Is there a claim for the vehicle’s diminution; if so, with what limits? Stewart Fairhurst reports
A vehicle is damaged in a collision and splendidly repaired. But might there still be a claim for damages arising out of the vehicle’s loss of value, simply because its history now involves it having been in a collision?
The leading case in the Court of Appeal—Payton v Brooks [1974] 1 Lloyd’s Rep 241—is the best starting point. In this case it was held that damages for diminution of value could be claimed. Roskill LJ set out this principle: “In a case where the evidence justifies a finding that there has been, on top of the cost of repairs, some diminution in market value—or, to put the point another way, justifies the conclusion that the loss to the plaintiff has not been fully compensated by the receipt of the costs of complete and adequate repairs, because of a resultant diminution in market value, I can see no reason why the plaintiff should be deprived of recovery under that head of damage.”
Payton has recently been reaffirmed in the
