Question: “What is the value of my property damage claim after repairs have been made to my vehicle?”
The Indiana Court do not hold that diminished value damages are recoverable only when the property is permanently damaged. Instead, the Indiana Courts have held that diminished value damages are recoverable when repair will not restore the item of personal property to its fair market value before the causative event.
Thus, even if the repair restores the property to its previous condition, damages may still be recovered if there is a resulting loss of fair market value to the property as a result of it having been damaged and then repaired. The economic reality is that property that has been damaged and repaired is often times a lesser fair market value than property that was never damaged in the first place. This is especially true in the case of automobiles, where numerous online services, including Carfax, allow anyone to easily check to see if an automobile has been involved in an accident. Automobiles that have been involved in accidents, even if they have been successfully and fully repaired, usually have a diminished value. Indeed, all other things being equal, few if any would prefer a car that has been in an accident, even if fully repaired, to one that has never been in an accident, unless the repaired car was available at a lower price. Therefore, the fundamental measure of damages in a situation where an item of personal property is damaged, but not destroyed, is the reduction in fair market value caused by the negligence of the tort feasor. The cost of repair is an adequate measure of damages only when the repair restores the property to its fair market value before the damage. In cases where the repair will not restore the property to its pre-accident value, the reduction in value may be proved by a combination of evidence of the cost of repair and the difference between the fair market value of the property before and after the accident.