last post by the OP is as I read it ( OP was passenger is his own vehicle and intoxicated so he had someone who might have been drive for him and neither one went to jail or received a ticket ) OK we are done here: Goodbye.
With that latest info I doubt very seriously the OP would have a case in any court. If sued, the defendant could easily pass the buck to the owner of the car. Some info from a Mass. law firm cut and pasted below. Note the last sentence with the word “visibly”. It was not a matter of visibility because you KNEW and one 3.2 beer can be considered to be impaired.
Liability for an auto accident rests primarily with the negligent operator who caused the accident. In addition, there are two situations where the registered owner of a motor vehicle can also be held liable even though he was not driving it at the time of the accident. The first is a legal presumption of control. Massachusetts law presumes that the registered owner of a car exercises legal control over those who drive it, such as friends and family, though often this is not the case. The registered owner can avoid liability with sufficient evidence that he did not control the driver’s operation of the vehicle. But the burden of proof on that issue rests with the registered owner. Letting a friend borrow your car to run some errands is not enough. The control must extend to the where, when and how of the borrower’s use of the vehicle.
Vehicle owners can also be liable for the conduct of others under the legal doctrine of “negligent entrustment.” The duty of reasonable care includes a duty to refrain from lending one’s vehicle to a person whom the owner knows, or reasonably should know, is incompetent as an automobile operator. This question focuses on the borrower’s driving skills and physical condition. Negligent entrustment can be found where the negligent operator has previously caused similar accident or received multiple driving infractions. It can also arise where the operator has a known physical disability that causes the accident, such as bad eyesight, a volatile heart condition or a seizure disorder that cannot be controlled with medication. An automobile owner can also be held liable on evidence that he lent the vehicle to someone who was visibly impaired or intoxicated.
Whoa, the plot thickens. You are out of luck. He was driving for your benefit. Case closed. You’d never win so take the loss and move on I guess. Time to take out a car loan. I believe the principal would be “bailment” and you’d have to show that he was grossly negligent in his driving, then the whole collection problem, so forget it.
@cdaquila Carolyn this might qualify as a thread that should be closed.