SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY APPELLATE DIVISION DOCKET NO S

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- 0669

- 18 T3 NISSAN INFINITI LT,
Plaintiff

- Respondent,

v. NICOLE G. DEJESUS,
Defendant

- Appellant.

______________________________ SANTANDER CONSUMER USA , Plaintiff

- Respondent,

v. JULIE A. DENGLER,
Defendant

- Appellant.

______________________________ FINANCIAL SERVICES VEHICLE TRUST,
Plaintiff

- Respondent,

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION This opinion shall not "constitute precedent or be binding upon any court." Although it is posted on the internet , this opinion is binding only on the parties in the case and its use in other cases is limited. R. 1:36

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v. ROY G. WILKINSON,
Defendant

- Appellant.

____ __________________________ FINANCIAL SERVICES VEHICLE TRUST,
Plaintiff

- Respondent,

v. JORDAN P . FELD,
Defendant

- Appellant.

_____ ___________________________

Argued June 4 , 2019

– Decided June 18, 2019 Before Judges Fisher and Suter. On appeal from Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division, Camden County, Docket Nos. SC

- 001247

- 18, S C

- 001252

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- 00 1246

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- 00 1528

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. Timothy P. Smith argued the cause for appellants Nicole DeJesus, Julie A. Dengler, Ro y G. Wilkinson, and Jordan P. Feld (Kinney Lisovicz Reilly & Wolff PC, attorneys; Timothy P. Smith, of counsel and on the brief s ).
Kari B. Samuels argued the cause for respondents Nissan Infiniti LT, Santander Consumer US A and Fi nancial Services Vehicle Trust (Goldfein Claims Management, attorneys; Kari B. Samuels, on the brief s ).3 A

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PER CURIAM In these four appeals, which we conso lidated for dispos ition in a single opinion, we consider some of the same issues we previously rejected in Financial
Services Vehicle Trust v. Panter , 458 N.J. Super. 244 (App. Div. 2019). There,
we found that the owne r of a leased vehicle, which was damaged by a
defendant 's negligence, is entitled to pursue a claim for the vehic le's reduction in value caused by the stigma of having its accident history revealed in data bases
like CarFax. Id. at 249

- 50. Like the plaintiffs in Panter , plaintiffs here provided expert evidence to support their claims that even though the vehicles were restored to their pre

- accident function and condit ion, their resale value was reduced by their accident histories. In adhering to our prior decision, we
conclude that these damage claims were viable and that defendants' argu ments that the recovery is too speculative to be legally countenanced are without merit.
In each of these nonjury , small claim cases, the trial judge rendered judgments in favor of the vehicle owners on this diminution theory. In Santander Consumer USA v. Dengler , the judge found in favor of plaintiff on
this claim and entere d judgment in the amount of $950 . T he judge made simi lar rulings and entered judgments in the other three cases in f avor of plaintiffs in
simila r amounts

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In appealing these judgments, each defendant argue s that : (1) because the vehicle was restored to its pre

- accident appearance and conditio n, there could
be no further recovery ; and (2) plaintiff's expert was erroneously permitted to provide a net or personal op inion

. As noted, we expressed our view of the legal sufficiency of the identical diminution issue raised in Panter . For those reaso ns, we reject d efendants' similar argument s in these appeals.
In Panter , we also rejected arguments about the sufficiency of the expert testimony there offered

. Id. at 257

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. The simil ar arguments posed here are
in distinguishable and are rejected for the same reasons expressed in Panter

. A ll the other arguments posed by these defendants are of insufficient merit to warrant further discussion in a written opinion. R. 2:11

- 3(e)(1)(E). The judgments under review in these four appeals are affirmed.