To not pay £480 to fix dd's friend's phone

[FarangGirl]

Dd (14 yo) was with her friends and accidentally hit a friend in the arm. He had his phone in his hand and dropped it. Apparently it will cost £480 to repair!!! His parents want us to pay this. I think this is ridiculous. First, friend dropped the phoen, it wasn't like dd was using it. Second. If you're going to give your kid a stupidly expensive phoen, you should insure it and have a bullet proof cover.
Aibu?

This is the cost of replacing the screen of a top spec iphone. They should have bought AppleCare or they should claim it on home insurance, before putting an expensive phone in the hands of a teenager. Maybe offer to pay half the insurance excess as a good will gesture but no more.

I personally wouldn't pay anything. They can claim on their insurance. If you offer to pay then you want to see the bill and the date before you offer any amount and you also need to know whether they also claimed on their insurance. How can the kid's mother quote you £480 when she doesn't know what the other thing is that isn't working, besides the broken screen? No, she's scamming you.
I think she'll make an insurance claim and claim from you too.

It should have been in a phone case with a screen protector on it wouldn’t have had so much damage then. I wouldn’t pay.

Personally I think they’ve got a bloody cheek; what phones he actually got? The latest iphone13 is so tough shit; they should have taken out the insurance on it he’s a child for gods sake they clown about, kids will be kids they just need to mark this one up to experience.. stick to your guns don’t pay out !!

Hahaha

You should have paid already - you are completely liable. If they take you to court, you will lose.

Just think about the arguments you are making and others are on this thread and think about the common case of car 'accidents'. Accidents happen, but there are consequences for those who cause them.

i) The cause of the event is clear, although clearly wouldn't be taken any further, your DD assaulted their friend, and as a direct consequence of this the phone was damaged.

ii) Insurance is the choice of the phone owner and covers their mistakes - whether they have insurance and whether they claim is down to them. Even if they do claim on their insurance, the insurance company can claim again whose fault it is - i.e. your DD (and you).

iii) You don't get any say in how expensive an item you choose to cause damage to. Same way as if you hit a Ferrai, you can't say you shouldn't have such an expensive car - you are responsible for any damage you cause from an event you start if such damage is reasonably foreseeable.

iv) The friend does not have to use a case if they don't want to - they only have to do that if they want to minimise damage they cause - they don't have to do that before the accident - only minimise their loss after the accident.

v) They are entitled to a repair to get it into the same state - using original parts - and these must be carried out according to manufacturers standards - in essence, Apple authorised repairers must perform the repairs using Apple parts (otherwise Apple won't support it).

vi) It doesn't matter if they didn't have a tight grip on the phone as long as they wouldn't have dropped it anyway. If you crash into a car and the car then hits another, you are liable for the entire pile-up, not just the car you originally hit. There is no comeback by saying they should have left more space so if someone hit them they wouldn't have hit the other car.

If you said anything like you were not paying to me, I would rent another phone (of same type) and charge you for that as well - you are 100% liable and should have paid the same day.

Stop blaming the person who suffered the loss, and accept your DD caused the accident and is fully responsible. Pay up before they take your DD to court.

@Turkey98 never read such nonsense in my life. It's a phone! If a cyclist or pedestrian accidentally damaged a car they wouldn't be expected to pay. The driver would have to claim on their insurance.

I wouldn't even consider paying for this phone

"...the boy was holding it in his hand while walking. If it had been in his pocket nothing would have happened to it even when dd knocked his arm. So he wasn't showing due diligence in protecting his own phone"

Yes, @FarangGirl - that's exactly my thinking. I always tell my kids not to use phone whilst walking, THAT is careless. Talking animatedly is not being careless.

I presume £480 is the entire cost of the repair? By asking you to pay in full, sounds like they are not accepting their DS has ANY responsibility for what happened. Perhaps offer a token gesture towards the repair (out of goodwill) if you are so inclined... but please do not hand over £480. His parents are being CFs!

ENoeuf

She was talking animatedly’ does sound a bit like she was being careless

No it doesn't! 🙄

Why would you give a teenager a top spec phone?

I wouldn’t be paying a penny, it was an accident and shot happens. It’s not your fault he has a ridiculously expensive phone.

Similar thing happened to dd2 with her phone (not the latest model). Her friend knocked it put of her hand and the on off button was dented meaning it wouldn’t turn on or off and was completely unusable. I took it to the local phone repair shop, as apple don’t have a shop near me and they cost a fortune anyway. They fixed it for £25. I would never have dreamt of charging her friend for it!

If you give a phone to a teenager, you have to assume that at some point something will happen to it. If you buy them a super expensive phone and don’t have it insured, you’re an idiot and should suffer the consequences.

@AllThingsServeTheBeam

The only reason that typically occurs is because they are not known. If a cyclist scratched a car they would have to pay if the car owner decided that they wanted to do that. Remember comprehensive insurance is at the choice of the owner - only 3rd party is required by law, and the owner can always sue whoever causes any damage - including cyclists and pedestrians.

If you damage someone else's property it is for you to have taken out insurance to protect you, not the owner of the property. This is what mandatory car insurance is for - to pay for damage you cause.

If you were sued what would your defence be for hitting someone and causing them to incur significant loss as a result of your action?

What adult on an average wage can afford £480 to fix their phone? Regardless of whose fault it is that it got damaged.
This is not a good life lesson for parents to set their children….. disposable products everyone else pays for. It’s fine it say no when you can’t afford to expensive things and learning that they get broken and cost a lot to repair is a life lesson to stop them getting into debt as adults.

Ridiculous, Turkey. You sound like pontificating in an episode of The Good Wife.

Jfc. The onus is on the parents to have taken out phone insurance, he could have just as easily tripped and broken it that way.
At best I'd offer to pay the excess if it was insured, in this case I would tell them to get stuffed they are being ridiculous.

Turkey98 you are clearly not a lawyer, your argument is absolute nonsense, this is a case of accidental damage and it’s not even clear the child is liable. It’s for them to have insured it against damage or put it in a case.

[quote Turkey98]@AllThingsServeTheBeam

The only reason that typically occurs is because they are not known. If a cyclist scratched a car they would have to pay if the car owner decided that they wanted to do that. Remember comprehensive insurance is at the choice of the owner - only 3rd party is required by law, and the owner can always sue whoever causes any damage - including cyclists and pedestrians.

If you damage someone else's property it is for you to have taken out insurance to protect you, not the owner of the property. This is what mandatory car insurance is for - to pay for damage you cause.

If you were sued what would your defence be for hitting someone and causing them to incur significant loss as a result of your action?[/quote]
Insurance against accidentally knocking someone’s phone out of their hand doesn’t exist though, does it. So you can’t really liken it to car insurance, can you.

Teenagers drop phone, spill things on phones, loose and phones. The moral of the story is, don’t give your teenager a really expensive, uninsured phone or you are asking for trouble.

I've skimmed through the thread so not sure this has been mentioned but a brand new iPhone 12 costs just over £550.
I think they're looking for you to cover most of the cost of a new one.
I agree with others, they need to claim on household insurance if they didn't have it separately insured. You can offer the excess.

@Turkey98 what a load of nonsense!!!!!

Nah! It was an accident. They should except that it wasn't deliberate. Maybe they will put it in a decent case. They can buy a good new phone for under 200 so they should do this. Lesson is, don't buy your kids expensive stuff.

He should have held his phone tighter then!

Totally ridiculous to expect you to pay.

If it was deliberately shoved down a loo, or taken and chucked, that would different, but not the case here.

I call bullshit on that cost! Dropping a phone shouldn’t cause much more damage than a smashed screen. I’ve had my fair share of those at even iPhones repaired at Apple don’t cost anywhere near that much!

i) no evidence of assault, clearly an accident
ii) extremely unlikely the insurance company would make a claim against the person supposed to have caused the damage without proper evidence (which doesn’t exist) especially if a teenager (not worth pursuing)

The other points are irrelevant and the car analogy is nonsense as there are different laws.

The phone is legally the parents’ property and they should have taken reasonable steps to protect the phone from damage which, in the hands of a teenager, is entirely foreseeable.

@Turkey98
Presumably, as it was the daughter who flung her arm out, the litigant cannot sue the parents who were not at the scene. How much a court would order a child of 14 to pay, is a moot point.
Good luck with your analysis.
In the UK, a parent or guardian cannot be held responsible for accidents caused by their child unless it can be shown that they were there at the time and failed to take steps to curb any excessive behaviour.
Only children over the age of 10 can be held responsible for criminal actions but in the case in question there us no criminality involved.
The parent of the child who 'caused' the accident has no responsibility in law to make amends but may wish to make a voluntary monetary consideration. There is no onus on the parents of the 14 year old to do anything.

I also call bullshit on the repair cost. £480 is to replace the whole phone not just the screen. It must have had something else wrong with it. Here are the screen repair costs: support.apple.com/en-gb/iphone/repair/service/screen-replacement

She’s having you off

I dropped my iPhone 12 and smashed it to the point speakers don’t work nor camera and screen has chunks missing

£80 full repair

I’ve replaced me screen 3x and this was the most expensive