Bretton v Hancock

A statutory duty to maintain compulsory motor insurance protects third-party death, personal injury and property damage. It does not ordinarily support a Monk v Warbey claim by a joint tortfeasor seeking contribution towards liability to the injured claimant. Such a claim is for pure economic loss, not for the third-party loss covered by the Road Traffic Act 1988. The duty is owed to the public generally, but not to the insured user in respect of that user’s own injury or contribution liability.

The claimant was injured as a passenger in a car driven by her fiancé, who was killed in a collision with the defendant’s van. The trial judge found the defendant 75% responsible and the fiancé 25% responsible. He also found that the claimant had an ownership interest in, and was using, the car, although she was not insured to drive it and her fiancé was uninsured.

The claimant appealed on causation, user status and the defendant’s counterclaim. The counterclaim sought damages for breach of the statutory insurance duty, measured by the defendant’s inability to recover a contribution from the impecunious uninsured driver. The defendant cross-appealed concerning related Part 20 proceedings. The central issue was whether the Monk v Warbey principle extended to that economic loss.

1. Appeal allowed; cross-appeal dismissed. The order was to be recast so that judgment was entered for the claimant against the defendant for damages to be assessed.
2. The trial judge was entitled to find that the claimant had an interest in the car. The documentary evidence, including her insurance proposal, supported an intention that the car was her property or joint property. Her status as a user was therefore established on the conceded basis applicable to the appeal.
3. The evidence supported the finding that the uninsured driver’s excessive speed materially contributed to the accident and its consequences. The judge had distinguished between sole causation and concurrent causation, and the causation challenge had no merit.
4. The Monk v Warbey principle did not extend to the defendant’s counterclaim. Sections 143(1)(a) and 145(3)(a) of the Road Traffic Act 1988 concern compulsory insurance for third-party risks, namely death, personal injury and property damage. The statutory duty does not require insurance against one tortfeasor’s liability to contribute to another tortfeasor’s liability to the injured claimant.
5. The defendant’s counterclaim was not based on his own injuries. It sought indemnity or contribution and therefore compensation for pure economic loss. That differed from the loss protected by the statutory scheme and from the victim-protection rationale identified in Monk v Warbey and Norman v Aziz.
6. It was unnecessary to decide the alternative questions concerning the interaction between sections 143 and 145, the possible operation of section 151 or the defendant’s cross-appeal on the related dependency proceedings.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): [2005] EWCA Civ 404 — appeal allowed and cross-appeal dismissed. The trial order was to be redrawn, provisionally by entering judgment for the claimant against the defendant for damages to be assessed.
• Queen’s Bench Division, Nottingham District Registry: decision of Mr Justice Beatson — the claimant recovered 75% of assessed damages, and the defendant succeeded on a counterclaim limited to 25% of the claimant’s damages, subject to correction on appeal.