Cameron v Liverpool Victoria Insurance Company Ltd
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Lord Sumption,Lord Reed,Lord Carnwath,Lord Hodge,Lady Black |
| Judgment Date | 20 February 2019 |
| Neutral Citation | [2019] UKSC 6 |
| Date | 20 February 2019 |
| Court | Supreme Court |
[2019] UKSC 6
Lord Reed, Deputy President
Lord Sumption
Lord Carnwath
Lord Hodge
Lady Black
Appellant
Stephen Worthington QC
Patrick Vincent
(Instructed by Keoghs LLP)
Respondent
Benjamin Williams QC
Ben Smiley
Anneli Howard
(Instructed by Bond Turner Solicitors)
Intervener (Motor Insurers' Bureau)
Tim Horlock QC
Paul Higgins
(Instructed by Weightmans LLP (Liverpool))
Heard on 28 November 2018
( with whom Lord Reed, Lord Carnwath, Lord Hodge and Lady Black agree)
The question at issue on this appeal is: in what circumstances is it permissible to sue an unnamed defendant? It arises in a rather special context in which the problem is not uncommon. On 26 May 2013 Ms Bianca Cameron was injured when her car collided with a Nissan Micra. It is common ground that the incident was due to the negligence of the driver of the Micra. The registration number of the Micra was recorded, but the driver made off without stopping or reporting the accident to the police and has not been heard of since. The registered keeper of the Micra was Mr Naveed Hussain, who was not the driver but has declined to identify the driver and has been convicted of failing to do so. The car was insured under a policy issued by Liverpool Victoria Insurance Co Ltd to a Mr Nissar Bahadur, whom the company believes to be a fictitious person. Neither Mr Hussain nor the driver was insured under the policy to drive the car.
The United Kingdom was the first country in the world to introduce compulsory motor insurance. It originated with the Road Traffic Act 1930, which was part of a package of measures to protect accident victims, including the Third Parties (Rights Against Insurers) Act 1930. The latter Act entitled a person to claim directly against the insurer where an insured tortfeasor was insolvent. But it was shortly superseded as regards motor accidents by the Road Traffic Act 1934, which required motor insurers to satisfy any judgment against their insured and restricted the right of insurers to rely as against third parties on certain categories of policy exception or on the right of avoidance for non-disclosure or misrepresentation. The statutory regime has become more elaborate and more comprehensive since 1934, but the basic framework has not changed.
The current legislation is Part VI of the Road Traffic Act 1988. As originally enacted, it sought to give effect to the first three EEC Motor Insurance Directives, 72/166/EEC, 84/5/EEC and 90/232/EEC. It was subsequently amended by statutory instruments under the European Communities Act 1972 to reflect the terms of the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Motor Insurance Directives 2000/26/EC, 2005/14/EC and 2009/103/EC. The object of the current legislation is to enable the victims of negligently caused road accidents to recover, if not from the tortfeasor then from his insurer or, failing that, from a fund operated by the motor insurance industry. Under section 143 of the Act of 1988 it is an offence to use or to cause or permit any other person to use a motor vehicle on a road or other public place unless there is in force a policy of insurance against third party risks “in relation to the use of the vehicle” by the particular driver (I disregard the statutory provision for the giving of security in lieu of insurance). Section 145 requires the policy to cover specified risks, including bodily injury and damage to property. Section 151(5) requires the insurer, subject to certain conditions, to satisfy any judgment falling within subsection (2). This means (omitting words irrelevant to this appeal)
“judgments relating to a liability with respect to any matter where liability with respect to that matter is required to be covered by a policy of insurance under section 145 of this Act and either —
(a) it is a liability covered by the terms of the policy or security …, and the judgment is obtained against any person who is insured by the policy … or
(b) it is a liability … which would be so covered if the policy insured all persons …, and the judgment is obtained against any person other than one who is insured by the policy…”
The effect of the latter subsection is that an insurer who has issued a policy in respect of the use of a vehicle is liable on a judgment, even where it was obtained against a person such as the driver of the Micra in this case who was not insured to drive it. The statutory liability of the insurer to satisfy judgments is subject to an exception under section 152 where it is entitled to avoid the policy for non-disclosure or misrepresentation and has obtained a declaration to that effect in proceedings begun within a prescribed time period. But the operation of section 152 is currently under review in the light of recent decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union.
Under section 145(2), the policy must have been issued by an “authorised insurer”. This means a member of the Motor Insurers' Bureau: see sections 95(2) and 145(5). The Bureau has an important place in the statutory scheme for protecting the victims of road accidents in the United Kingdom. Following a recommendation of the Cassell Committee, which reported in 1937 (Cmnd 5528/1937), the Bureau was created in 1946 to manage a fund for compensating victims of uninsured motorists. It is a private company owned and funded by all insurers authorised to write motor business in the United Kingdom. It has entered into agreements with the Secretary of State to compensate third party victims of road accidents who fall through the compulsory insurance net even under the enlarged coverage provided by section 151(2)(b). This means victims suffering personal injury or property damage caused by (i) vehicles in respect of which no policy of insurance has been issued; and (ii) drivers who cannot be traced. These categories are covered by two agreements with the Secretary of State, the Uninsured Drivers Agreement and the Untraced Drivers Agreement respectively. The relevant agreement covering Ms Cameron's case was the 2003 Untraced Drivers Agreement. It applied to persons suffering death, bodily injury or property damage arising out of the use of a motor vehicle in cases where “it is not possible … to identify the person who is or appears to be liable”: see clause 4(d). The measure of indemnity under this agreement is not always total. Under clause 10, there is a limit to the Bureau's liability for legal costs; and under clause 8 the indemnity for property damage is subject to a modest excess (at the relevant time £300) and a maximum limit corresponding to the minimum level of compulsory insurance (at the relevant time £1,000,000). The Bureau assumes liability under the Uninsured Drivers Agreement in cases where the insurer has a defence under the provisions governing avoided policies in section 152. But under article 75 of the Bureau's articles of association, each insurer binds itself to meet the Bureau's liability to satisfy a judgment in favour of the third party in such cases. In 2017, there were 17,700 concluded applications to the Motor Insurers' Bureau by victims of untraced drivers.
It is a fundamental feature of the statutory scheme of compulsory insurance in the United Kingdom that it confers on the victim of a road accident no direct right against an insurer in respect of the underlying liability of the driver. The only direct right against the insurer is the right to require it to satisfy a judgment against the driver, once the latter's liability has been established in legal proceedings. This reflects a number of features of motor insurance in the United Kingdom which originated well before the relevant European legislation bound the United Kingdom, and which differentiate it from many continental systems. In the first place, policies of motor insurance in the United Kingdom normally cover drivers rather than vehicles. Section 151(2)(b) of the Act (quoted above) produces a close but not complete approximation to the continental position. Secondly, the rule of English insurance law is that an insurer is liable to no one but its insured, even when the risks insured include liabilities owed by the insured to third parties. Subject to limited statutory exceptions, the third party has no direct right against the insurer. Thirdly, even the insured cannot claim against his liability insurer unless and until his liability has been ascertained in legal proceedings or by agreement or admission. The Untraced Drivers Agreement assumes that judgment cannot be obtained against the driver if he cannot be identified, and therefore that no liability will attach to the insurer in that case. This is why it is accepted as a liability of the Motor Insurance Bureau. On the present appeal, Ms Cameron seeks to challenge that assumption. Such a challenge is usually unnecessary. It is cheaper and quicker to claim against the Bureau. But for reasons which remain unclear, in spite of her counsel's attempt to explain them, Ms Cameron has elected not to do that.
Ms Cameron initially sued Mr Hussain for damages. The proceedings were then amended to add a claim against Liverpool Victoria Insurance for a declaration that it would be liable to meet any judgment obtained against Mr Hussain. The insurer served a defence which denied liability on the ground that there was no right to obtain a judgment against Mr Hussain, because there was no evidence that he was the driver at the relevant time. Ms Cameron's response was to apply in the Liverpool Civil and Family Court to amend her claim form and particulars of claim so as to substitute for Mr Hussain “the person unknown driving vehicle registration number Y598 SPS who collided with vehicle...
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