Money Moral Dilemma: You broke it, would you pay to fix it?

sohurt

I can't beleive some people are saying they wouldn't pay?!

If you were sitting minding your own business at traffic lights and someone smashed into your car, you would expect them to pay.

If you left your car in a supermarket carpark and witnessed someone scraping it, you would want that someone to pay.

Likewise, if someone spilt a drink on your new suede coat or whatever, you would expect them to pay for drycleaning (which was actually a thread on here somewhere).

I would be absolutely livid if someone spilt coffee all over my laptop then said sorry and walked away - they would have no hair left on their scalp I can tell you that much! lol

janey_uk

This is a really tricky one, as accidents do happen, and it is not your decision for someone to bring potentially £1000+ worth of equipment into a restaurant.

Ultimately I think you should have insurance if you want to take such expensive things out and about. The regular person in the street shouldn't have to budget for insuring other people's fancy expensive items!

If the shoe were on the other foot, I don't think I would be able to live with myself forcing someone with little money (or kids to support etc) to replace my expensive toy that I chose not to insure.

[Deleted User]

I'm sat in Cafe Nero, browsing the MSE site on my laptop.. suddenly, a clumsy fool trips and throws coffee over my fancy laptop.. who's responsibility is it? it's either a) the person who tripped or b) the person who left an item out that tripped someone up. Since in this moral question, the person in parts a and b are both the same, they've got full responsibility for the accident.

Let's swap this situation around a bit, and put a baby's pram in the place of the laptop. How many of you would do a runner now? Is it partially my fault because i brought a child into a coffee shop, or yours for being a clumsy oaf?

toadhall

i would pay but might have to do installments, anyway if the person has a laptop surely thye have insurance

kingkano

Sooler wrote: »

Absolutely not, they chose to use their laptop in a shop where people go to buy hot coffee so they accept the associated risks of doing so. Such risks of someone tripping and spilling hot coffee.

They'd have to take it up with McDonalds as they supplied the wireless internet connection so they invited the person to use their laptop. I'd suspect McDonalds would have use at your own risk clause.

If you accepted responsibility for repaitring the laptop where would it end, they'd want you to pay for the lost data - don't go there - nip it in the bud. NO.

What a ridiculous statement. By that token if I run you down while your crossing the road I could say - what are you doing crossing the road where you know there are fast dangerous cars. There was a risk of you being run over and you chose to cross anyway so accepting that risk. By your statement I get off scott free and you should instead sue the council who didnt fence the road off???

Unfortunately we live in a society were I think alot of people would just run off, maybe not even apologising, as you dry yourself off. Let alone the laptop. People just (mostly) don't care anymore

If it were me I would of course pay. Through gritted teeth lol. Cursing my bad luck. But what goes around comes around eh.

Dorrie

Pay - it is your fault, and stupidity for leaving a bag on the floor.

RabbitMad

Why should somebody have to claim on their insurance if they have it and have all future premiums increased?

Even if they did wouldn't the insurance company try to reclaim the money of the clumsy fool who spilt the coffee.

If I was the clumsy fool I would accept responsibilty and weigh up the cost of claiming on my insurance or paying myself.

NafUk

The people who say the computer owner should or would have insurance are just passing the buck and asking the rest of us to pay for their mistake in the form of higher insurance premiums. Why should someone take out insurance to cover the cost of other peoples clumsiness and/or stupidity.

If a plumber or a checkout assistant overcharged you etc. and you found out at a later date, would you be happy upon confronting them with the reply, "sorry, it was just a mistake". No, you would want your money back.

Phantom1200

There's a particular issue that the dilemma raises. When I was growing up accidents happened. These days, someone must be at fault and compensation is expected.

There are two points that I'd like to make.

To the user of the laptop. When using a laptop away from your home and workplace there are a number of risks you need to consider. Theft, accidents (as in this case), someone shoulder-surfing and looking at what you're doing, etc. You must consider these risks and mitigate against them. In this case you should have sufficient insurance to cover the damage to laptop. Also, it would be a good idea to have backed up the information regularly too. Anyone who fails to consider the risks adequately should accept that part of cost of rectifying a problem (such as this) lies with them.

To the person who tripped. Accept no liablity immediately. While in this case you tripped over your own bag, you could easily have slipped on a wet floor, tripped on a raised floor tile, etc. No good accepting liability for someone else's problem. If you feel you were at fault, then apologise, discuss the problem - can a repair be made? is the item insured? etc. Then offer to make a contribution. Offer no more than you can reasonably afford or enough to cover the insurance excess.

One other point. It's a good idea to get legal cover on your home insurance policy so you can get sound advice in the event that laptop man decides to resort to the courts.

Phantom1200

NafUk wrote: »

The people who say the computer owner should or would have insurance are just passing the buck and asking the rest of us to pay for their mistake in the form of higher insurance premiums. Why should someone take out insurance to cover the cost of other peoples clumsiness and/or stupidity.

If a plumber or a checkout assistant overcharged you etc. and you found out at a later date, would you be happy upon confronting them with the reply, "sorry, it was just a mistake". No, you would want your money back.

Sorry, I must step in here.

What the hell is insurance for. It's to allow you to cover the costs of rectifying problems that you cannot afford to meet directly yourself. The increased premium is in part a measure of the risks that you take with the laptop. i.e. using a laptop (regularly no doubt) in a place that that sells hot liquids and then having to make a claim.

Our clumsy chum cannot be expected to compensate laptop man with money that he doesn't have. He is not insured. He is an uninsured risk, the reason laptop man takes insurance out in the first place.