What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? MN
A month ago I was following a coworker to an afternoon employee lunch retreat. We both stopped at a stop sign, her brake lights went off and she (I thought) had made her right turn to our destination. I looked to the left, a car was approaching but I had plenty of time to follow her, so I let my foot off the brake(I did NOT accelerate) turn my attention to the front of my car and then realized she had not turned (she did advance a few feet) I hit the brakes & thought WOW that was close!! I almost hit her!! We get to our intended destination and she get out and says I did in fact *hit* her bumper. I was very surprised, as I did not feel any impact whatsoever. After lunch I looked at the bumper and there was a scratch on top of it. I told her to take it in right away and get it looked at, she said "no it's fine, just a little scratch I will get a small bottle of touch up paint, that's all it needs, DON'T worry about it." Well fast forward to yesterday, she brings me an estimate to remove and repaint the entire bumper for $400.00. My husband says we should not have to pay for an entire bumper to be painted since it was only a 3" long pencil thin scratch. He told me to tell her we will pay for the scratched area only which he thinks should cost around $100. The car is a 2002. I work with her and want to be fair, but does she really deserve to have her nearly 10 year old car bumper to be completely repainted at my expense??
A month ago I was following a coworker to an afternoon employee lunch retreat. We both stopped at a stop sign, her brake lights went off and she (I thought) had made her right turn to our destination. I looked to the left, a car was approaching but I had plenty of time to follow her, so I let my foot off the brake(I did NOT accelerate) turn my attention to the front of my car and then realized she had not turned (she did advance a few feet) I hit the brakes & thought WOW that was close!! I almost hit her!! We get to our intended destination and she get out and says I did in fact *hit* her bumper. I was very surprised, as I did not feel any impact whatsoever. After lunch I looked at the bumper and there was a scratch on top of it. I told her to take it in right away and get it looked at, she said "no it's fine, just a little scratch I will get a small bottle of touch up paint, that's all it needs, DON'T worry about it." Well fast forward to yesterday, she brings me an estimate to remove and repaint the entire bumper for $400.00. My husband says we should not have to pay for an entire bumper to be painted since it was only a 3" long pencil thin scratch. He told me to tell her we will pay for the scratched area only which he thinks should cost around $100. The car is a 2002. I work with her and want to be fair, but does she really deserve to have her nearly 10 year old car bumper to be completely repainted at my expense??