Deborah Wood v Foyer Assurances SA

Under Belgian law, a driver with priority remains capable of being liable where excessive speed or other fault is causally linked to the collision. The obligation of the other driver to yield is important, but the court must assess all the circumstances. A driver required to yield must proceed only where doing so is safe, having regard to the position, speed and distance of other road users.

Foreign judgments concerning the same accident may have evidentiary value and create a rebuttable presumption, but they do not determine the English court’s findings. Where later expert evidence materially undermines their factual basis, the presumption may be rebutted. Liability and contributory negligence were accordingly apportioned equally.

The claimant sought damages under Belgian law following a fatal collision in Belgium involving her deceased husband’s Audi and a Mitsubishi insured by the defendant. Belgian criminal and civil proceedings had previously attributed sole responsibility to the Audi driver, but those judgments were not binding on the English court.

The court heard competing factual, accident-reconstruction and Belgian-law evidence. The central issues were whether the Mitsubishi’s excessive speed was a causative fault, whether the Audi driver was contributorily negligent in failing to stop in the cycle lane to improve visibility, whether a claim under section 29 bis of the Law of 21 November 1989 was limitation-barred, and the appropriate damages.

1. Liability. The Belgian judgments had evidentiary value and created a rebuttable presumption that the accident was caused by the Audi driver’s negligence. They were not binding and were rebutted in material respects by the tested accident-reconstruction evidence, particularly the finding that the Mitsubishi was travelling at 105–112 kph, well above the 90 kph limit.
2. Under Belgian law, the obligation to yield remains the starting point and applies throughout the manoeuvre. It does not exclude liability where the driver with priority commits a causative error. The court must consider all the circumstances. The Mitsubishi driver was not acting as a normally prudent and diligent driver and breached section 10.1 of the Belgian Traffic Code. His excessive speed was causally linked to the collision.
3. The Audi driver was also at fault. Although the Mitsubishi was not visible from the give-way line, a prudent driver should have stopped in the cycle lane to obtain a better view. That omission contributed causally to the collision.
4. The defendant was therefore liable, subject to 50% contributory negligence. Neither driver bore the predominant share of fault.
5. The claim under section 29 bis of the Law of 21 November 1989 was not a new claim and was not limitation-barred. It was sufficiently encompassed by the original claim for damage arising from the accident.
6. The court awarded damages under the recoverable heads established by the evidence, applied Belgian interest rates, and ordered an interim payment on account of costs of £55,000 under CPR 44.2(8).

First-instance decision. The judgment records earlier Belgian criminal and civil proceedings concerning the collision, but those proceedings were not appeals in the English litigation and were not binding on this court.