Co-worker hit my parked car at work, won't respond to my emails [closed]

manpreet Best Answer 2 years ago

Almost two months ago a co-worker of mine was leaving work for the day and backed into the side of my parked car. She realized her error and left a note with her name and number (I work for a large company and have never met her before).

I contacted her and we agreed that I'd get an estimate for how much the damage would cost to repair, and then I'd send the estimate to her. About a week later, I got the estimate (~$1150) and sent it to her via a text message and waited for her response. After a few days I hadn't heard anything, so I sent another text asking for a response. Another week went by and I hadn't heard anything, so I scanned the estimate and emailed it to her and asked for a response. Nothing. A few weeks later I sent another reminder email, but didn't hear anything from her.

What should I do next? She never gave me her insurance information, so I can't contact them. I want to involve HR next, but I don't know what they can/can't do. I thought about finding her desk at work and confronting her there (in a polite way, of course), but I don't know if that's wise or not. Any advice will be appreciated.

Update: Persistence paid off. She finally responded to my efforts to contact her. Turns out she was driving uninsured at the time, and her insurance denied the claim. My threats to take her to court eventually provided enough leverage to get her to agree to a monthly payment model. I made sure to explicitly define the terms of the payments (dates of payment, method of payment, amount, etc.). Took almost seven months, but the incident is finally resolved.

manpreet 2 years ago

Not sure what country you are referring to, but since you didn't alert the police when the accident happened, but rather entered into a verbal agreement that she would pay for the damage, you might have to contact a lawyer or take her to small claims court. The fact that she left you a note saying she damaged your car and you have text messages referring to her paying for the damages, a judge will likely rule in your favor.

Of course, you could also tell her that you are prepared to involve the court system and see if she responds to that.