Yeah and it works the other way sometimes too. My wife’s car had one of those flatbed delivery trucks back into her car and just peel the whole driver’s side open like a can opener. I mean it literally looked like wolverine took a single claw down the entire side. I thought for sure they’d total it. But because it had so few miles on it even though it was still an 8 year old car they just fixed it because it was worth more than the 75% cost of repairs limit. I think the total repair bill was like 10k.
it still looks drivable, how can something that runs, stops, and doesn’t leak fluids too badly be totaled? Nobody should care how a truck looks, replace the front bumper with some plastic tubs zip-tied on and replace the radiator if it leaks. the only real issue I could see is if the steering is messed up.
It’s a slam dunk case. Judges are famous for being easily swayed by frivolous semantic arguments from non-lawyers. It’s kind of like that old sci-fi trope of AIs being defeated when the hero states a logical paradox.