By Alexander Yiu and John Gilbert
The long awaited King et al v. Satchwell et al., 2013 ABPC 358, decision of the Honourable Judge Skitsko on diminished value has been released. This decision, argued by Field Law’s own Alex Yiu, has helped to clarify several legal issues being disputed in this hotly contested area of law.
Skitsko J. enunciated three types of diminished value claims: inherent, repair, and insurance. He considered inherent diminished value to be value lost due to stigma, repair diminished value to be value lost due to repairs not returning a vehicle to pre-accident condition, and insurance diminished value to be value lost due to the use of lesser parts. The most significant determinations arising from this decision, at least for insurers, relate to the evidentiary standard required for proving a claim in inherent diminished value and to quantifying damages for repair diminished value.