Porsche judgment
In legal literature, the “ Porsche judgment ” refers to the judgment of the Federal Court of Justice of April 29, 2003 on file number VI ZR 398/02.
The Federal Court of Justice overturned a decision of the Hagen Regional Court of October 11, 2002 and awarded the plaintiff full compensation. The background to the Porsche ruling is the different options for asserting claims for damages after traffic accidents .
Damage settlement in the event of repairs
As a rule, the injured party whose motor vehicle was affected in a traffic accident will have it completely repaired by a specialist workshop. The expenses required for this (repair costs, costs for a replacement vehicle, etc.) are to be reimbursed by the injuring party or his liability insurer. The damage claims of the injured party from a traffic accident also include a flat-rate expense allowance with which the injured party is paid for postage and telephone costs, which are currently usually estimated at € 25.00, as well as the costs, which through the involvement of a lawyer with the claims settlement against the liability insurer. These costs are also to be reimbursed by the liability insurance of the injuring party.
Fictitious claims settlement
In addition to the damage settlement through complete repairs of the motor vehicle, there was and is also the possibility of settling on the basis of a motor vehicle expert's report drawn up on the amount of damage. In this fictitious claim settlement, the question of whether the injured party's motor vehicle will be repaired or not remains out of consideration.
Even in the case of the fictitious claim settlement, the injured party has similar claims for compensation as in the case of repairs. However, since he is not deprived of the possibility of using the damaged motor vehicle, as it does not remain in the workshop for the duration of the repair, he is not entitled to reimbursement of rental car costs or compensation for loss of use. Furthermore, the VAT not incurred as a damage item is omitted for repairs that have not been carried out , since this was not incurred.
The injured party can therefore invoice the liability insurer on the basis of the net repair costs. This value is shown separately by the motor vehicle expert in the report.
The judgment
Up until the “Porsche judgment”, it was controversial in the case law whether the injured party was allowed to use the costs for a brand-specific specialist workshop even with a fictitious billing.
The hourly rates of the branded authorized workshops are usually higher than the average of the local hourly rates of independent workshops.
The liability insurers had therefore argued that in the case of a fictitious claim settlement, the injured party, as he does not benefit from the possibly existing advantages of a brand-specific contract workshop, as he does not have the vehicle repaired, could not settle on the basis of the hourly rates of brand-specific contract workshops, but on the have to refer lower hourly rates to independent workshops. The Federal Court of Justice did not follow this opinion, which the appellate court leaned towards, in the Porsche ruling (it concerned a Porsche 968 convertible).
Up until this ruling, it was often the case in the past that (especially by experts from DEKRA ) when assessing the damage, the repair costs were not calculated using the prices of brand-specific authorized workshops, but rather on the basis of "average local hourly rates". The Federal Court of Justice decided that the victim of the accident need not be referred to this.
This now consolidated case law, which the Federal Court of Justice has confirmed in numerous other decisions - most recently with decisions VI ZR 53/09 of October 20, 2009 (though slightly modified) and VI ZR 337/09 of June 22, 2010 - is still valid today not yet respected by all liability insurers.
