Road Traffic

Defendant intentionally ramming stationary car off road claimant in stationary car injured claimant not entitled to recover from defendants insurers or Motor Insurers BureauCharlton...Defendant intentionally ramming stationary car off road claimant in stationary car injured claimant not entitled to recover from defendants insurers or Motor Insurers BureauCharlton v Fisher and another: CA (Kennedy, Laws and Rix LJJ): 2 February 2001The claimant was in the rear seat of a stationary car when the first defendant deliberately reversed his car into it.

The claimant sustained significant injury.

The first defendants insurance indemnified him, in respect of legal liabilities in the event of an accident involving his car, against claims made for death or bodily injury or for damage to property while driving or using his car.

The claimant obtained judgment against the first defendant and the county court held the insurers liable to indemnify the first defendant in respect of his liability to the claimant.

The insurers appealed.

Howard Palmer QC (instructed by Fishburn Morgan Cole) for the insurers.

Michael Norman (instructed by Avis & Cutmore) for the claimant.

The first defendant did not appear and was not represented.Held, allowing the appeal, that a certificate of compulsory motor insurance issued under the Road Traffic Act 1988 to cover third party liabilities arising out of accidents did not cover the motorists own iniquitous act; that the claimant had no recourse against the insurers under section 151 of the 1988 Act since the injuries had been caused by the first defendants criminal conduct and not by an accident; that, in any event, the first defendants claim against the insurers was excluded by the rule which prevented him gaining advantage from his own iniquity and, since the claimant as a statutory assignee of the first defendant with merely a derivative claim stood in the first defendants shoes, his claim was excluded also; and that, furthermore, the claimants judgment was not enforceable against the Motor Insurers Bureau because the collision had occurred off the road.