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?

@GDarling if she's not in the financial position to pay, then I'm not going to be having her chased for weekly payments. My concern is that either she " doesn't give a fig" or...

that she is somehow in a position to contribute (via insurance or other means), is legally obliged to (I don't know the actual position yet, frankly) and chooses not to/I fail to press it.

And frankly, those concerns are only activated if the repercussions get beyond a certain threshold.

Good link. Hoo-bloody-ray, we're with Admiral too
Admiral was the company who put our insurance up 30% we are now with LVE.

In this case there is no legal liability, because a 4-year-old is not liable in civil law.

but his mother is legal liable if she doesnt supervise him properly!

Well, the meeting is happening so she can see the CCTV footage.

The consensus is that we should talk to the parent to get a feel before going any more formal.

Short of my wife meeting them, how do you suggest we do that?

Alternatively, we go straight to formal, investigate any and all avenues for minimizing our losses and Mum's likely to be aghast that we didn't give her a chance to talk about it?

We're trying to be as decent as possible without being made a mug of but this sounds like a lose-lose

Some people have mentioned how legally nothing can be done! I have never researched the point but I would fully expect the parents to be legally responsible end of!! OP is doing everything right and if it was my child I would pay, CCTV or not!!! Most people have some form of civil liability insurance through home insurance or others.

It's reported to the insurers as I'm obliged to do so within 48 hours, I believe.

Cross-post @Myinlaws. Gotcya

Bruffin, you keep saying the mother is liable for not supervising the child - do you have any case law which states a parent is legally liable for the actions of a child at that age, regardless of the circumstances? It might well be a good while since I dealt with these type of claims but there wasn't any such case law back then & I'm not aware of any now. If you have knowledge of this being an established legal precedent/principle I'd love to see it.

The civil liability of a child lies with the parents, just like the liability of someone's pet lies with the owners...quite surprised that some ppl think otherwise... As for meeting mum, why don't you just meet with her OP? Go through this as gently as possible. Ultimately she is liable.

Hey
In the interests of keeping the peace and having a decent outcome (which obviously you shouldn't have to if mum had been watching her child) it would be worth seeking out a couple of small garage quotes - scratch repairs needn't cost too much, it may not be absolutely perfect but you'd probably need a magnifying glass to see it. And maybe if the costs were a few hundred rather than thousands mum would be more inclined to cough up, to be honest if someone told me they wanted £4K for all round scratches on a car I'd be quite cross - a quote you get for insurance purposes is usually three or four times the actual cost. Xx

Any insurance company would be the same. Have you actually dealt with one
Yes see my previous posts, yes my insurance company (and others on this thread) paid out of the legal liability cover in similar incidence.

And also worked in the City for 15 years in reinsurance, so i do think i know a little about insurance although i wasnt in claims dept.

Well you are wrong.I have seen loads of cases like this. You might ppssibly get the excess but you definitely will not get the cost of the repair

Oblada, presumably you can also quote case law that states that? Are you a lawyer?

www.citizensadvice.org.uk/law-and-rights/legal-system/young-people-and-the-law/#h-civil-proceedings
So the questions would be: was the young person negligent? Potentially not here given age. But then was the parent negligent? I would argue that yes they were.... My views only, never rly looked deep into this before. Morally no question in my mind I would pay up.

I am a lawyer yes but not specialist in that area of law. I could look it up but it's still Sunday morning :) maybe I'll look into case law later on :)

Expensive mistake - not supervising her kid, how did she not notice them scraping a rock all around the car and damaging lights! Yikes.
As others said - go gently. I don't know the ins and outs of the law but I reckon that she s 'morally liable' but hopefully you can come to a reasonable solution.

I can't see how the meeting is going to help.

If the car is to be repaired properly, it will be very, very expensive. People who are saying the OP is milking/overestimating don't understand what a proper repair would entail. Also, some people don't understand that others take very good care of their cars and they are completely unmarked and pristine. I had a car that was 7 years old (had it from new) and it had 130k miles on the clock and needed an expensive mechanical repair. It was gutting because the body and interior were completely unmarked, even after having kids in it the entire time. I just take care of it, some people don't take the same care of cars. Some people don't care about driving scratched cars.

However, whilst the mum is completely in the wrong and it was all her fault, I very much doubt she will pay anything and I don't think she could be made to legally either. The best you could hope for morally is for her to pay your insurance excess but she is not even required to do that. Unfortunately this is what insurance is for. It really sucks that your premiums will go up/you lose no claims because you encountered someone who couldn't look after her child. Unless you can get it on the nursery insurance which you might not be able to as the child wasn't in their care.

In your position, I'd get the write off money from the insurers and then sell the car for whatever you can get for it (I think this is legal!) - there will be a lot of people who will drive that car and not get too stressed about the scratches. Personally it would aggravate me every time I saw it, but some people would overlook it for a good price. Put that money all together and buy another car.

The police have given me a reference number and we are yet to provide the parents name/address to them.

I've logged an incident with the insurers but am yet to make a claim. The situation is little more open than you may think? Or perhaps it is more closed than I think :) roll on Monday.

Also, I'm not going to any meeting with the parents. More people at the table won't help discharge this.

Might be worth my wife skipping the meeting, and just sending them a letter? Would keep it less hostile although some people get upset by receiving postal correspondence re money