I will relay this story as briefly as possible.
I was walking outside today, on the walkway by my driveway mind you. Suddenly a car pulls up at high speed into my drive way and is deliberately heading right for me. It is slanted to intentionally come at me. I have no choice but to jump out of the way which causes me excruciating pain, because my ankle is badly sprained. In this fear and pain, I go into fight or flight mode. In a split second decision, I realize I have to disable the driver as flight is impossible. I go into rage mode. I bash the car’s passenger window in, unlock/open the door, and begin entering the car and grabbing the man. I am broken out of my tunnel vision to find it to be my dumbass roommate yelling at the top of his lungs at me.
Eventually yelling subsides and he admits that apparently he was trying to play a joke on me by making me have to jump out of the way of his car. He is pissed that I overreacted by breaking his window in to enter his car and then beginning to physically incapacitate him. However, he admits that his expectation was for me to be pissed off and then laugh it off or something. He stupidly forgot (maybe?) that my ankle is sprained. I helped him clean up the mess and offered to duct tape and plastic wrap it up. He refused and insists I owe him a new window.
Do I owe this guy a window?
I’ve thought this over, and I don’t think so. I wasn’t angry at the guy, it was purely a self-defensive maneuver. After I realized it was him, I apologized and helped him clean up. However, it is not due to my own negligence nor has it ever been my intent to damage his car. I harbor no ill will to him. At the same time, this action was only precipitated by his intent to piss me off and make me hop out of the way, and his negligence in forgetting my ankle was jacked up.
Had he not tried to fool me into thinking he would hit me with his car, I never would have come to harm his vehicle. He brought this event onto himself, end of story.
I am not trying to be a selfish prick here, but from my POV, the only one who acted with malicious intent (to frighten) and negligence (forgetting I was injured) was him. He had his window broken due to my self defense, I was inflicted a great deal of physical pain due to his prank which caused an aggressive reaction. I owe him nothing, if not a swift kick in the ass.
Do you think my view is correct?
Some background below
He is a roommate of 1 year and 2 months, we just moved out of our old apartment and I got a new house with some friends. I am letting him stay with us for a month (plus a little more if he needs it) because he is strapped for funds and needs to save up before he moves somewhere else closer to his work.
I am renting him a room at 60% rate to help him out.
I sprained my ankle very bad at a Halloween party from an idiotic accident. He is aware that I am injured, and lent me his ankle brace to recover. Indicating he is aware.
We’ve lived together had our ups and downs but I have been very supportive and helpful to him (hence why I am letting him stay with me now). He hasn’t really reciprocated as much as I’d like but I think the right thing to do is to help people if you can.