GAJeepGirl
New Member
My jurisdiction is: Georgia, USA
I was involved in a fender-bender about a week before Thanksgiving. Not a big deal, the insurance paid to have it repaired and it was taken to a local Shop for repairs. On December 31st, my vehicle was still in the shop, due to dealys in getting the right parts. They had just brought my Jeep back from an alignment shop, where they had transported it to and from on their wrecker. The shops garage is located across the street from their office. The wrecker driver unloaded my Jeep at the garage. While he was parking the wrecker, his wife took it upon herself to drive my Jeep across the street from the garage to the office parking lot. As she was crossing the street (in my Jeep) a drunk driver who was running from the cops and travelling at a high rate of speed, (the cops said she was going over 100 mph) slammed into my Jeep, totalling it. Obviously the drunk driver is at fault for the accident. But here's the real kicker.....the wife of the Shop's wrecker driver who was driving my Jeep IS NOT an employee of the shop and doesn't even have a license!!! If she had not gotten into my vehicle and let the wrecker driver move it like he was supposed to, the crazy drunk driver would have already passed by and my Jeep would not have been a target. All the insurance company of the drunk driver wants to give us is the book value, which won't even pay off what we still owe on it, never mind all the work we've done to it. It was a fully loaded 2000 Grand Cherokee. It had all the factory options, except for the 6-disk CD changer and only had 112k miles on it. Plus, we've put about $6000 into it. We've put a lift kit, rims & tires, Rock Sliders, engine performace parts and we took excellent care of it. We have no kids, no one smoked in it.
My main question is, shouldn't the Shop be liable for something? Weren't they negligent for allowing an unlicensed, non-employee to have access to my Jeep? We're at our wits end with this. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
I was involved in a fender-bender about a week before Thanksgiving. Not a big deal, the insurance paid to have it repaired and it was taken to a local Shop for repairs. On December 31st, my vehicle was still in the shop, due to dealys in getting the right parts. They had just brought my Jeep back from an alignment shop, where they had transported it to and from on their wrecker. The shops garage is located across the street from their office. The wrecker driver unloaded my Jeep at the garage. While he was parking the wrecker, his wife took it upon herself to drive my Jeep across the street from the garage to the office parking lot. As she was crossing the street (in my Jeep) a drunk driver who was running from the cops and travelling at a high rate of speed, (the cops said she was going over 100 mph) slammed into my Jeep, totalling it. Obviously the drunk driver is at fault for the accident. But here's the real kicker.....the wife of the Shop's wrecker driver who was driving my Jeep IS NOT an employee of the shop and doesn't even have a license!!! If she had not gotten into my vehicle and let the wrecker driver move it like he was supposed to, the crazy drunk driver would have already passed by and my Jeep would not have been a target. All the insurance company of the drunk driver wants to give us is the book value, which won't even pay off what we still owe on it, never mind all the work we've done to it. It was a fully loaded 2000 Grand Cherokee. It had all the factory options, except for the 6-disk CD changer and only had 112k miles on it. Plus, we've put about $6000 into it. We've put a lift kit, rims & tires, Rock Sliders, engine performace parts and we took excellent care of it. We have no kids, no one smoked in it.
My main question is, shouldn't the Shop be liable for something? Weren't they negligent for allowing an unlicensed, non-employee to have access to my Jeep? We're at our wits end with this. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
