Your opinion m/c crash and insurance

Read the Crash on May 2 in Brea comments in it's entirety

Thanks in advance

I think he should and even may have a legal obligation to pay the deductable at the very least.

I voted for pay the deductible, but I wished I could also vote for pay costs and troubles for the Owner. Very sorry about this Jeff, even sadder we have scum in our group!!!

A stand-up guy would pay for all costs to bring things back to where they were before he screwed up. If I were you, I would look into small claims court.

I feel just terrible for you. Sorry to hear you generosity was returned with such a shitty set of circumstances.

I don't ride other peoples bikes and don't offer mine to many folks. Anyone that I'd offer my bike to is someone that wouldn't leave me hung out to dry. If I crashed someone's bike, I'd do whatever it took to make it right. Sell my bike or pay $10 a week if necessary.

It's just the way I roll.

The rider in question needs to man up.

SkooterG said:

A stand-up guy would pay for all costs to bring things back to where they were before he screwed up. If I were you, I would look into small claims court.

I feel just terrible for you. Sorry to hear you generosity was returned with such a shitty set of circumstances.

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+1

If it were me I wouldn't have went home until I made it right.

I don't normally "test Ride" anyone's bike. I believe in, if you break it, you buy it! And yes, if I had to sell my bike and start over to make it right, so be it.

I'm also insured out the butt. At least I think I am, this will have me doing the research.

Sorry for heart ache. Hope it gets straightened out.

I can't tell for sure what your insurance situation is. Typically, if you have collision coverage and your insurer pays you on that, then they have a subrogation right (essentially, in exchange for accepting the payment, you assign your right of action against the douchebag to your insurer) to go after the douchebag. Usually, they will -- for the amount they paid you. Contact your insurer and find out if that's what they are going to do, and if there's anyway you can piggyback on their case to get your deductible (and the amount you had to forego due to their threatened total if they were to do the full repair). If not, find out if your insurer has any objection to you suing the jerk in small claims court for the deductible and the amount necessary for the full repair.

The part below assumes you do not have collision coverage, but it's also a template for a suit to collect the deductible and additional amounts if your subrogation agreement with your insurer doesn't preclude you from suing BigB for the difference you suffered.

Sue him in small claims court in the jurisdiction where the accident happened. You ought to be able to get him served in the state where he lives if he's an exec at QVC. Contact your local bar association -- most here in Calif have small claims advisory volunteers that will advise you of what you need to do. Some law library librarians are even more helpful, and the court (small claims division) can also give you some guidance about getting this done.

He probably won't show up out here to contest the case. So you go to the hearing after he's been served and you have a signed "proof of service", and get a default judgment. (You don't have to put on the part of the case proving he was liable in a default, but you do have to prove your damages -- pics, statements, testimony, etc.) You'll have to check what the jurisdictional limit of the small claims court is now, but I'm pretty sure it was $10,000 last time I checked. I'd seek the total amount necessary to put the bike back in the condition it was in when he borrowed trashed it. Document all that, and pictures (before and after) are helpful. I'd also seek whatever it has cost you as loss of use value -- i.e., whatever you can document that you've had to pay to use alternative transportation. Prove up as much as you can and take the jurisdictional limit if it's less than the total you can prove.

Now comes the headache part. You have to get an attorney in the state where he lives to enter a sister state (California) judgment in that state. Contact an attorney who does collections or civil litigation in BigB's local area so you aren't paying for travel time. Entering a sister state judgment is usually fairly easy on a default judgment if you got the defendant properly served before you got that judgment. Once the sister state judgment is entered, you can have the attorney execute on the douchebag's assets, like bank accounts, etc. It's too much for me to lay out all the permutations, but after getting the California judgment, you should find and talk to a collections lawyer in BigB's state to find out what they will charge, whether those fees and costs can be collected too, and whether they can get info on the douchebag's assets sufficient to execute without the additional step of doing an Order of Examination (essentially ordering him to show up to testify about his assets for the purpose of fulfilling a judgment.

Good luck -- you shouldn't have had to go through this.

I didn't realize that a month had gone by without any restitution between motorcyclist. In my world once I accepted an offer to ride another persons bike it would be my responsibility to return it in the same condition that I received it.

I hope Brian steps up and makes it right with Jeff. Looking at the time laps I don't see much hope in this happening.

More time will tell.

exskibum said:

Good luck -- you shouldn't have had to go through this.

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+1, Gunny! Brother Rich, you're a good man; many thanks for stepping up with your expert advice to Jeff on how he can recoup his losses, really hope this works for him!

exskibum said:

You'll have to check what the jurisdictional limit of the small claims court is now, but I'm pretty sure it was $10,000 last time I checked.

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Great directions and thanks for taking the time to write such a thorough description, exskibum.

One very tiny point of addition. I work small claims court cases in LA County as part of my job and there "Small Claims Court handles Civil cases asking for $7,500.00 or less" with entities having a maximum of $5,000.

https://www.lasuperiorcourt.org/smallclaims/ui/whatis.aspx

Jeff, if you end up going this route, please feel free to PM me and I would be happy to help you.

My record is 8 wins and 0 losses so far.

If Jeff is making payments on the KTM 990 SM -- he has collision coverage...right?

Re the deductible: I was involved in an intersection altercation a long time ago (non-m/c) and the other guy was pretty shady about Ins., etc.

Long story short: I got nowhere and, eventually, my Ins. paid all but the deductible. They said I'd get that, too, when they recovered it. Time passed and I didn't -- a letter from an attorney was all it took to get the money.

Good luck.

charismaticmegafauna said:

If Jeff is making payments on the KTM 990 SM -- he has collision coverage...right?

Re the deductible: I was involved in an intersection altercation a long time ago (non-m/c) and the other guy was pretty shady about Ins., etc.

Long story short: I got nowhere and, eventually, my Ins. paid all but the deductible. They said I'd get that, too, when they recovered it. Time passed and I didn't -- a letter from an attorney was all it took to get the money.

Good luck.

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The bike is a 950sm not a 990. Yes it had full coverage. But as I stated, some repair shortcuts have to be made to keep the company from totaling it. Just made the 1st payment the other day...only 47 to go and she's all mine! :^)

I gather you don't have 'no fault' where you are. If you did, then your insurance would be resposible for paying everything including the 'not at fault' percentage of the deductible - and they would NOT go after the other party.

But if you have regular insurance laws where you are then:

If you have insurance and he has insurance, then he pays nothing. His insurance should reinburse yours for everything including the deductible at which time they send the deductible to you. That's just the way it is.

If you have insurance and he doesn't, YOUR INSURANCE can sue him to reclaim the damages and also try to collect the deductible for you. If they can't collect then you can try to sue him for the deductible in small claims court, but depending on the size of the deductible and his financial situation,it could well be not worthwhile.

motojeff312 said:

charismaticmegafauna said:

If Jeff is making payments on the KTM 990 SM -- he has collision coverage...right?

Re the deductible: I was involved in an intersection altercation a long time ago (non-m/c) and the other guy was pretty shady about Ins., etc.

Long story short: I got nowhere and, eventually, my Ins. paid all but the deductible. They said I'd get that, too, when they recovered it. Time passed and I didn't -- a letter from an attorney was all it took to get the money.

Good luck.

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The bike is a 950sm not a 990. Yes it had full coverage. But as I stated, some repair shortcuts have to be made to keep the company from totaling it. Just made the 1st payment the other day...only 47 to go and she's all mine! :^)

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Did you consider having the insurance company totaling it, then buying it back from them and then fixing it? It would have a salvage title, but you could make some money on the deal. Especially if you do most/all the work yourself.

Well, since you hadn't provided a link to the description, I thought this was a simple crash issue. But then I found the original post and discovered that this was a classic 'someone loaned his bike which got crashed' situation.

Well, first of all, the old adage 'never a lender nor borrower be' comes to mind. So the first dumbass in this situation was you for agreeing to lend a brand new (to you) machine to someone whose abilities you did not know (and even then).

Secondly, I change my vote; The appropriate moral thing to do is for him to pay your deductible. Since you elected to settle for a partial repair, anything more required was your decision and not his responsibility. The financial compesation is never more than the price paid for the machine . . so if the insurance would have totalled ther machine and returned what you paid for it (less the deductible) then that is the limit of their liability. One might also be able to arue that he owes nothing, since the amount of the deductible was your decision and you did not verify that he would be willing to pay or was covered for same before you allowed him to climb on board your machine, turn the ignition on and ride awa with it. in other words, you accepted the responsability based on the possibility that this might happen by not coming to an agreement before he rode off.

So from my perspective, his moral obligation would be to pay a reasonable deductible (if you had a $5K deductibe, for example I'd tell you to piss off had I been in that situation). And, you might NOT prevail in small claims court since HIS expectation was that you had sufficient insurance coverage and never discussed the possible consequences beforehand as to what might transpire in the eventuality of a crash.

Third; You are in Cali? Be VERY happy that HE isn't suing YOU for lending him the bike in the first place - this could have cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I know my previous post sounds harsh, but I tried to look at it from the perspective of an objective third party.

I always go with the "Pottery Barn Principal", you break it, you buy it.

If the situation is as you describe it, then Mr. Church is a scumbunny. Although, you might be way too nice a guy. The only person I'd let ride my bike is someone whom I trusted implicitly. You lent your bike to a complete stranger, are you knutz?

Yes, Church needs to step up and do the right thing. His physical damages are his own fault. You need to think more about lending your toys. There's a fine line between nice and being stupid. I'm often stupid, but it's always my choice to be stupid and I try to never let stupidity cost me thousands of dollars (hundreds is okay).

Best of luck. I hope this gets resolved to your satisfaction.

PS: I live in Pennsylvania. My home is about about 20 miles from QVC corporate offices. Please PM me if I can lend assistance.