Supreme Court: Questions on compulsory motor insurance answered in favour of RSA

About this case:

• Quotation:

  [2024] IESC 43

• Judgment:
• Courtroom:

  Supreme Courtroom

• Decide:

  Mr Justice Brian Murray

Delivering judgment for the Supreme Courtroom, Mr Justice Brian Murray identified that difficulties in implementing Directive 2009/103/EC have arisen because the State has purportedly discharged these obligations utilizing statutory provisions that didn’t have EU legislation in view when enacted. 

The decide defined that “steady piecemeal modifications” to these provisions threat additional non-compliance and opined {that a} full and coherent legislative overhaul of the obligatory motor insurance coverage obligation “is lengthy overdue”.

Background

Mr Moore, an worker of the primary plaintiff (URRL), was severely injured on a public highway when a bin fell onto him from URRL’s truck. Mr Moore, who had been driving the automobile, claimed that the mechanism lifting the bin was faulty and failed.

Mr Moore issued private accidents proceedings as in opposition to URRL, which held an employers’ legal responsibility coverage with the second plaintiff (RSA) and a motor insurance coverage coverage with the defendant (Zurich). 

RSA’s coverage excluded legal responsibility which was compulsorily required to be insured beneath the Street Visitors Act 1961 (as amended). Zurich’s motor coverage excluded legal responsibility for dying or bodily harm to any particular person driving the automobile or in command of the automobile for the aim of driving and any passenger being accommodated in or on the automobile, besides insofar as was obligatory to satisfy the necessities of the 1961 Act.

Neither insurer accepted that URRL’s declare was coated by their insurance policies. Mr Moore’s proceedings finally settled, and consequently, there was no judicial willpower of how the accident occurred and whether or not URRL was accountable for it.

As neither insurer would settle for that the declare fell inside their insurance policies, URRL issued proceedings in opposition to RSA and Zurich with a view to resolving that concern. The courtroom ordered that the problems of legislation arising have been applicable for the particular case process. The questions have been whether or not the legal responsibility (if any) of URRL to Mr Moore was one which was required to be insured beneath s.56 of the 1961 Act, and whether or not URRL was entitled to indemnity in respect of Mr Moore’s declare beneath (a) the Zurich coverage or (b) the RSA coverage or (c) each.

S.56(1) of the 1961 Act states inter alia that an individual (the consumer) shall not use in a public place a mechanically propelled automobile until an insurer could be chargeable for harm attributable to its negligent use or there’s in place an insurance coverage coverage whereby the consumer or another one who could be chargeable for harm attributable to the negligent use of the automobile at the moment by the consumer, is insured in opposition to all sums which the consumer could be liable to pay.

The Excessive Courtroom decided that s.56 required that legal responsibility arising from the worker’s declare could be insured. The Courtroom of Attraction determined that s.56 didn’t require the worker’s declare to be coated and that Zurich’s coverage didn’t apply.

Depart to attraction to the Supreme Courtroom was granted on the premise that the proceedings raised questions in regards to the necessary motor insurance coverage obligation beneath s.56 and the interpretation of Article 12(1) of Directive 2009/103/EC which requires member states to undertake measures to make sure that civil legal responsibility in respect of the usage of automobiles usually primarily based of their territory is roofed by insurance coverage.

The central query earlier than the Supreme Courtroom was whether or not s.56 required that the insurance coverage cowl mandated by that provision would cowl the legal responsibility (if any) of URRL to Mr Moore. 

The Supreme Courtroom

Mr Justice Murray thought of that three points arose: whether or not a legal responsibility to a ‘consumer’ of a automobile falls inside s.56, whether or not a physique company may very well be a ‘consumer’, and whether or not an employer, by way of the actions of its worker, may very well be a ‘consumer’.

The decide famous the difficulties skilled by the events in becoming their circumstances into the related provisions of the 1961 Act. 

Zurich’s case was closely depending on the proposition {that a} declare introduced by an individual who was injured whereas utilizing a motorcar was not topic to the duty of obligatory insurance coverage, and that ‘consumer’ meant the “precise consumer” and so URRL couldn’t be liable. RSA posited inter alia that wrongdoing that will have been utterly faraway from the precise operation of the automobile constituted “negligent use” of the truck in circumstances the place solely the particular “use” recognized was Mr Moore’s operation of the raise mechanism.

The courtroom thought of that these difficulties arose as when it was launched, s.56(1) was not understood as capturing negligent use of a motorcar of the type at concern. When the duty was first imposed by the Street Visitors Act 1933, it was addressed solely to ‘driving’ of the automobile however was then expanded to “use” by the intervention of Article 12 of the Directive, which states inter alia that the necessary insurance coverage cowl shall cowl legal responsibility for private accidents to all passengers, aside from the motive force, arising out of the usage of a automobile.

Mr Justice Murray discovered it unclear from Article 12(1) whether or not the supply mandates that the motive force be excluded from the scope of insurance coverage cowl or whether or not it merely grants member states the choice to not prolong necessary cowl to legal responsibility to the motive force, and whether or not the exclusion is anxious solely with claims arising from the motive force’s actions in driving the automobile, or whether or not as soon as an individual had been the motive force and had alighted from the automobile she or he was for that motive alone outdoors the obligatory insuring obligation.

The courtroom noticed no foundation upon which s.56 may very well be construed in order to exclude liabilities to an individual just because they have been a ‘consumer’, no matter what EU legislation required, and highlighted that whereas Mr Moore couldn’t keep an motion for accidents wholly attributable to his personal negligence, the laws didn’t exclude the potential for two customers of a motorcar and so there was nothing in s.56(1) to justify the conclusion that the place one consumer is injured because of the negligence of one other consumer, the ensuing legal responsibility would fall outdoors the phrases of s.56(1) if the situations in any other case supplied for in that provision are met. 

Accordingly, the Courtroom couldn’t construe the supply in order to exclude a legal responsibility to Mr Moore from its phrases.

As to the problem of whether or not a physique company may very well be a ‘consumer’, Mr Justice Murray discovered the problem to be a “complicated diversion”, noting that the query was not whether or not a physique company may very well be a consumer, however whether or not ‘use’ might come up by way of the actions of one other. Discovering that the laws required a broad building, the decide decided that there was no specific motive why an organization couldn’t management, handle or function a automobile and there was nothing to counsel that the Oireachtas meant that solely a pure particular person may very well be a consumer for the aim of s.56.

As as to whether an worker may very well be a ‘consumer’, the courtroom reasoned that there are a selection of provisions within the 1961 Act which check with an ‘precise consumer’ that are used the place the legislature needs to handle the one who was personally managing or controlling the automobile. As such, s.56(1) was able to accommodating use by attribution, and use by an employer by way of its workers was a “quintessential instance of this.”

Mr Justice Murray commented that there are important points across the extent to which s.56 faithfully implements EU obligations, together with inter alia the obvious requirement that ‘use’ happens in a public place and its obvious limitation to liabilities in negligence.

Conclusion

Accordingly, the Supreme Courtroom answered the questions of legislation arising, concluding inter alia that if Mr Moore’s accidents have been triggered wholly by his personal negligence, s. 56(1) was not engaged as URRL would face no legal responsibility in that scenario, that URRL was a ‘consumer’ of the automobile on the time of Mr Moore’s harm as its automobile was getting used on its behalf by its workers, and if Mr Moore’s accidents have been attributable to URRL’s negligence or by anybody for whose negligence URRL was liable, and if that wrongdoing rendered URRL’s use of the automobile ‘negligent’, then URRL’s legal responsibility to Mr Moore was captured by s.56. 

City and Recycling Restricted & Anor v. Zurich Insurance coverage PLC [2024] IESC 43