Insurance claims are a civil matter in California and the Police Report would only be used as support for the Claim Rep's investigation. They do not determine fault as far as the insurer is concerned, but simply help support what happened. If you were involved in an accident with her and it was determined that you were at failt, you would have liability to her regardless of her status (illegal alien, no license or not insured - doesn't matter).

If she were to file a claim, your carrier would investigate both sides. They are supposed to be protecting you from liability and they will take your statement as well as her statement. If the two sides are conflicting they will investigate further (points of impact, witness statements, etc) and make a liability determination.

Taking her to small claims can be difficult. Getting proper service on someone that is here illegally is tough. Assuming you do get service, getting a judgment is usually not difficult. The really hard part is collecting on the judgment. She probably doesn't have assets or a job with significant income. You can't simply lien her personal property or take her income in California, those moves require a judge's order and a second trip to court to get it.

Unfortunately you are probably best off handling the repair and moving on. It's not usually economical to pursue someone who in uninsured....there's a reason they don't have insurance, it's because they don't have money.

Doesn't make it right, but that's usually what it is.

To the contrary notwithstanding, based on all the reasons you just stated, when a citation is issued under these circumstances, particularly a criminal complaint, it serves to approbate the claim of the victim/insured. I don't know what the law is in California. However, the violations that I previously outlined are generally considered criminal offenses in most states. When insurance companies try to abrogate their responsibilities in these types of cases (and they do), its to the benefit of the claimant when they can demonstrate civil and criminal liability on the part of the other person.

I wouldn't fold that easy man. I'd politely ask them to cough up a COD check or face the consequences of a disgruntled Porsche owner. I mean I'm not going to ask for a king's ransom but they need to pay you something. Anything.

As for the illegals not paying taxes. That's not entirely true. I have a ton of friends who own all manner of companies that deal in hospitality, catering, restaurants, construction, landscaping, cleaning services, etc. They all employ illegals. Well these people don't show up one morning and say "Hi, I just hopped the big fence..can I have a yob?". From what I'm told 98% of them produce a social security card that either belongs to someone who died, moved out of the country for good, etc. These people are payed by check, no cash under the table jobs (huge fines for that, not to mention IRS heat). FIT, medicare, Social Security taxes are deducted each week just like us legal citizens. Now when you consider that it's believed that there are enough illegals to fill a large state...well that's A LOT of money sitting in accounts that will never be collected from. Probably tens of billions of dollars. The illegals are long gone by then. They typically stay a few years and go back home with their savings because you really can't hack it on minimum wage in this country for too long. And the really ironic thing about this point is that we are losing as many as 3 retired workers (mostly baby boomers) for every new worker. In other words we don't have enough people paying into social security to comensate for the fact that retiring workers are living longer and taking out more than they put in.

And what's more, the LEGAL immigrants are filling jobs that pay way higher than the average U.S. income like financial analysts, IT, computer programmers, medical, etc. because we don't have enough citizens with enough math and science in their educational backgrounds. I think we should be more concerned with the issue of why we need legal immigrant workers vs why we have so many illegal workers...although the illegals seem to leaving due to the long recession and Americans more willing to take any minimum wage job.

You would be partially correct in my experience and I didn't intend to speak for all possibilities. In California (Utah, Colorado and Illinois are also similiar - that's where my experience has been) the criminal court proceedings will generally consider civil damages from an individual victim, however, they often view civil and criminal complaints as seperate. I have seen few instances where a restitution order has been issued by the criminal court for the benefit an individual victim. That said, in practice the prosecutor will not have the information to present to the court to seek civil damages in the sentencing phase of a criminal case, even if they are holding a correctly completed Victim's Statement. Most individuals are not savy enough to the legal system to know how to handle this process to begin with. Even if they are, the reality is the judges will often choose to leave the financial loss as a seperate civil matter pursuit and not incorporate it into the criminal case. The success rate is very low in my experience.

The main take-away of my prior post was that regardless of the success in any court proceeding, there is still the issue of getting blood from the turnip.

Maybe we should get back to driving.......this is starting to feel like work.

I agree with Perfectlap, make a return visit and see if they'll scratch out a check. Maybe the threat of further action will scare them. They may snub their nose at you but it's worth a shot.

If that doesn't work, you're probably best off moving on and fixing it yourself. Taking the time and effort to sue them will probably end up a Pyrrhic victory. You win but you're not going to get anything from it.

Sorry about my political stmt earlier. Glad the thread has stayed on topic.

So many big words I think I'm going to have to hire my counsel just to read the thread and translate it all to me in plain English.. :D

I agree with both PL and Husker however I just don't think its worth my time to try and get a nickle or dime out of this lady. One part of me says that I probably should push a little more just to "teach them a lesson" but the other side of me just says to brush it under the rug and dig into my mods fund and get it fixed.

Actually its already being fixed...I had a spare bumper for the car that was never painted and dropped it off this morning so I can have it installed Saturday. Costing me $300 for prep and paint plus whatever my wheel guy is going to charge me to fix the damage on the wheel. My guess is its all said and done for about $400.

I may end up giving her a call tomorrow....well see.

Setting aside the legal process, in most states where liability is generally determined by who was at "fault "?, the first questioned an insurance company will ask, which operator was "cited" ? From there the burden of liability is always placed on the violator.

Enough said, you're right lets get back to driving!

She's going to drive again, that's what sucks, you can count on it, why wouldn't she?

$700 smackers?! Screw that (this coming from someone who just spent $5K on major maintenance) .... I'll tell that lady's son look we need to set up a payment plan of a $50 money order for the next six months with the promise to tear up the papers at the end of it. If they don't go for that they really deserve to be sued.

Easy there big guy. $400 total for bumper paint and wheel repair. Still sucks but if it was $700 you bes believe I would push to get some $$ from her.