Walker v Pennine Insurance Company Ltd
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | LORD JUSTICE ROSKILL,SIR DAVID CAIRNS |
| Judgment Date | 24 January 1980 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1980] EWCA Civ J0124-3 |
| Docket Number | 1976 W No, 2691 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Date | 24 January 1980 |
[1980] EWCA Civ J0124-3
In The Supreme Court of Judicature
Court of Appeal
On Appeal from the High Court of Justice
Queen's Bench Division
Lord Justice Roskill
Lord Justice Brighthan
Sir David Cairns
MR C. WELCHMAN (instructed by Messrs. Edward Mackie & Company) appeared on behalf of the Appellant.
MR J. JARVIS (instructed by T. J. Mitchell & Company, Solicitors, Croydon) appeared on behalf of the Respondents.
We need not trouble you, Mr Jarvis. This is an appeal from a judgment given by Mr Justice Sheen in an action brought by the plaintiff, Mr Bruce Walker, now a man in his twenties, against the defendants, Pennine Insurance Company Limited. The judgment was given by Mr Justice Sheen on the 13th November 19761. The claim was for a declara-tion of liability under a policy of motor insurance which the defendants had issued in favour of the plaintiff back in 1970.
The matters which the learned Judge had and we have had to consider, arose out of what one can only call a lamentable incident at Margate on the 5th August 1970, just before mid-night, when the appellant, then in his teens – he was born in 1952 – was with a group of other teenagers, male and female, at Margate in a Ford Cortina car which he had bought a week or two before and which apparently was worth, at the time of what happened, £30. I take those facts from the Accident Report on page 29 of our bundle.
Late that night, this car full up as it was with some eight people, went down a hill, hit a shop window, hit another car, and not only was the car a write-off as the Accident Report form shows, but at least one girl in the car (and it seems other people in the car also) suffered personal injuries.
Subsequently this young man, the plaintiff, was prosecuted for careless driving. Inevitably of course, as one would expect in those circumstances, claims followed.
I would be content in this case wholly to adopt the judgment of the learned Judge upon which, if I may respectfully say so, I could not hope to improve. But out of respect for Mr Welchman's attempt to argue what I venture to think is unarguable, I will try and give my reasons in my own way.
In due course the defendant company repudiated liability. Their policy (and I need not read it all) contained a number of conditions, the most relevant of which for present purposes is clause 6. I need not read the first part of clause 6, which is an arbitration clause, but the second part reads thus: "If the company shall disclaim liability to the insured for any claim hereunder and if within twelve calendar months from the date of such disclaimer legal proceedings have not been instituted in either Great Britain or Northern Ireland in respect thereof by the insured or the insured's duly authorised representatives then the claim shall for all purposes be deemed to have been abandoned and shall not thereafter berecoverable hereunder".
The defendants claim that they did disclaim liability under that policy and that within twelve months of the disclaimer legal proceedings were not started and that accordingly the assured's claim if any, and even if otherwise valid, is to be treated as abandoned.
That was the issue, and really the only issue which Mr Justice Sheen had to decide. It is plain from the terms of his judgment that he saw no answer to that defence and I am bound to say nor do I. I do not propose to go at length through all the correspondence. It starts in November 1970 when Messrs, Lewis Silkin, acting as solicitors for one of the girls who was in this car, wrote a letter to the appellant dated 27th November, the last paragraph of which reads: "As a result of this accident, which was caused by your negligent driving, our client suffered severe cuts to her face and other minor injuries. We are therefore instructed to formulate a claim against you in respect of our client's injuries, and may we suggest that this letter be passed to your insurance company".
The appellant did not answer, we are told, because he thought there was no relevant insurance. The solicitors wrote again on the 23rd December, and on the 29th December the appellant answered. I need not read the letter which is at page 34. Subsequently, on the 30th December 1970, that is the day after the appellant's letter was written, the solicitors, Messrs. Lewis Silkin, wrote direct to the defendants. They repeated that they were acting for this lady and they said: Accordingly we are instructed to formulate a claim against you for our client's injuries. We should mention that we have written to your insured on two occasions, on the 27th November and the 23rd December, but have received no reply from him in this matter". Thus it would seem that they had not had the letter at page 34 when page 35 was written.
I cam now go to page 36, which is a memorandum from the defendants to a firm of brokers called The Lammas Park Insurance Agency, who seemingly, fromtheir writing paper – and I take this from page 37 of our bundle are members of the Association of Insurance Brokers. The memorandum reads thus: "We refer to correspondence involving this accident and must advise you that we have now received a police report from which we note that in addition to the three people mentioned on the claim form and being in the insured's...
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...which provided any cause for pausing before reaching this obviously fair conclusion was founded on a decision of this court in Walker v Pennine Insurance Co Ltd [1980] 2 Lloyd's Rep 156 which came to light for the first time very shortly before the appeals were heard. In that case the relev......
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Rai Narayan Parshad v Chit Hing Construction Engineering And Others
...case must turn on the particular conduct of the party in breach, it is useful to draw analogy from Walker v Pennine Insurance Co Ltd [1980] 2 Lloyd’s Rep 156 [8], which concerned a motor insurance policy. The agency through which the policy had been effected wrote to the insured stating tha......