To expect Mum to pay up after 4YO child scratched every panel on our car

[LupoLoopy]

Context: My wife works at a nursery school as an assistant.. Her car was parked in the staff car park, which the kids egress though when they leave, under parental supervision.

During lunch time pick-up, one of the departing 4 year old's took a rock and scratched every panel and light fixture on her car, all whilst his Mum was standing within 6M of the car, chatting to a friend.

The incident was captured on CCTV.

The cost of a proper repair is so close to the value of the car, I fear it being written off, which is something we could afford but would hurt us a lot financially.

Although the damage is only cosmetic, the car was pristine before the incident (I'm a fussy sod who takes good care of his stuff) and I don't see why we should tolerate driving a 'shed' around 'for the children'.

We're trying to seek restitution from the School's insurance (if it will cover it) but to cover our butts, we've reported the incident to the police (so and official record exists) and reported it to our insurer.

If we have to use our car insurance AND we're fortunate enough to not have the car written off, it's going to tank my partners insurance premiums.

Frankly, I want to encourage the police to be fully involved and start proceedings immediately for civil action via the small claims court. I just dont think I can have confidence that Mum is going to be wired in the same way I am - i.e. it's her liability and don't see why we should be financially crippled by her parental inattention.

AIBU?

Thumb - I didn't say it was impossible . I said I'd never come across it! Either way, I'd have been very reluctant to send either of mine to a nursery where this was considered the norm though. It sounds like an accident waiting to happen (and I don't mean of the car scratching variety).

No I know you didn't say it was impossible. Your post just sounded like another of those "well I'VE never experienced this so why does it happen" that so often occur on here and everywhere else.
It happens.
But I fully appreciate that, if you have the choice, you'd prefer not to send your child to a nursery like that.

Sorry, I'm tired and having a shit day. Apologies for being snippier than necessary.

Should this incident or accident history on the site be part of our analysis? Or is that me being unfair? That seems to rankle with some people, which strikes me as understandable, but the mathy part of my brain struggles to write it off as irrelevant to our financial planning?

No. You can't factor something like this into your plans for the future. One incident is hardly 'accident history'. It is something you are taking advantage of. Just because you feel strongly about it doesn't give you the right to do that.

Your car park from a few years ago was notorious and you were right to be careful about it. But this car park has been fine up to now even though the children use it to enter and exit the premises. You are not being fair to your wife to try to use this incident, which no doubt she feels bad about too, in your argument for another job.

YANBU to try to get them to pay, but I feel you may make your wife into 'that teacher' whom no other nursery will touch with a bargepole if you take to the courts. Don't piss in her soup.

If the school lays off my wife for pursuing Mum through the civil courts (should it prove necessary mind) then I will explicitly question the legality of that and I guess the borough's Council Tax will be paying out a unfair dismissal settlement. Not exactly the result we're looking for on ANY level, but I fail to see why we should be pressured into being rolled over

That comment was about this nuclear option^^

A recent thread about mums with young children who left dropped food on the floor of a cafe was met with vitriol and disgust from many posters, accusations re neglect and laziness on the part of the mothers and derision at idea that young children couldn't manage their table manners more appropriately.

But 4 year old trashes car whilst mother looks on/ignored him is to be expected.

MN is crazy at times

Have you got a copy of the cctv ?

The parents of the kid should pay. Not the fault of the school so why dip into their budget?

OP I started off reading the thread quite shocked that you were going down the route of police etc... Esp before you'd had chance to chat to the mum. Escalating things quickly before informally chatting seems a tiny bit intimidating.

As a mum to LOs, I'd be completely freaked out you'd taken that route. Then the risk is people become defensive, rather than constructive.

I'd be mortified & apologetic if one of my children damaged someone else's car. But i think I'd be a complex mixture of feeling sick to my stomach/terrified/angry because of fear if owner of said car was claiming £8k to repair it up front, having involved police, talking about legal action, etc, etc before they'd discussed the damage with me.

£8k is a huge amount of money. It'd wipe us out as a family.

All that said, it sounds like you are fairly reasonable, so maybe you could try looking into other less expensive options for repair & actually find out what the mum thinks? I hope she's reasonable about it.

I hope you find a resolution that works for you all.

Isn't it the job of the insurance company to pursue the school or the parent, if they think they are liable?

The first thing to do is to talk to the insurance company and only if they say they would not pursue the school's or the parent's insurers should you attempt to negotiate a deal directly.

I don't know if it works differently in the UK, but here your house insurance often covers third party damage caused by the policy holder.

I was wrong above, it was my buildings insurance that paid out legal liability. The only problem would be if she is renting she may not have insurance.
Addtothebasket
She can be as mega awkward as wants, she was negligent in supervising her son, therefore liable.

8k to paint a car? Your living in dream land. I would expect it to cost no more than 2.5k - any more and you bring ripped off... Yes small jobs can be expensive but that's because they are more labour intensive. if a panel has a small scratch on it the paint shop won't strip the whole panel, they will blow in the scratch then clearcoat the whole door ( if it's got clearcoat on it). Our friend has a paint shop and its one of DPs hobbies, has been for more than 20yrs...

Just read this to my husband who shouted; sue her ass!

The nursery here has a similar car park set up and I can see it happening there.

For those questioning how much damage a four year old could cause. An unsupervised not in school yet four year old near us cause £1000s of pounds worth of damage in our old street. Smashed both windows , broke door panels, smashed window on someone else's house and car. Scratched several cars.

Op I think you may be a saint. You've remained polite despite some startling (unfounded)criticism in posts.

Lots of critical threads here

1. you are absolutely right to try to recover the damage from the parent. My 4 year old would know not to drag a rock across a car. The fact the mother didn't bother to intervene indicates why her child feels that is acceptable behaviour in the first place. However I suspect the parent will refuse to pay and you will need to claim under your insurance policy. The question then is can you quantify if this has caused any financial loss such as increased insurance costs which you could then try to claim from the parents via small claims.

2. you are jumping the gun with 8k and are risking putting the parents back up with a figure you have plucked from the air with no substance. You need to get a quote from an authorised garage of the car manufacturer and then a further 2 from mr chips type companies and offer the parents the choice of which one to pay. Do not mention any money until you get the quotes.

@addtobasket I believe you may be suffering confirmation bias, choosing to read something into my posts that doesn't exist. I've already started my first points of recompense are via various insurance bodies.

My reference to going nuclear is if the situation goes shit. I.e the car is written off on a Cat D and Mum refuses to investigate what she can do with her home insurance, should school or union insurance not cover it. At that stage I'd consider her to be being unreasonable and I'd want be in my strongest legal position. Should the Solicitors tell me I don't have a leg to stand on, oh well. That's life.

Like I've stated multiple times previously, I hope the repairs are cheap, an insurance covers it without writing off the car and Mum understands what happens.

In reference to risking my wife's career. Fair point. Shame that's a potential consequence of not being a pushover in my view, but I can see that's a risk we should seriously weigh and monitor. I remember a colleagues wife who basically ended her own career in HR by taking on her employer about differential/unfair maternity treatment. Got a big payout but never worked in the sector again.

I think the op is being reasonable too. I'd feel the same.

@headofhousehold agreed I could be worrying about the ceiling figure too much.

The numbers I were given were by a professional spray shop based on a verbal description of the damage when pressed for scale of cost numbers.

As stated, we're visiting some shops on Monday for face to face assessments. Until then, it's largely reading very depressing tea leaves.

Not sure smart repairs are necessarily relevant. They devalue the vehicle in many cases. Ill let my lifelong friend who's a spray technician call that.

That said, the £8k number is the value of the car. For a Cat D write off, depending on underwriters policy and whether we need a hire car to get wife to work, the bill
may only have to hit 60% of that for the trigger.

P.s great advice on not mentioning monetary cost until we have firm quotes. It will only serve to get her back up/spread fear & uncertainty during a stressful situation. I guess she could be asked to investigate with her insurers as a matter of principal?

Also, my insurance have made no mention of householders insurance for stuff like this. That suggests it either isn't common practice or isn't applicable. Guess we will find out in due coursw

@marhanxiety just for your analysis, it's the third incident in 4 years. It's a tight car park. So not a single event, more of a trend.

That said, it's too heated a point of bring into what should be a simple, cool trade off analysis, so I'll leave it aside I think.

If she chooses to bring it into her musings, then that's fair enough.

@myinlaws I went to the police for a reference number, for my insurers.