Tesla driver sues ICBC over claim girlfriend's door smashed a parked car

A BC man who took his girlfriend for coffee in his parents’ Tesla won back more than $1,000 from the Insurance Corporation of BC after disputing its finding that the woman smashed the car beside them when she opened her door.

The drama began when Denislav Ganev and his girlfriend, who was riding in the passenger seat, backed into a parking stall at a coffee shop on April 17, 2022. As the couple exited the shop with their drinks, another customer followed them out and accused the girlfriend of hitting their Mercedes with the Tesla’s door.

According to documents from the Civil Resolution Tribunal posted online, the couple was intimidated and apologized to the stranger, though neither admitted to damaging the Mercedes.

The other driver filed a claim with ICBC, which charged Ganev just over $1,000 to repair a scratch on the door.

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But Ganev, his girlfriend, and his parents, who owned the Tesla, were adamant the damage was pre-existing and not from their Tesla.

Civil Resolution Tribunal member Eric Regehr, who made a decision in the case, looked at all the available evidence before coming to a conclusion.

ICBC had measured the scratch on the Mercedes to be 16 inches off the ground, the same height as the Tesla’s door edge. An adjustor also apparently used the other driver’s allegation that Ganev’s girlfriend had admitted to hitting their car.

But there was no corresponding damage on the Tesla.

In appeals to ICBC, the Ganev family urged the insurance provider to check their Tesla in person to confirm there was no corresponding damage or paint transfer on the passenger door and to sample the paint from their vehicle to determine it wasn’t a match to the transferred paint on the Mercedes.

Regehr determined that the presence of a scratch at the Tesla’s door height alone wasn’t enough to determine that the girlfriend had hit the car. He said the absence of a corresponding ding or paint transfer on Ganev’s Tesla indicated that the balance of probabilities was that the damage was pre-existing.

The Civil Resolution Tribunal disagreed with ICBC’s determination and forced the insurer to pay the family back the $1,000 in repair fees and reimburse them $125 for fees spent pursuing the matter in court.