Someone caused damages to my personal property

The team at Webb Law Group can help you navigate disputes over assets and interests

If you’ve suffered damage to your property in California, whether it is real property (damage to your house or your land) or personal property (including vehicle damage), you may have multiple methods of recourse available to you including filing a potential lawsuit against the person or organization that you think is to blame.

Property Damage

Actionable property damage is generally categorized into two types:
Damage to personal property (car accident or damage to other belongings)
Damage to real property (trespass or harm done to your home or land)

Measure of Damages

Generally, there are no hard and fast rules for determining the measure of damages to property in California. The measure of damages can be different in each case, depending on the kind of real property involved and the type of damage done to the property. Damages to personal and real property are generally measured using the same formulas. Commonly used methods of measuring include diminution in value, fair market value, and repair cost.

The most basic and normal rule uses diminution in value as the measure of damages of destroyed property. An example of this would be the difference between the fair market value of a home immediately before and after a fire. However, this method is not the only way of measuring damages and other methods may be substituted if the court finds them more appropriate.

If the damages have been repaired, or are capable of repair, so as to restore the fair market value as it existed immediately before the harm, at a cost less than the difference in value, then the measure of damage is the cost of the repair rather than the difference in value. This is why, if the damage is repairable, the most-frequent measure of damages will be the cost of repair.

In some circumstances a combination of the two would be appropriate. For example, if repairs have been made but the property cannot be completely repaired, the measure of damages is the difference in the fair market value of the property immediately before the harm and immediately after the repairs have been made, plus the reasonable cost of making the repairs.

The cost of repair as a measure of damages cannot be used (a) when the cost of repair exceeds the fair market value of the property destroyed, or (b) the cost of repair exceeds the difference in fair market before and after the loss. In any of the above two situations, the value of the property itself immediately before the harm is the correct measure of damages.