On Friday night I went to pick up a friend who lives in a gated apartment complex. As we were leaving, the gate was open and there was a line of about three cars outside of it. I drove through the open gate, but the last 1/4 of my car was sitting on the track.

I said to my friend: "That gate better not close on me."

About a minute or so passed and god dammit, the mother freaking thing did. I heard a nice "crruunch" noise and then after it bashed into my car, it receded back. I told my buddy to look outside for signs of damage, and he said he saw/felt none. I later looked at it as well, however because it was night and we were looking at the wrong spot (the gate hit a different part than we thought it hit) we didn't notice any damage. I noticed it a few days ago during the day and I've been trying to talk to the Apartment landlord in person, but they took July 4th off and I haven't had a chance to meet with them earlier.

Tomorrow, I'm going to find a place to get a quote on the dent (it took off some paint and made a nice crease, effectively ruining the Z's sexiness there). Then, I'm going to go the apartment office and tell them what happened and see if they are willing to cover it. If not, I'm going to take it to small claims.

How do you guys think I will fair over at small claims? There are no signs warning of how the gate acts, and it remained open for awhile before it decided to dent my Z. My main argument will entail that there are no signs warning that the gate acts this way and with my friend as a witness he'll testify that the gate remained open for awhile before it closed on my vehicle.

I hope the small claims process doesn't take too long - by August 25th I'm going to be moving out of state.

 

I assume you crossed the gate after the 3 cars? If so I doubt you'll have a good case.
"the general rule is the gate is timed for one car at a time" -- judge in a similar case my friend had.

 

I think you'll make out better filing a claim with your insurance co under your comprehensive coverage.

No, there is no deductible under the comprehensive coverage.

bill

 

The obvious (no pun intended) question would be - why did you stradle the gate track for 'about a minute or so'?

If you were in motion, then that's either a quick-*** gate or you were trying to beat the gate...?

Maybe there's a part of the story here that I'm not understanding?

 

Yea, the three cars were waiting ahead for the intersection light. I'm going to see if I can get the landlord to do something but yea I'm more leaning towards just filing it with my comprehensive insurance.

 

do the insurance thing. dont waste money on small claims court. it is not their fault that you were in the track of the gate. you should have waited inside the gate instead. i value my Z alot and i think ahead. my gate in my apartment stays open if it senses a car in the path of it. i still wont take that chance.

 

+1

 

Gate shouldn't close like that if there's a car underneath.

 

Why were you sitting under the gate to begin with? Thats like sitting in a railroad crossing during a traffic light, and *****ing when the train smashes your car.

 

You have to prove that the gate malfunctioned

or

that the owner did not take reasonable care operating the gate.

 

What if it were railroad tracks and a train was coming? Would you stop on the tracks because everyone in front of you stopped, and then sue the railroad because you got smashed into a million pieces? Hmm.... not very likely.

Don't get me wrong I'm not trying to be a jerk, but this sounds more self inflicted than it was the apartments fault. I probably wouldnt stay stopped in the middle of an automatic gate like that, but that's just me.

I've had NOTHING but bad luck with apartment complexes. The people there could care less about your belongings (your car). The owners of apartments suck. The mountains for speed bumps suck. The tiny parking places suck. The door dings suck. The dogs on leashes pissing on your car while the owner pretends he doesn't notice sucks. Of course these are all generalizations from my experiences, oh well.

If you are within 500ft of an apartment complex, I don't care what you're doing, BE VERY WEARY.

 

There's only no deductible on comprehensive if you have that on your policy. It's not like that's a certainty or even the norm.

 

Good luck with that

 

You copied my analogy

 

I'm a real estate broker and if you file anything with the landlord you will probably be the one getting the bill for messing up his gate!!! That being said, this is why you pay for insurance, if it bothers you that much have them pay for it, it's what they are there for. Now if it had hit YOUR PERSON, and injured your person, you could sue him for damages but even then that would be questionable. Last time i checked those gates dont just move all that fast. Good luck, I wouldnt waste your time with the owner, you wont get anywhere.

 

this is when your screenname should kick in and tell you something.

guess not.

 

you beat me to it camaro...

it's the exact same principle... you wouldn't pull forward over railroad tracks unless you were absolutely positive that you had enough clearance to NOT be on the tracks...

IMO in small claims...100% your fault... even if the gate gave sufficient warning... there stood a good chance that the traffic would still be in the same place... therefore you would have STILL got hit...

I know it sucks... i accidentally backed up into my mom's truck bumper... 100% my fault... it'd be best to just get your INS. to cover it... that's why we buy it anyway...

 

Doh, my bad. I should have read every reply. Good analogy.