Three passengers "ought to have known" driver was uninsured
- 25.04.2017
- JeremySmith
- Personal-injury, Personal-injury
Every year many thousands of people are the victims of motor accidents where the driver is uninsured. Fortunately they are usually able to claim against the Motor Insurers’ Bureau (MIB), who were set up to compensate such victims. However, the MIB often try to bar claims by injured passengers, for example by saying that the passenger in a car driven by an uninsured driver knew or “ought to have known” that the driver had no insurance.
As long ago as 2001, PotterReesDolan (then known as Hugh Potter & Co) had to take a case to the House of Lords (now the Supreme Court) to decide exactly what was meant by this phrase “ought to have known.”
We won that case (the case of White v White (2001) UKHL 9 , (2001) 1 WLR 481) but the argument still goes on.
For example, in a recent case, the trial judge held that all three injured passengers “ought to have known” that the driver had no insurance. On appeal a High Court judge applied the law from White v White and ruled that there was no evidence for the judge’s decision and ordered the case to be sent back to court for re-trial.
The case is Whyatt and others v Powell & MIB EWHC 484 (Admin).