Compensation for damage in case of an accident by the culprit: grounds, procedure

When is legal action necessary against the culprit of an accident?

It's no secret that after an accident, an insurance company compensates for damage only within the insured amount. In order to fully compensate for the damage caused from the culprit of the accident, the victim has the right to go to court with a demand to recover, in addition to the insurance amount, the actual amount of damage.

The need to recover damages from the culprit of an accident arises when:

the person at fault left the scene of the accident
the person at fault for the accident did not have title documents for the vehicle
the accident that occurred goes beyond the scope of insurance cases in which monetary compensation was provided under compulsory motor liability insurance
the injured person wishes to exercise the right to recover compensation for moral damage from the culprit
the calculation of the amount of damage was greater than the permissible limits of motor third party liability under compulsory motor liability insurance (400,000 for payments to the victim in connection with damage to property and 500,000 for payments to the victim in connection with damage to life and health, also 25 thousand for payments for funeral expenses)
There is no insurance contract . Not all drivers insure their civil liability against damage and drive without “insurance”. And some manage to issue a compulsory motor liability insurance policy in the “gateway”, that is, to purchase a compulsory motor liability insurance policy from unscrupulous sellers, that is, a fake one. Then the insurance company refuses to pay
recovery of wear and tear from the culprit of the accident. Under compulsory motor liability insurance, a citizen will receive insurance compensation taking into account the wear and tear of the parts being replaced. He may be paid a small amount if the car is “old”. Therefore, the injured party has the right to appeal directly to the tortfeasor with a demand for recovery of the difference.

Recovery without taking into account wear and tear from the culprit

Very often, the cost of repairs turns out to be significantly more than what the insurer paid. This happens if the car was badly damaged in an accident, or the car is of great value.

Then the injured party has the right to demand compensation for damage from the culprit of the accident that exceeds the limit provided for by the insurer’s liability without taking into account wear and tear of parts. That is, a citizen injured in an accident can receive from the insurance company the cost of restoration repairs, taking into account wear and tear of parts, and the citizen can receive all other damage from the party at fault in the accident.

Lawyers call this the difference between the insurance payment and the actual damage. In this case, the victim must prove that the amount of his damage is actually greater than the amount received from the insurance company. The proof is, as a rule, a well-executed examination, or checks and receipts for payment for parts and work. If the person at fault for the accident refuses to voluntarily pay for the damage, you can safely go to court.

USEFUL : read the full procedure for compensation for damage after an accident at the link

Methods for collecting damages

Standard order

Law No. 40 on compulsory motor liability insurance (Articles 11, 12) provides for the following procedure for obtaining compensation for damage from the culprit of an accident in 2021:

Documentary recording of an accident with the involvement of a traffic police officer or independent registration using the European protocol (GD of the Russian Federation dated October 23, 1993 No. 1090).
Mandatory notification to your insurance company about what happened, explaining all the circumstances of the accident. All further actions are carried out according to the recommendations received from the employee.
Collection of a set of documentation. The full list of securities is contained in clause 3.10 of the Rules for Compulsory Motor Liability Insurance, approved by the Central Bank of the Russian Federation on September 19. 2014 For No. 431-P.
Registration of damage compensation through your insurer at the company’s office.
Receiving directions for repair work.

Such actions are possible if the perpetrator also has a valid contract for compulsory civil liability insurance, and the policy must not be false. The insurance company, if compulsory motor liability insurance is issued, will only be able to pay up to 500 thousand rubles. for costs associated with restoring health, and 400 tr. for compensation for loss of property. Damage in excess of this amount in 2021 is paid by the culprit of the accident.

For the pre-trial (second) option of collecting damages from the culprit of an accident in 2021, you will be required to take a number of mandatory actions:

Receive the accident report. It must contain information about all persons involved in the accident, registration addresses, car brands, dates and location of the accident.
Contact your insurance company and ask for a certificate about the amount of possible compensation or an official refusal to pay.
Set a day for the independent examination and notify the guilty party about it 3 days before the date of inspection by the expert.
Write a detailed claim, specifying the payment period and method of payment, the final amount.

Attach photocopies:

A certificate from the traffic police about the incident.
A report from the insurance company about the occurrence of an insured event.
Protocol of a traffic police officer on the fact of identifying an offense under the Code of Administrative Offenses.
Mail notifications with the text of notifying the guilty party.
Payment receipts for carrying out expert work, paying for parking and other expenses related to the accident.
Expert opinion on the condition of the car and the cost of restoration work.

If the actions did not produce a positive result, then in 2021 you should contact the judicial authority at the place of residence of the guilty person.

You must wait 7 days for a response to your claim; only after this period can you file claims.

Some legal points:

Requests for recovery of damages from the person responsible for the accident must be drawn up legally competently; if you do not have at least initial legal knowledge, then you simply cannot do without the help of an auto lawyer.
The limitation period for filing legal claims expires after three years from the date of the accident (Civil Code of the Russian Federation, Art. 196)
When filing a claim, a state fee must be paid based on the amount of compensation.
If the damage is estimated to be no more than 50 thousand rubles, then the application is submitted to the magistrate; to compensate for a larger amount, they apply to the district court.

Do I need to file a claim with the person at fault for the accident?

The mandatory nature of compliance with the pre-trial procedure for filing a claim with the person responsible for the accident is not provided for by law; therefore, this document is an option for agreeing on compromises and concessions to resolve the dispute before trial.

The injured person, when resolving the issue of compensation for harm as a result of an accident, can resort to drawing up a claim against the culprit in order to agree on compensation for (material, moral) damage on a voluntary basis, which can subsequently be settled by concluding an agreement between the participants in the accident or a receipt from the culprit .

There are often situations when the culprit voluntarily refuses to pay for the damage caused, then by filing a claim it is necessary to induce this, and also to show the seriousness of intentions to go to court if the requirements specified in the claim are not met.

USEFUL : order a claim from our lawyer, watch a video with tips on drawing up a procedural document for the second driver

How to file a claim against the person responsible for an accident?

To draw up a statement of claim, the law does not establish an official template; it is important to be guided by the norms of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation; also, claims must be stated taking into account the following basic principles:

Briefness of the content set out in the claims . Circumstances must be contained only relevant to the subject of the statement of claim.
Content validity . Claims must have rules of substantive and procedural law that also relate to the substantiation of the stated circumstances
Content formatting . The text format must be set uniform throughout the entire text, with the most commonly used sizes - 14 point, spacing - 1.5

The statement of claim for compensation for damage caused by an accident by its nature contains the following information:

name of the court to which the claim is filed
Full name, telephone number, e-mail for communication between the Plaintiff and the Defendant
the circumstances of the dispute as a result of which the right was violated, resulting in harm to health or death
motivation of the requirements - what is the basis for the person who received harm as a result of an accident and why
pleading part - what measures, in the opinion of the injured person, should be
a list of documents necessary to substantiate the circumstances referred to by the Plaintiff
when the statement of claim was drawn up (date) and the sender’s signature

USEFUL : more advice from a lawyer on filing a claim in court in the next video

The procedure for collecting wear and tear from the culprit of an accident

Recovery of wear and tear from the culprit of an accident consists of the following actions:

correct registration of an accident in accordance with the European Protocol or calling the traffic police officers if the damage caused exceeded the limit established by motor vehicle liability
contacting the insurance company (the insurance company of the culprit) to receive insurance payment for damage caused as a result of an accident
drawing up a claim against the person at fault, indicating in the attachments copies of documents confirming the fact of the accident, as a result of which handing it over to the other party with signature and stamp on your copy
If there are no answers to your demands, file a claim in court

Necessary evidence to recover damages from the culprit of an accident in 2021

In connection with the new regulations for the preparation of documentation in case of an accident (based on Order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs dated August 23, 2017 No. 664), the employee is not required to issue a certificate of the incident; all information is contained in a protocol that displays all important information about the accident: date and time, place, list participants, a list of violations and their connection to administrative legislation.

In addition to the protocol, the participants in the accident agree on:

Traffic pattern during an accident: the location of each participant in the accident is indicated.
Photo or video recording of the accident site is carried out.
Witness testimony is taken that may explain the event.
All material evidence is attached to the protocol and entered into the inventory.
A traffic police officer has the right to describe in a report his vision of all the circumstances that resulted in the traffic incident.

In 2021, the protocol must contain a footnote with all the listed violations for which the perpetrator is brought to administrative and civil liability. But, if there are no grounds, then the case is not initiated, which is also indicated in the protocol.

In 2021, instead of the usual traffic police certificate, participants in road accidents will be issued the following documents:

Procedural refusal or decision to initiate administrative proceedings regarding an accident.
The original report drawn up at the scene of the accident.
Management decision on the fact of committing an offense in accordance with administrative regulations.

Explanations of witnesses to an accident must contain detailed descriptions of the following events:

The approximate speed of the car at the time of the collision.
The approximate distance to the car moving in front when the victim discovered the danger.
At what specific moment did the driver take protective measures: when the braking or steering began, what was the route after these measures before the collision.
Presence of passengers, heavy cargo, etc.
Opinion of witnesses about the correspondence of the accident site with the traffic pattern.
Which vehicle components were damaged, their degree of damage.

In addition to this list of evidence, when applying to court to recover damages from the culprit of an accident in 2021, you should file a petition to request an administrative case initiated upon the accident.

But the main evidence for a claim for damages is an expert opinion, with an assessment of the breakdown of components and the cost of restoration work.

Recovery of the difference from the culprit of a traffic accident

When collecting the difference between the insurance payment and the actual damage caused as a result of an accident, it is necessary to file a claim with the court at the place of residence of the Defendant, depending on the presented price of the claim:

Not exceeding 50 (fifty) thousand rubles, then the case has jurisdiction to be heard in the magistrate’s court
Exceeding 50 (fifty) thousand rubles, then the case has jurisdiction to be heard in the district court

In addition to compensation for material damage, the victim also has the right to recover compensation for moral damage and lost earnings. This category implies an evaluation criterion that is established by the court taking into account all the evidence provided.

Is it possible to recover damages from the cyclist at fault?

Bicycle owners are not subject to compulsory insurance due to the fact that the bicycle is not a source of increased danger; therefore, the culprit cyclist is liable in accordance with civil law. Compensation for damage is carried out in court.

To bring the owner of a bicycle to justice, it is necessary to establish the degree of guilt and the presence of intent, as a result of which the court can relieve liability partially or in full.

If the culprit of the accident is not the owner

If, when registering an accident, it is revealed that the car was not driven by the owner, but the culprit has legal grounds for this, for example:

The owner of the vehicle included it in the MTPL policy.
Transferred the car to management under a leasing or long-term lease agreement.

In this case, all responsibility for compensation for damage falls on the culprit of the road accident.

Although there is no direct reference to this circumstance in civil legislation, judicial practice shows that courts find the person driving the vehicle at the time of the accident guilty (Part 2 of Article 1079 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation) regardless of who actually is its owner.

How can the culprit of an accident reduce the penalty?

Do not forget that you can completely fight off the amount collected from you by disputing fault in a traffic accident. If the procedure for proving the guilt of the second participant is successful, then it will be possible to ask for compensation in your favor.

In accordance with the law, reducing the amount of recovery from the culprit of an accident is possible by challenging the assessment of damage. You have the right to submit a forensic examination of the case or conduct your own, challenging the conclusions of the specialist who prepared the report for the second party in the case, watch the video with tips on challenging the examination of the case:

Nuances of the procedure

All claims for recovery of damages from the culprit of an accident in 2021 can be satisfied if it is established:

All grounds are legal.
The damage exceeds the amount stipulated by the policy.
The cost of completely restoring a car exceeds the amount established by law.

And for the second party there are several ways to refuse to cover damages:

Documentarily prove that the demands made against him are illegal.
Agree to reduce the final cost of coverage.

Therefore, it is quite possible to receive full funds due from a citizen who caused moral or material harm, but this will require legal knowledge and time.

What to do if the person at fault for the accident has no money?

If a settlement agreement was not concluded between the culprit and the victim as a result of an accident at the court hearing and it was not possible to reach an agreement to voluntarily compensate for the damage suffered, then first of all, after the decision is made, it is necessary to obtain and submit to the bailiff service at the place of registration of the guilty person a writ of execution for initiation of enforcement proceedings.

The deadline for filing a writ of execution is three years from the date the court decision enters into legal force. Also, enforcement proceedings will not be terminated until the culprit’s obligation to you is properly fulfilled.

The procedure for the enforcement of a writ of execution begins when the debtor is entered into the database of enforcement proceedings, subsequently all bank accounts of the debtor are automatically blocked, a request is sent to the Federal Tax Service, and if there is information about employment, wages will be seized and up to 50% will be deducted in your favor, also the debtor is prohibited from traveling abroad.

The restrictions provided for by law are a guarantee for the restoration of the violated rights of citizens.

INTERESTING : read our legal practice on collecting damages from the culprit of a traffic situation, and also watch a video with a review of an injured pedestrian

Step-by-step instructions for reimbursement

Until the judicial authority establishes the true culprit of the accident, there can be no talk of any recovery of damages. The protocol only establishes the fact of a violation committed by a person, and only a court can admit guilt.

After court proceedings, a decision is made, which determines the degree of responsibility and measures applied in execution of the court decision to the defendant’s side in the claim. This can be either cash compensation in kind or full payment for service work to restore the car.

In 2021, the court gives 10 days to file a cassation appeal if the second participant in the process does not agree with the decision. After all the deadlines for appeal have expired, the decision comes into legal force, and only after that can the procedure for collecting damages from the culprit of the accident begin:

If the defendant voluntarily does not hurry to pay the amount of damage due, then the plaintiff goes to court to initiate compulsory enforcement proceedings for monetary compensation.
The bailiffs give the defendant another 10 days to voluntarily repay the debt; if this does not happen, they can confiscate part of the personal property to cover the debts to the plaintiff. But usually payments are compensatory from all types of earnings of the guilty person.
The funds are transferred to the bank account previously specified in the application to initiate enforcement proceedings.

After the execution of the court order to recover damages from the culprit of the accident, the proceedings are terminated, and the case against the owner of the at-fault car is closed.