Clarke v Kato (Clarke v General Accident Fire and Life Assurance Corpn Plc)

A car park is not ordinarily a “road” within the compulsory motor-insurance provisions of the Road Traffic Act 1988. A road is a defined or definable route whose function is to enable travellers to move from one place to another. A car park principally enables vehicles to stand and wait, although exceptional premises described as a car park may qualify as a road.

Where a carriageway within a car park is treated separately as a road, the parking areas cannot then be reintegrated into it. Purposive interpretation cannot transform familiar statutory language into a substantially different concept, particularly where that would affect penal provisions and property rights. The applicable European motor-insurance directives did not require “road” to include car parks.

These conjoined appeals concerned injuries caused by motor vehicles in two car parks. Ellen Clarke was struck while sitting beside an open car park. Stuart Cutter was injured by an explosion while sitting in a vehicle stationed in a marked bay in a multi-storey car park. Recovery depended upon whether the insurers were obliged by section 151 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 to satisfy the resulting liabilities.

In Clarke, the Assistant Recorder found that the car park alone was not a road but treated it and an adjoining passage as a road. The Court of Appeal affirmed that decision: [1997] 1 WLR 208. In Cutter, the County Court held that the car park was not a road, but the Court of Appeal reversed that decision: [1997] 1 WLR 1082.

The common issue was whether either vehicle had been used “on a road” within sections 145(3)(a) and 192 of the 1988 Act.

1. Both appeals allowed unanimously. Lord Clyde delivered the substantive speech. Lord Browne-Wilkinson, Lord Goff of Chieveley, Lord Slynn of Hadley and Lord Steyn agreed with his reasons.

2. Per Lord Clyde, the definition in section 192 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 required separate questions: whether the place was a road and, if so, whether the public had access to it. Public access alone could not make a place a road. A road was ordinarily a physically defined or definable route serving as a means of access from one place to another. Whether a particular place met that description was ultimately a question of fact and circumstance for the properly directed tribunal.

3. A car park was ordinarily distinct from a road in both character and function. A road principally enabled movement towards a destination, although parking might occur on it. A car park principally enabled vehicles to stand and wait, although vehicles necessarily moved across it. Exceptional premises reasonably described as a car park might qualify as a road, but that result had to follow from their particular character and function.

4. If a carriageway within a car park was identified as a road, it became necessary to preserve the distinction between that carriageway and the parking areas. The latter could not subsequently be treated as integral parts of the carriageway merely to characterise the whole car park as a road.

5. The statutory distinction between roads and parking places, and Parliament’s express use elsewhere of “a road or other public place”, confirmed that “road” was not intended to include every public place where a vehicle might be used. A purposive construction could strain statutory language where necessary, but could not give familiar and unambiguous words an unnatural meaning. A broad construction was also inappropriate because the road-traffic legislation created criminal offences and authorised interference with private property.

6. The European motor-insurance directives did not require insurance for every accident occurring off-road within the state where a vehicle was normally based. They recognised that the extent of compulsory cover could differ between member states. Consequently, European law did not require “road” in section 145(3)(a) to include a car park, nor permit the court effectively to add the words “or in any public place”.

7. Neither accident occurred on a road. In Clarke, neither the adjoining passage nor pedestrian movement through it changed the car park’s character or function. In Cutter, even if the internal carriageway was a road, the marked parking bay retained its separate identity. The preliminary issue in Clarke was determined for the third defendant, and the County Court’s order in Cutter was restored.

1. House of Lords: Allowed both insurers’ appeals unanimously. Reversed the determination of the preliminary issue in Clarke and restored the County Court’s order in Cutter.
2. Court of Appeal—Clarke: Affirmed the Assistant Recorder’s conclusion that the car park and passage constituted a road: [1997] 1 WLR 208.
3. Court of Appeal—Cutter: Allowed Cutter’s appeal, holding that the parking spaces were integral to a carriageway which was a road: [1997] 1 WLR 1082.
4. County Court—Clarke: The Assistant Recorder found that the car park alone was not a road, but held that the park and adjoining passage together formed a road.
5. County Court—Cutter: The judge held that the multi-storey car park was not a road.