Moore v Secretary of State for Transport Motor Insurers Bureau

A Francovich claim accrues when the claimant suffers loss caused by the alleged failure to implement the directive, not when that loss is later quantified. Where an untraced-driver compensation procedure exists, an individual instance of unfair administration does not itself establish a failure to transpose the directive. The claimant must show a non-compliant system and a direct causal link between that systemic defect and the loss claimed. A claim based on the accident occurring in 1995 was therefore statute barred when proceedings were issued in 2006.

The claimant was injured by an untraced driver in April 1995 and obtained compensation from the Motor Insurers Bureau under the 1972 Untraced Drivers Agreement. An arbitrator increased the award in February 2000. He claimed Francovich damages from the Secretary of State, alleging that the United Kingdom had failed to implement the Second Motor Insurance Directive adequately.

The claim included damages said to have resulted from an unfair assessment procedure, together with interest and costs. The Secretary of State applied to strike out the claim as statute barred and sought summary judgment on the damages element under CPR Part 24.

1. Limitation. The Francovich claim was statute barred. The relevant limitation period was six years under Limitation Act 1980, section 2. The cause of action accrued when the claimant was injured by an untraced driver and was thereby subjected to the alleged statutory disadvantage, not when the arbitrator later quantified the compensation. The date of quantification did not supply a missing ingredient of the cause of action.
2. The constituent elements of a Francovich claim included a sufficiently serious breach, an intention to confer rights, identifiable rights and a direct causal link between the breach and the loss. For limitation purposes, the court assumed that the other elements could be established, but held that the necessary causal loss arose in 1995.
3. Summary judgment. The court accepted that the procedure had to provide safeguards ensuring that victims were informed of adverse material and could comment on it, consistently with Evans v Secretary of State for the Environment Transport and the Regions [2003] ECR I-14447. However, a possibly erroneous failure to operate a compliant procedure in an individual case was distinct from failure to establish a compliant procedure.
4. The pleaded criticism of the surveillance and medical evidence raised factual issues and could not simply be rejected on the assumption that the claimant would fail. Nevertheless, the alleged deficiencies in the handling of the evidence did not disclose a real prospect of proving that the United Kingdom’s alleged failure to transpose the Directive caused the reduction in the damages award. The assessment of functional overlay, employability and personal-injury quantum concerned the application of domestic law and judgment.
5. The limitation application succeeded. The court stated that it would also have granted summary judgment on the damages claim under Part 24 if that issue had remained live. The interest and costs claims were not disposed of by the alternative summary-judgment application.