Recently my car was stolen, and I was woken up at 4am this morning by the police saying that they found my car, it was involved in an accident. So I asked if they caught the son of a bitch who did this, and they said yes they caught one of them. Now I was not insured so I am not covered by it (although it was a crappy 87 civic, no rims, no radio nothing, just a ride to work and to school on tue and thurs), im sure even if I did have insurance I would have gotten a few hundred for it anyhow...

Since they have apprehended the person who did this, can I legally sue them for their actions? Basically I would just want to get what I paid for the car and the repairs that I paid for on it so that I might be able to get another one.

So if any of you druids there are of the law reading book types, lemme know =0)

-Bartleby Windtalker

Not a lawyer, but a friend of mine was in almost exactly the same situation a few years back (few minor, irrelevant details were different).

They wrecked your car. They are liable for the damages. It doesn't matter how they came into possesion of it.

But, if you do sue them and win, your odds of actually collecting on the damages are very low unless the theives were a couple middle or upper class kids just out screwing around. And given the description of your car I think that is unlikely - joyriders tend to steal good cars.

Typical car thieves tend to have very little in the way of legaly accessable assets to take away from them in the case of a lawsuit.

Yep, not a lawyer but I believe the previous poster is correct. You can sue but if they have no assets/money you're wasting your time.