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American Service Center Associates v. Helton2/3/2005
essary to restore the chattel to substantially its condition prior to injury, bounded by reasonableness, which is usually capped by reference to the first measure, i.e., gross diminution in value. See supra note 3. None of our decisions explicating these principles has specifically addressed the issue of whether damages are limited to the cost of repair when it can be shown that repair is insufficient to restore the property to its value before the injury. Our silence on an issue, however, should not be interpreted as a rejection. See Umana v. Swidler & Berlin, 669 A.2d 717, 720 (D.C. 1995) (quoting Webster v. Fall, 266 U.S. 507, 511 (1925) ("Questions which merely lurk in the record, neither brought to the attention of the court nor ruled upon, are not to be considered as having been so decided as to constitute precedents.")). There is nothing in the language of Knox, or any other precedent, that forecloses a complainant's recourse to residual diminution in value. That is the question before us: whether our law recognizes the availability of a remedy to compensate for residual diminution in value, i.e., the remaining reduction in value after repairs are made. We conclude that it does.
We begin with the proposition, acknowledged in Knox, that diminution in value is the "basic" rule for the measure of damages for injury to a chattel, thus suggesting that other relief may sometimes be appropriate. See 116 A.2d at 408. Where a plaintiff comes to court with the form of proof most naturally anticipated and readily accessible to a litigant, i.e., his or her repair estimate or bill, Knox recognized that "an alternative measure" of recovery may be the reasonable cost of repair. That recognition of the more likely proof of damages does not, however, preclude proof of diminution of value by other means.
The trial court concluded that, as a matter of law, residual diminution in worth cannot be awarded in conjunction with, or after the plaintiff already had received, the reasonable cost of repair. That conclusion, however, was based on application of the rule that recovery for gross diminution in value and recovery for the cost of repair are mutually exclusive. That rule clearly is not apt in the context of residual diminution.
The reason for the mutual exclusivity of damages to compensate for repair costs and gross diminution in value is that they overlap (the first being a component of the second), and to award both would overcompensate the plaintiff. Thus, the need for election of remedies.
"The purpose of the doctrine of election of remedies is not to prevent recourse to any remedy, but to prevent double redress for a single wrong." Dean v. Garland, 779 A.2d 911, 915 (D.C. 2001) (quoting Twin City Federal Savings & Loan Ass'n v. Transamerica Ins. Co., 491 F.2d 1122, 1125 (8th Cir. 1974)). A damage award comprising both gross diminution in value and the reasonable cost of repair therefore presents a classic example of the form of double redress prohibited by the doctrine of election of remedies. See DEWITT C. BLASHFIELD, 15 BLASHFIELD AUTOMOBILE LAW AND PRACTICE ยง 480.5, at 27 (4th ed. 2003) (explaining that a plaintiff may not recover the difference between the value of the injured vehicle immediately before and after the collision, in addition to the cost of repair necessary to restore the vehicle to its original condition, because a "motorist is not entitled to double compensation"). But whereas gross diminution in value subsumes the cost of repair, residual diminution in value does not duplicate the cost of repair because it is calculated based on a comparison of the value of the property before the injury and after repairs are made, i.e., excluding injury compensated
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