WINNING THE UNWINNABLE MOTOR CLAIM

MIB v Lewis

Lunchtime webinar on 19 June 2019 at 13.00 hrs

There has been a programme change to accommodate the ground-breaking implications of last week's Court of Appeal ruling in Motor Insurers' Bureau v Lewis 2019 EWCA Civ 909

Book now via the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers at: https://www.apil.org.uk

In a break with 73 years of jurisprudence, the Court of Appeal has fixed the UK motor insurance industry’s’ privately-owned consortium, the Motor Insurers’ Bureau, with a new autonomous legal obligation to compensate outside the parameters of the Road Traffic Act 1988. 

Another important consequence of this ruling is that MIB Agreements are now subject to an EU law conforming interpretation; applying EU law authorities that effectively overrule an earlier House of Lords ruling to the contrary. 

Serious deficiencies in the Supreme Court’s rulings in Cameron v Liverpool Victoria Assurance [2109] and Pilling v UK Insurance [2019] may be flagged up but a more detailed consideration will be covered in a separate webinar, currently under preparation.

COURT OF APPEAL DISMISSES APPEAL BY MOTOR INSURERS' BUREAU IN LEWIS

Motor Insurers’ Bureau v Michael Lewis [2019] EWCA Civ 909

The Court of Appeal has ruled that:

• The Motor Insurers’ Bureau (MIB) is an emanation of the state under EU law.

• Articles 3 and 10 of the Motor Insurance Directive 2009/103/EC that prescribe the compulsory motor insurance obligation and the role of the compensating body authorised to compensate victims of unidentified and uninsured vehicles are sufficiently clear and unconditional to have direct effect against the MIB.

These findings fix the MIB with a liability to compensate motor accident victims whose compensatory entitlement ought to be guaranteed through compulsory third party motor insurance but who are not due to the UK government’s failure to properly implement the minimum standard of compensatory protection required by the Motor Insurance Directives.

The MIB faces potentially hundreds of claims by individual motor accident victims whose compensatory entitlement have been obstructed or denied due to the government’s longstanding failure to implement basic EU law requirements for motor insurance.

The MIB’s appeal against the first instance decision in Lewis v Tindale & MIB [2018] EWHC 2376 (QB) was resoundingly dismissed.  This is an unanimously endorsed ruling.  In presenting the only reasoned judgment, Lord Justice Flaux, rejected the MIB’s numerous arguments one after the other.

The Court of Appeal has ruled, in decisive terms, that not only does the MIB’s compensatory role under the Uninsured Drivers Agreement 2015 and the Untraced Drivers Agreement 2017 make it an emanation of the state in this context, but it is also pinned with liability to compensate motor accident victims who have been wrongly denied the compensatory guarantee mandated by Articles 3 and 10 of the Motor Insurance Directive 2009/103 due to the government’s  failure to properly transpose its requirements within the Road Traffic Act 1988 and under its private law agreements with the MIB.

Flaux LJ’s involvement might strike some as poetic justice for the MIB, since this ruling overturns his earlier decision in Byrne v MIB [2007] EWHC 1268 (QB) in which he had previously ruled that (i) the MIB was not an emanation of the state so that (ii) the provisions of the Motor Insurance Directives could not have direct effect against it. I have argued over several years, in my New Law Journal articles, that the Byrne judgment was wrong on these points.  First in February 2013 later in more detail in my two-part feature, Putting wrongs to rights, 27 May and 3 June 2016.  I did so again, following the Court of Justice’s ruling in Farrell v Whitty No. 2 (Case C-413/15) [2018] in State Liability: betwixt and between Brexit (Parts 1 and 2) 27 October 2017 and 3 November 2017.  I inferred from the judgment in Byrne that information relevant to the MIB’s close working relationship with the government was withheld from the court and I asserted that the learned judge was also misinformed on the proper approach to determining whether a body is an emanation of the state.  It was noticeable at the appeal hearing in Lewis that Flaux LJ was extremely well informed, which was evident from his timely and apposite interventions.

I will be presenting a lunchtime webinar on 19 June 2019 for the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers on the wide-reaching implications of this important ruling. 

The MIB’s exposure to liability extends far beyond the terms of its private law agreements with the Secretary of State for Transport; beyond even the governments failure to ensure that compulsory third party motor insurance extends to private land: it opens up new areas of claim previously thought to be untouched by third party motor insurance and the Road Traffic Act 1988.

I understand that the Court of Appeal have already refused the MIB leave to appeal.  However, the MIB have indicated that they intend to apply to the Supreme Court for permission to appeal, regardless. I think the MIB would be wise to think twice about that. 

If the MIB plan to pursue their empty technical argument that Articles 3 and 10 of the Motor Insurance Directive are insufficiently clear and unconditional to qualify for direct effect then that is likely to oblige the Supreme Court to refer the issue to the CJEU for a preliminary ruling under Article 267 TFEU. The autonomous nature of the EU law motor insurance obligation requires this; it is not something that lies within the Supreme Court’s discretion.  The European Commission and the CJEU are well aware of the UK’s extensive non-conformity with EU law in this area and it so may result in a crystal clear exposition of just how extensive the MIB’s liability is.

The UK remains the subject of a wide-ranging infringement complaint that has lain dormant following the 2016 Brexit referendum.  However, any Article 267 reference is likely to be expedited in the face of an impending Brexit.   

PILLING V UK INSURANCE (part 2)

Phoenix in flames: lessons from Pilling (Part 2)

R & S Pilling t/a Phoenix Engineering v UK Insurance Ltd [2019] UKSC 16

In the first instalment of my commentary on Pilling Part I, see earlier blog, I note that the Supreme Court failed to apply the correct approach to interpreting national implementing law consistently with the objectives of a directive it is supposed to transpose into UK law.  In deciding that it was not possible to ‘read down’ section s145 Road Traffic Act 1988 with a conforming construction that included private property within the geographic scope of compulsory insurance it failed to apply the legal presumption mandated by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) n Pfeiffer v Deutsches Rotes Kreuz (Case C-297/01) [2004]. This requirement dates back to Wagner Miret (Case C 334/92) [1993] and is set out in Pfeiffer as follows:

‘…when the national court is seised of a dispute concerning the application of domestic provisions which, as here, have been specifically enacted for the purpose of transposing a directive

intended to confer rights on individuals. The national court must … presume that the

Member State, following its exercise of the discretion afforded it under that provision,

had the intention of fulfilling entirely the obligations arising from the directive concerned.’

Pfeiffer’s rule does no more than presume that a member state does not intend to flout its EU treaty obligations, without at least expressing this in clear and unequivocal terms, raises the bar considerably for any finding that a conforming interpretation is contra proferentem (i.e. goes against the grain of Parliament's legislative intentions)

Had the Justices complied with Pfeiffer, as they are obliged under the primacy of EU law to do, then they would have found that this mandatory presumption raises the bar considerably to establishing the contra proferentem exception that it relied on in its deliberations. 

I also express a second concern that in considering what is meant by Article 3 of the Motor Insurance Directive (2009/103/EC) by ‘use of a vehicle’ it did so in apparent ignorance of two recent rulings by the Court of Justice of the European Union. The first of these was delivered by the Grand Chamber and is highly authoritative: Fundo de Garantia Automóvel v Juliana (Case C 80-17) [2018]; the second being BTA Baltic Insurance Company’ AS v Baltijas Apdrošinašanas Nams (Case C 648/17) [2018].  It is abundantly clear that Article 3’s insurance requirement carries a much wider scope for the types of use requiring insurance than the UK’s common law authorities allow for.  This much is evident from the following excerpt from Juliana:

‘41      Therefore, the fact that the Court held, in essence, in the judgments mentioned in the preceding paragraph, that only situations of use of the insured vehicle which fall within the use of a vehicle as a means of transport and, therefore, fall within the concept of ‘use of vehicles’, within the meaning of Article 3(1) of the First Directive or of the first paragraph of Article 3 of Directive 2009/103, may give rise to the insurer being responsible, under a contract of insurance against civil liability in respect of the use of that vehicle, for the damage or injuries caused by the latter, does not in any way mean that the determination of whether there is an obligation to take out such insurance should be dependent on whether or not the vehicle at issue is actually being used as a means of transport at a given time.

42      In the light of the foregoing, it must be held that a vehicle which is registered and therefore has not been officially withdrawn from use, and which is capable of being driven, corresponds to the concept of ‘vehicle’ within the meaning of Article 1(1) of the First Directive and, consequently, does not cease to be subject to the insurance obligation laid down in Article 3(1) of that directive, on the sole ground that its owner no longer intends to drive it and immobilises it on private land.’

A third concern I have with the Supreme Court’s ruling is that it failed to refer this issue, as to what is meant by ‘use of a vehicle’ to the CJEU for a preliminary ruling under Article 267 TFEU. As a court of final appeal, it was the Justices non-discretionary treaty bound duty to do so.

In the second and final instalment of my commentary on Pilling I explain why the three step approach adopted by the court for construing motor policy terms is based on a logical fallacy.

This is the second time in as many months that the Supreme Court has signally failed to apply the rule of law and to deliver justice to the parties in this context.  See my critique of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Cameron v Liverpool & Victoria Insurance [2019] UKSC 6.