It seems that there is no easy way to place an element using the api. But we can easily copy the repeating detail using CopyElements from one view to the next.
My suggestion: Create a repeating detail element manually and keep it some where in document. Use that to create new ones.
Use the following api or overloaded versions of it
ElementTransformUtils.CopyElements(refLegendView, list, newView, null, null);