Govt compo for drug dealer involved in crash. wee warmer
Discussion
Briefly but lunatics charge asylum.
Two bods go for a blast in Merc 500SL. After a spectacular piece of bad driving scrote 1 bins it. Both have to be cut out by Trumpton.
Scrote 1 found to have a wedge of cannabis in his sock. Scrote 2, severely injured has near enough a quarter of a kilogram of cannabis in his jacket.
Scrote 1 must have been uninsured as scrote 2 applies to MIB for compo. He is refused on grounds of a UK ban on compensation for victims knowingly engaged in crime.
Fought out in court and now Dept for Transport ordered to pay the compensation on grounds that the ban contravenes some Brussels directive.
DfT refused leave to appeal. Ordered to pay immediate 138 k as first instalment of legal costs likely to be over a quarter of a million.
The compensation is yet to be determined but considering this scum is now in need of lifetime care is likely to be a multi million award.
Just what the fuddering juck is going on here.
Warning of boiling piss.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-ord...
Two bods go for a blast in Merc 500SL. After a spectacular piece of bad driving scrote 1 bins it. Both have to be cut out by Trumpton.
Scrote 1 found to have a wedge of cannabis in his sock. Scrote 2, severely injured has near enough a quarter of a kilogram of cannabis in his jacket.
Scrote 1 must have been uninsured as scrote 2 applies to MIB for compo. He is refused on grounds of a UK ban on compensation for victims knowingly engaged in crime.
Fought out in court and now Dept for Transport ordered to pay the compensation on grounds that the ban contravenes some Brussels directive.
DfT refused leave to appeal. Ordered to pay immediate 138 k as first instalment of legal costs likely to be over a quarter of a million.
The compensation is yet to be determined but considering this scum is now in need of lifetime care is likely to be a multi million award.
Just what the fuddering juck is going on here.
Warning of boiling piss.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-ord...
Your eldest child smokes a bit of weed at university. He gets into his dealers car to score and off they drive around the block.. Whilst doing so the dealers car gets rear ended by an uninsured driver. Your son is crippled for life, requiring hugely costly care. The MIB refuses to pay out due to the 'crime'. That'd boil my piss...
FiF said:
Scrote 1 must have been uninsured as scrote 2 applies to MIB for compo.
A quick google suggests that it's nowhere NEAR as simple as that article makes it appear.http://www.newlawjournal.co.uk/nlj/content/trial-e...
(half way down the page)
The car was owned and insured under a trade policy by the driver's father, a used car dealer. The insurer voided the policy because of "material non-disclosure of fact". That article suggests that the insurer should have still been held liable, and the whole appeal decision was wrong...
User33678888 said:
Your eldest child smokes a bit of weed at university. He gets into his dealers car to score and off they drive around the block.. Whilst doing so the dealers car gets rear ended by an uninsured driver. Your son is crippled for life, requiring hugely costly care. The MIB refuses to pay out due to the 'crime'. That'd boil my piss...
Score a quarter of a kilo. Personal use obviously. Pah.
Thanks to 2cv for the link. Suspected it wasn't as straightforward as the article suggested. Edited content subscription only stuff that.
Edited by FiF on Monday 9th March 15:28
FiF said:
Briefly but lunatics charge asylum.
Two bods go for a blast in Merc 500SL. After a spectacular piece of bad driving scrote 1 bins it. Both have to be cut out by Trumpton.
Scrote 1 found to have a wedge of cannabis in his sock. Scrote 2, severely injured has near enough a quarter of a kilogram of cannabis in his jacket.
Scrote 1 must have been uninsured as scrote 2 applies to MIB for compo. He is refused on grounds of a UK ban on compensation for victims knowingly engaged in crime.
Fought out in court and now Dept for Transport ordered to pay the compensation on grounds that the ban contravenes some Brussels directive.
DfT refused leave to appeal. Ordered to pay immediate 138 k as first instalment of legal costs likely to be over a quarter of a million.
The compensation is yet to be determined but considering this scum is now in need of lifetime care is likely to be a multi million award.
Just what the fuddering juck is going on here.
Warning of boiling piss.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-ord...
Beautifully put as usual FiF. I know, you couldn't make it up, could you. Common sense has been genetically programmed out of the human race slowly but surely. We need a revolution with burning at the stake and guillotines, etc. It's the only way to be sure!Two bods go for a blast in Merc 500SL. After a spectacular piece of bad driving scrote 1 bins it. Both have to be cut out by Trumpton.
Scrote 1 found to have a wedge of cannabis in his sock. Scrote 2, severely injured has near enough a quarter of a kilogram of cannabis in his jacket.
Scrote 1 must have been uninsured as scrote 2 applies to MIB for compo. He is refused on grounds of a UK ban on compensation for victims knowingly engaged in crime.
Fought out in court and now Dept for Transport ordered to pay the compensation on grounds that the ban contravenes some Brussels directive.
DfT refused leave to appeal. Ordered to pay immediate 138 k as first instalment of legal costs likely to be over a quarter of a million.
The compensation is yet to be determined but considering this scum is now in need of lifetime care is likely to be a multi million award.
Just what the fuddering juck is going on here.
Warning of boiling piss.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-ord...
J
FiF said:
Edited content subscription only stuff that.
How very odd. It allowed me to read the page when I followed Google's link to the article.Google for "sean delaney shane picketts mercedes mib", and it's the seventh result down.
New Law Journal said:
The Delaney v Pickett appeal
The second appeal, Delaney v Pickett [2011] EWCA Civ 1532, [2011] All ER (D) 201 (Dec) features two rather unsavoury individuals: the claimant, Sean Delaney, was a passenger in a Mercedes 500 SL driven by his acquaintance, Shane Pickett. Both were seriously injured in a head-on collision with a van. It was common ground that the collision was caused by Pickett’s reckless driving. The Mercedes was owned and insured by Pickett’s father, a second-hand car dealer. The contractual insurers were Tradewise Insurance Services Ltd.
Medics attending the accident scene discovered that both Delaney and Pickett were in possession of a large quantity of cannabis. Pickett later confessed to being a habitual cannabis user and was convicted of dangerous driving and of being in possession of illegal substances. Delaney, who was seriously injured, claimed to have no recollection of events. He was not prosecuted.
On learning of Pickett’s confession, the insurers successfully applied for a declaration that they were entitled to avoid the policy on the grounds of material non-disclosure of fact. The potential implications of this for Delaney were grave for, as we have seen, RTA 1988 is clear in stating that no sum is payable under s 151 where an insurer has obtained declaration under s 152(2).
Delaney later sued Pickett in negligence. Tradewise were joined as a defendant.
The first instance decision of Gregory J was surprising. He held that the claim failed for two separate reasons:
First, he held that Pickett was not liable to compensate Delaney anyway. This he justified on public policy grounds due to the operation of the maxim ex turpi causa non oritur actio.
Furthermore he opined, even if Pickett had been liable to Delaney, Tradewise would have been entitled to avoid their liability to indemnify him, because they were entitled to rely on the exclusion of liability conferred on the MIB under cl 6(1)(e)(iii) of the 1999 Agreement. This clause expressly seeks to exclude the MIB from liability in an uninsured driver claim to compensate a passenger who knows or believes that the vehicle is being used in the course of or furtherance of a crime.
The judge’s assumption that the 1999 Agreement is relevant to this case disregards the fact that, at the date of the accident, Pickett’s vehicle was covered by a third party motor insurance policy. The MIB’s 1999 Agreement only applies where there is no insurance cover at all. Furthermore, we have seen from Wilkinson above that Recital 15 of the Sixth Motor Insurance Directive requires that the exclusion clauses should be restricted to the relationship between the insurer and the person responsible for the accident. This finding also ignores Arts 12 and 13 of the Sixth Motor Insurance Directive which confer a special degree of insurance protection on passengers. The Directive only permits one exception to this protection: where an insurer can prove that the passenger knew that the vehicle had been stolen (see Art 13(1) of the Sixth Motor Insurance Directive 2009/103/EC, adapted from the Second Motor Insurance Directive 84/5/EEC).
Although the Court of Appeal (Ward LJ dissenting) agreed that both Pickett and Delaney were engaged in a crime at the time of the accident, they were unanimous in upholding the appeal against the ex turpi causa finding. The proper use of such a defence is confined to an illegality that is causative of the loss, as opposed to being merely incidental to it. The cause of the accident was P’s dangerous driving, not the illegal object of the journey. This distinction is well illustrated by Pitts v Hunt [1991] 1 QB 24, [1990] 3 All ER 344.
That left the second limb of the appeal to be determined. Was Tradewise liable to compensate Delaney?
If the first instance decision was surprising, then the Court of Appeal’s decision on this issue is equally so. It treated the claim as though it were an uninsured driver claim under the 1999 Agreement and then compounded its error by mistakenly concluding that cl 6(1)(e)(iii) was a valid exclusion, when it clearly falls outside the limited exclusions permitted by the European Motor Insurance Directives, even for an uninsured driver claim.
The result is a hopelessly flawed decision and a finding that is per incuriam.
It seems that neither the trial judge nor the three Lords Justices of Appeal gave proper consideration to the relevant provisions of the European Motor Insurance Directives and the extensive European jurisprudence on interpreting national law in the light of relevant Community Law. The elephant in the courtroom in June 2011, when the Delaney appeal was heard, was the Court of Appeal’s lucid ruling in Wilkinson published back in May 2010. Wilkinson is not mentioned in the judgment.
Implicit in the Delaney judgment is the assumption that a statutory insurer can somehow arrogate to itself the highly advantageous procedural and substantive benefits conferred on the MIB by the secretary of state for transport within the 1999 Agreement. Tradewise, in keeping with many statutory insurers, relied on a private inter-insurer agreement. This anomalous agreement happens to be hidden away in the MIB’s constitution in Art 75 of the MIB’s Articles of Association. The precise legal provenance of this longstanding arrangement was neither examined nor explained, possibly for the sound reason that it is unsustainable against a third party claimant not just at common law, as there is no privity of contract, but perhaps even more significantly, it flies in the face of the Motor Insurance Directives.
What the Delaney and Wilkinson appeals demonstrate so clearly is that the compensatory safeguards provided to victims of road accidents under our national law are inadequate. They are arcane and difficult to decipher, contrary to European law and thus in need of urgent revision. In the meantime, for those practicing in this field without a firm grasp of these issues, it remains an area of potential exposure to professional negligence claims. It is a startling fact that by January next year all three Motor Insurance Directives should have been implemented in full for 20 years.
No, I don't even begin to understand three quarters of it, either.The second appeal, Delaney v Pickett [2011] EWCA Civ 1532, [2011] All ER (D) 201 (Dec) features two rather unsavoury individuals: the claimant, Sean Delaney, was a passenger in a Mercedes 500 SL driven by his acquaintance, Shane Pickett. Both were seriously injured in a head-on collision with a van. It was common ground that the collision was caused by Pickett’s reckless driving. The Mercedes was owned and insured by Pickett’s father, a second-hand car dealer. The contractual insurers were Tradewise Insurance Services Ltd.
Medics attending the accident scene discovered that both Delaney and Pickett were in possession of a large quantity of cannabis. Pickett later confessed to being a habitual cannabis user and was convicted of dangerous driving and of being in possession of illegal substances. Delaney, who was seriously injured, claimed to have no recollection of events. He was not prosecuted.
On learning of Pickett’s confession, the insurers successfully applied for a declaration that they were entitled to avoid the policy on the grounds of material non-disclosure of fact. The potential implications of this for Delaney were grave for, as we have seen, RTA 1988 is clear in stating that no sum is payable under s 151 where an insurer has obtained declaration under s 152(2).
Delaney later sued Pickett in negligence. Tradewise were joined as a defendant.
The first instance decision of Gregory J was surprising. He held that the claim failed for two separate reasons:
First, he held that Pickett was not liable to compensate Delaney anyway. This he justified on public policy grounds due to the operation of the maxim ex turpi causa non oritur actio.
Furthermore he opined, even if Pickett had been liable to Delaney, Tradewise would have been entitled to avoid their liability to indemnify him, because they were entitled to rely on the exclusion of liability conferred on the MIB under cl 6(1)(e)(iii) of the 1999 Agreement. This clause expressly seeks to exclude the MIB from liability in an uninsured driver claim to compensate a passenger who knows or believes that the vehicle is being used in the course of or furtherance of a crime.
The judge’s assumption that the 1999 Agreement is relevant to this case disregards the fact that, at the date of the accident, Pickett’s vehicle was covered by a third party motor insurance policy. The MIB’s 1999 Agreement only applies where there is no insurance cover at all. Furthermore, we have seen from Wilkinson above that Recital 15 of the Sixth Motor Insurance Directive requires that the exclusion clauses should be restricted to the relationship between the insurer and the person responsible for the accident. This finding also ignores Arts 12 and 13 of the Sixth Motor Insurance Directive which confer a special degree of insurance protection on passengers. The Directive only permits one exception to this protection: where an insurer can prove that the passenger knew that the vehicle had been stolen (see Art 13(1) of the Sixth Motor Insurance Directive 2009/103/EC, adapted from the Second Motor Insurance Directive 84/5/EEC).
Although the Court of Appeal (Ward LJ dissenting) agreed that both Pickett and Delaney were engaged in a crime at the time of the accident, they were unanimous in upholding the appeal against the ex turpi causa finding. The proper use of such a defence is confined to an illegality that is causative of the loss, as opposed to being merely incidental to it. The cause of the accident was P’s dangerous driving, not the illegal object of the journey. This distinction is well illustrated by Pitts v Hunt [1991] 1 QB 24, [1990] 3 All ER 344.
That left the second limb of the appeal to be determined. Was Tradewise liable to compensate Delaney?
If the first instance decision was surprising, then the Court of Appeal’s decision on this issue is equally so. It treated the claim as though it were an uninsured driver claim under the 1999 Agreement and then compounded its error by mistakenly concluding that cl 6(1)(e)(iii) was a valid exclusion, when it clearly falls outside the limited exclusions permitted by the European Motor Insurance Directives, even for an uninsured driver claim.
The result is a hopelessly flawed decision and a finding that is per incuriam.
It seems that neither the trial judge nor the three Lords Justices of Appeal gave proper consideration to the relevant provisions of the European Motor Insurance Directives and the extensive European jurisprudence on interpreting national law in the light of relevant Community Law. The elephant in the courtroom in June 2011, when the Delaney appeal was heard, was the Court of Appeal’s lucid ruling in Wilkinson published back in May 2010. Wilkinson is not mentioned in the judgment.
Implicit in the Delaney judgment is the assumption that a statutory insurer can somehow arrogate to itself the highly advantageous procedural and substantive benefits conferred on the MIB by the secretary of state for transport within the 1999 Agreement. Tradewise, in keeping with many statutory insurers, relied on a private inter-insurer agreement. This anomalous agreement happens to be hidden away in the MIB’s constitution in Art 75 of the MIB’s Articles of Association. The precise legal provenance of this longstanding arrangement was neither examined nor explained, possibly for the sound reason that it is unsustainable against a third party claimant not just at common law, as there is no privity of contract, but perhaps even more significantly, it flies in the face of the Motor Insurance Directives.
What the Delaney and Wilkinson appeals demonstrate so clearly is that the compensatory safeguards provided to victims of road accidents under our national law are inadequate. They are arcane and difficult to decipher, contrary to European law and thus in need of urgent revision. In the meantime, for those practicing in this field without a firm grasp of these issues, it remains an area of potential exposure to professional negligence claims. It is a startling fact that by January next year all three Motor Insurance Directives should have been implemented in full for 20 years.
FiF said:
User33678888 said:
Your eldest child smokes a bit of weed at university. He gets into his dealers car to score and off they drive around the block.. Whilst doing so the dealers car gets rear ended by an uninsured driver. Your son is crippled for life, requiring hugely costly care. The MIB refuses to pay out due to the 'crime'. That'd boil my piss...
Score a quarter of a kilo. Personal use obviously. Pah.
Edited by User33678888 on Monday 9th March 16:01
User33678888 said:
That's something for the police. This was the MIB and insurer trying to find any excuse to wriggle out of paying up. Should payouts be refused when a car is speeding slightly? Speeding is crime.
Speeding is an offence. Drug possession is a crime.Edited by User33678888 on Monday 9th March 16:01
jith said:
Beautifully put as usual FiF. I know, you couldn't make it up, could you. Common sense has been genetically programmed out of the human race slowly but surely. We need a revolution with burning at the stake and guillotines, etc. It's the only way to be sure!
J
I don't think that people need to fear the Police being routinely armed, even though it isn't going to happen, they need to fear people like you ever being in charge. J
What appears to be the full transcript of the judgement...
http://www.monckton.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06...
It appears to be that the MIB act on behalf of the DfT.
Loon? Translation services...?
http://www.monckton.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06...
It appears to be that the MIB act on behalf of the DfT.
Loon? Translation services...?
Another question for Loon is how the hell have Tradewise successfully voided the policy from inception for a material non disclosure. Apparently this non disclosure was the fact that the Defendant was dependent on herbal cannabis. From all of the insurance policy forms that I've completed in my 17 years of driving, I have never seen a specific question asking about health, long term drug use legal or otherwise or drug dependency. Surely if the question is never asked, how can there be a material non disclusure?
In my view, Tradewise should have dealt with the claim as Insurer concerned and not voided the policy.
In my view, Tradewise should have dealt with the claim as Insurer concerned and not voided the policy.
Driver did not declare his diabetes either. Surely that's grounds?
So it appears that, in short, because the Government didn't enact some part of an EU directive it/we have to pay up. Original circumstances of the situation largely irrelevant.
Because there is no "FFS that's just taking the piss " clause in UK law, despite the judge acknowledging the probable public reaction, then we still have to pay up.
For all we know the bloke is a PHer, not that that alters things.
So it appears that, in short, because the Government didn't enact some part of an EU directive it/we have to pay up. Original circumstances of the situation largely irrelevant.
Because there is no "FFS that's just taking the piss " clause in UK law, despite the judge acknowledging the probable public reaction, then we still have to pay up.
For all we know the bloke is a PHer, not that that alters things.
TooMany2cvs said:
What appears to be the full transcript of the judgement...
http://www.monckton.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06...
It appears to be that the MIB act on behalf of the DfT.
Loon? Translation services...?
I'll have a look tomorrow. Could do without that new "username 283647382928374647839201" posting up a load of wibble garbage though. http://www.monckton.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06...
It appears to be that the MIB act on behalf of the DfT.
Loon? Translation services...?
User33678888 said:
Your eldest child smokes a bit of weed at university. He gets into his dealers car to score and off they drive around the block.. Whilst doing so the dealers car gets rear ended by an uninsured driver. Your son is crippled for life, requiring hugely costly care. The MIB refuses to pay out due to the 'crime'. That'd boil my piss...
Interesting point. On a similar tack, there was some discussion on women that had been raped on the Today programme on Radio 4 a few weeks ago. As they'd previously been involved in crime any compensation they got from being raped was reduced.
It's barking.
What next? 'You've been caught speeding twice so we'll deduct a percentage from your compensation'?
In summary what this is about is as follows:
European law requires insurance companies to pay out in a number of situations where they are entitled to avoid the policy. The reason for this is to prevent accident casualties going uncompensated.
The passenger in this accident should have been compensated by the insurer. However the first and appeal courts both seem to have got this wrong. Perhaps the passenger's case was poorly argued. It seems a number of points that the passenger should have made were not referred to in the judgment. From the reference in the article to professional negligence I sense that was the case here.
The MIB is the insurer of last resort. It is funded by a levy on all motor policies to provide compensation to accident casualties where there is no insurer required to pay (policy issues notwithstanding). There was an insurer required to pay here, so MIB should not have been involved.
The insurance directives are something of a minefield. A recent European Court case has highlighted that the UK has not properly implemented the requirements for insurance cover for motor vehicles, which should cover all motorized vehicles used in the UK, not just those used on the roads.
The drugs thing is a side issue, the first judge got very wrong (like first year law student wrong). Ex turpi causa, is a legal maxim meaning that you cannot base a case on your own wrong. The classic case is two highwaymen, who sued over division of the spoils. The accident was not caused by the crime and the crime did not need to be referred to in order for the passenger to set out his case, so compensation should not have been denied on account of the crime.
European law requires insurance companies to pay out in a number of situations where they are entitled to avoid the policy. The reason for this is to prevent accident casualties going uncompensated.
The passenger in this accident should have been compensated by the insurer. However the first and appeal courts both seem to have got this wrong. Perhaps the passenger's case was poorly argued. It seems a number of points that the passenger should have made were not referred to in the judgment. From the reference in the article to professional negligence I sense that was the case here.
The MIB is the insurer of last resort. It is funded by a levy on all motor policies to provide compensation to accident casualties where there is no insurer required to pay (policy issues notwithstanding). There was an insurer required to pay here, so MIB should not have been involved.
The insurance directives are something of a minefield. A recent European Court case has highlighted that the UK has not properly implemented the requirements for insurance cover for motor vehicles, which should cover all motorized vehicles used in the UK, not just those used on the roads.
The drugs thing is a side issue, the first judge got very wrong (like first year law student wrong). Ex turpi causa, is a legal maxim meaning that you cannot base a case on your own wrong. The classic case is two highwaymen, who sued over division of the spoils. The accident was not caused by the crime and the crime did not need to be referred to in order for the passenger to set out his case, so compensation should not have been denied on account of the crime.
So if, say, the original insurer was wrong to deny the claim of the passenger, does that now mean that the government can sue them in turn?
Or is it that the insurer did nothing wrong in law simply because the government had not enacted the EU directive, so the final bill lands with the taxpayer.
As an aside do we know what the guy's injuries are to need lifetime care into millions. Clearly some brain damage but nothing especially has been declared.
Or is it that the insurer did nothing wrong in law simply because the government had not enacted the EU directive, so the final bill lands with the taxpayer.
As an aside do we know what the guy's injuries are to need lifetime care into millions. Clearly some brain damage but nothing especially has been declared.
Gassing Station | Speed, Plod & the Law | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff