Even the law recognises that McLarens are special cars

Even the law recognises that McLarens are special cars

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Discussion

rickyneil

Original Poster:

88 posts

125 months

Friday 15th November 2019
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https://www.litigationfutures.com/news/claimant-wi...

The judged accepted the argument that the McLaren was a particularly special car!

MDL111

6,975 posts

178 months

Friday 15th November 2019
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what a clown

Barry Homo

2,552 posts

163 months

Friday 15th November 2019
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Rich guy hires good lawyer.

AndM

471 posts

196 months

Friday 15th November 2019
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This is well established law. If your car is put off the road due to the fault of another you are entitled to the reasonable hire of a comparable replacement. All subject to reasonableness - so the period of hire etc is not open ended.

Kid A

54 posts

65 months

Friday 15th November 2019
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AndM said:
This is well established law. If your car is put off the road due to the fault of another you are entitled to the reasonable hire of a comparable replacement. All subject to reasonableness - so the period of hire etc is not open ended.
Depends on the jurisdiction. Here in Australia it is also well established that the reasonable hire car is only available based on need. So if your day job was to be a supercar chauffeur I'm sure you could get a supercar replacement, but otherwise you're st out of luck - any new, luxury car would do.

I prefer the approach taken in this case of requiring a like-for-like requirement. Bit surprised it was granted though given that the driver didn't have any need for transport.

Pioneer

1,311 posts

132 months

Saturday 16th November 2019
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My broker said, if you're not at fault you're meant to put back in the same position you were in before the accident. So even if you have another couple of supercars in the garage it should be irrelevant.

SydneyBridge

8,643 posts

159 months

Saturday 16th November 2019
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You are also supposed to mitigate your losses

A different Judge on a different day and could be opposite decision

Teddy Lop

8,301 posts

68 months

Sunday 17th November 2019
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SydneyBridge said:
You are also supposed to mitigate your losses

A different Judge on a different day and could be opposite decision
I'm in two minds.

OTOH it's easy to find it really indulgent on the part of the cars owner, but on the other if someone were paying ongoing lease/contract hire payments on the car you could say they're tangibly affected if they don't have use of it, and how you chose to finance it shouldn't affect how you're treated...

But why did "just a few scratches" take months to repair? Was he offered use but refused to drive it? If it had to be specialist repaired and there was a queue could a temporary job not have been done? If being repaired by McLaren UK could they not come to an agreement to russle up another car from traded in stock with maybe the owner covering insurance, surely for less than high street supercar hire rates?

drcarrera

791 posts

226 months

Sunday 17th November 2019
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SydneyBridge said:
You are also supposed to mitigate your losses

A different Judge on a different day and could be opposite decision
Exactly. I was on the wrong end of such a scenario some years ago when my 911 was hit by a post office van. It took a while to fix and I was provided with a Boxster, then a Merc SL via a "claims management company". At the end of the process, the other party agreed to pay for the repairs to my car but wouldn't pay for the cost of the loaners. It went to court. I lost (articulate professional male driving his sports car down lane at 20 mph gets driven into by young bimbo postie coming out of a driveway so obviously according to the crusty old female judge it's my fault!) so my insurers end up footing the entire bill and I lose my excess and no claims.

I would never, ever use one of these "like for like" car loan companies again - it's just not worth the risk. The whole episode shook my faith in the justice system and left me very bitter (not that you would know!).

jakesmith

9,461 posts

172 months

Friday 22nd November 2019
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Guy is a prick, pushing up insurance premiums for everyone just so he doesn't have to drive one of his 2 Astons. Wasting court time and resource of a decent insurance company. Petulant idiot. If someone hit my R8 leaving a few scratches I would drive my Smart car around for a bit. If he didn't like driving the Astons he shouldn't have them. The effort and money wasted on this is ridiculous: Prat.

ferdi p

1,519 posts

173 months

Friday 22nd November 2019
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jakesmith said:
Guy is a prick, pushing up insurance premiums for everyone just so he doesn't have to drive one of his 2 Astons. Wasting court time and resource of a decent insurance company. Petulant idiot. If someone hit my R8 leaving a few scratches I would drive my Smart car around for a bit. If he didn't like driving the Astons he shouldn't have them. The effort and money wasted on this is ridiculous: Prat.
+ 100%!!