Legal Question in Civil Litigation in Nevada

Re: Car Accident/Property Damage

It is highly likely that the day you drove your new car off the dealer's lot, it declined far more than the $1,500 you feel you were shorted. You see, the obligation of the other driver's insurance was to pay the "replacement value" of your car . . . not what you paid for it. In other words, if you went back to the dealer to purchase another car of the same year, make, model, options, miles logged and general condition, the amount you were reimbursed would be (if the settlement was fairly calculated) what you would expect to pay, including taxes and title transfer and other incidental fees.

Your car was not "new," because you owned it - not a dealership. You cannot expect to receive the value of a new car. If you had been forced to sell the car on the day you, instead, lost it to the other driver's negligence, you certainly would not have gotten what you paid for it when new, and you would still have owed the $1,500 balance.

Before you received the settlement check, you undoubtedly signed a release of claims that precludes you being able to pursue the other driver for any money beyond that which you already accepted in the negotiated compromise. You cannot now return to the well for another drink.

It may not seem fair, but your measure of property damages is what you lost - as determined by what it will cost to get another car just like it.