Coward v MIB

Last updated

Coward v MIB [1] was a 1963 Court of Appeal decision on intention to create legal relations, and on the liability of the Motor Insurers Bureau when a passenger in a vehicle is killed or injured through the driver's negligence. [2]

Contents

The decision was disapproved and not followed in two subsequent "lift-to-work" cases, Connell v Motor Insurers Bureau (1969 CA) and Albert v Motor Insurers Bureau (1971 HL).

Facts

Coward was a pillion passenger who was killed in a motorcycle accident for which the rider was responsible. The negligent rider was both a colleague and a friend. The accident occurred on the way to work. As the rider's insurance policy excluded pillion passengers, Coward's widow was obliged to claim damages from the MIB. The MIB would have liability only where insurance for the pillion was compulsory; and at the time insurance was compulsory only if pillions were carried "for hire or reward". Coward had paid the friend a small weekly contribution for the daily trip, and the widow argued that this amounted to a contract for hire or reward. The MIB countered that carriage for hire or reward required to create legal relations, and that on these facts (an agreement between friends), there was no such intention.

Decision

The Court of Appeal held there was no contract of hire or reward as it was a social and domestic agreement without intention to create legal relations, and that the widow was not entitled to compensation.

Subsequent decisions

In Connell v Motor Insurers Bureau [3] Lord Denning, MR, sitting in the Court of Appeal declared that he was "not happy with the decision in Coward", adding that "when a man gives another a lift in return for money there is a contract, albeit informal". Denning refused to follow Coward and declared that a car driver who gave friends a lift in return for cash or other valuable consideration was indeed acting "for hire or reward".

Strictly speaking, Denning was in breach of the rule that the Court of Appeal is bound by its own earlier decisions; but in Albert v Motor Insurers Bureau [4] the House of Lords in 1971 approved the Connell judgment in preference to that in Coward. [5]

Related Research Articles

Vehicle insurance is insurance for cars, trucks, motorcycles, and other road vehicles. Its primary use is to provide financial protection against physical damage or bodily injury resulting from traffic collisions and against liability that could also arise from incidents in a vehicle. Vehicle insurance may additionally offer financial protection against theft of the vehicle, and against damage to the vehicle sustained from events other than traffic collisions, such as keying, weather or natural disasters, and damage sustained by colliding with stationary objects. The specific terms of vehicle insurance vary with legal regulations in each region.

In insurance, the insurance policy is a contract between the insurer and the policyholder, which determines the claims which the insurer is legally required to pay. In exchange for an initial payment, known as the premium, the insurer promises to pay for loss caused by perils covered under the policy language.

The system of Tort law in Australia is broadly similar to that in other common law countries. However, some divergences in approach have occurred as its independent legal system has developed.

Liability insurance is a part of the general insurance system of risk financing to protect the purchaser from the risks of liabilities imposed by lawsuits and similar claims and protects the insured if the purchaser is sued for claims that come within the coverage of the insurance policy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">RSA Insurance Group</span> British multinational general insurance company

RSA Insurance Group Limited is a British multinational general insurance company headquartered in London, England. RSA has major operations in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Scandinavia & Canada. It provides insurance products and services in more than 100 countries through a network of local partners. It has 9 million customers. RSA was formed by the merger of Sun Alliance and Royal Insurance in 1996.

<i>Kosmopoulos v Constitution Insurance Co of Canada</i> Supreme Court of Canada case

Kosmopoulos v Constitution Insurance Co of Canada is a leading Supreme Court of Canada decision on the court's ability to pierce the corporate veil—to impose an interest or liability, that is, upon the shareholders of a company instead of the company itself. It was held that the veil can only be lifted where it would be "just and equitable", specifically to third parties.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Motor Insurers' Bureau</span>

The Motor Insurers' Bureau (MIB) was founded in the UK in 1946 as a private company limited by guarantee and is the mechanism in the UK through which compensation is provided for victims of accidents caused by uninsured and untraced drivers, which is funded by an estimated £30 a year from every insured driver's premiums.

<i>Olley v Marlborough Court Ltd</i>

Olley v Marlborough Court Hotel[1949] 1 KB 532 is an English contract law case on exclusion clauses in contract law. The case stood for the proposition that a representation made by one party cannot become a term of a contract if made after the agreement was made. The representation can only be binding where it was made at the time the contract was formed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cumis counsel</span>

A Cumis counsel is "an attorney employed by a defendant in a lawsuit when there is a liability insurance policy supposedly covering the claim, but there is a conflict of interest between the insurance company and the insured defendant."

Intention to create legal relations, otherwise an "intention to be legally bound", is a doctrine used in contract law, particularly English contract law and related common law jurisdictions.

Legal protection insurance (LPI), also known as legal expenses insurance (LEI) or simply legal insurance, is a particular class of insurance which facilitates access to law and justice by providing legal advice and covering the legal costs of a dispute, regardless of whether the case is brought by or against the policyholder. Depending on the national rules, legal protection insurers can also represent the policyholder out-of-court or even in-court.

<i>Lister v Romford Ice and Cold Storage Co Ltd</i>

Lister v Romford Ice and Cold Storage Co Ltd[1956] UKHL 6 is an important English tort law, contract law and labour law, which concerns vicarious liability and an ostensible duty of an employee to compensate the employer for torts he commits in the course of employment.

Vehicle insurance in the United States is designed to cover the risk of financial liability or the loss of a motor vehicle that the owner may face if their vehicle is involved in a collision that results in property or physical damage. Most states require a motor vehicle owner to carry some minimum level of liability insurance. States that do not require the vehicle owner to carry car insurance include Virginia, where an uninsured motor vehicle fee may be paid to the state, New Hampshire, and Mississippi, which offers vehicle owners the option to post cash bonds. The privileges and immunities clause of Article IV of the U.S. Constitution protects the rights of citizens in each respective state when traveling to another. A motor vehicle owner typically pays insurers a monthly fee, often called an insurance premium. The insurance premium a motor vehicle owner pays is usually determined by a variety of factors including the type of covered vehicle, marital status, credit score, whether the driver rents or owns a home, the age and gender of any covered drivers, their driving history, and the location where the vehicle is primarily driven and stored. Most insurance companies will increase insurance premium rates based on these factors, and less frequently, offer discounts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Employers' Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969</span> United Kingdom legislation

The Employers' Liability Act 1969 is a UK Act of Parliament which requires that employers carry insurance against the personal injury of their employees.

Motor vehicle insurance law in India is governed by the Motor Vehicles Act, Insurance Act and aspects of insurance contracts governed by the Indian Contract Act, Transfer of Property Act and a few others. Motor vehicle insurance is the insurance coverage of the risk of third party arising out the use of motor vehicle and also for covering the risk of damage caused to the vehicle. Taking insurance policy for coverage of certain risks are made compulsory and coverage for other risks are optional at the instance of the owner. Accordingly, motor vehicle insurance policies can be divided into two, namely, compulsory insurance policy and comprehensive policy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeffrey Ehrlich</span> American lawyer and author

Jeffrey Isaac Ehrlich is an American lawyer and author, known for handling landmark appeals in the United States Supreme Court and the California Supreme Court. He is co-author of the influential Thomson Reuters treatise on insurance litigation, and editor-in-chief of Advocate, the most widely circulated trial-bar magazine in the United States. He and his son, Clinton Ehrlich, are also known for exonerating Sgt. Raymond Lee Jennings, an Iraq War veteran who served 11 years of a life sentence for murdering teenager Michelle O'Keefe.

In the English system of common law, judges have devised a number of mechanisms to allow them to cope with precedent decisions.

Norwich City Council v Harvey is a 1989 English law case on the waiver of liability in negligence.

<i>Cox v Ergo Versicherung AG</i>

Cox v Ergo Versicherung AG[2014] UKSC 22 is a judicial decision of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom relating to the conflict of laws and the assessment of damages following a road traffic accident.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Financial Ombudsman Service of the Russian Federation</span>

The Financial Ombudsman Service of the Russian Federation was created in 2018 to mediate consumer rights complaints and out-of-court disputes between consumers of financial services and financial organizations. It was created under federal law on June 4, 2018 to provide legal status of the Financial Ombudsman Service, the procedure for its activities, specific rules and regulation procedures as well as consideration of citizens’ complaints scheme and other legal relations. It was designed to help resolve disputes between consumers and financial institutions providing clients and considers claims against credit institutions, insurance organizations, microfinance institutions, credit consumer cooperatives, pawnshops and non-state pension funds on a mandatory and voluntary basis

References

  1. ↑ Coward v MIB [1963] 1 QB 259 Court of Appeal
  2. ↑ The Law Teacher - Coward v MIB
  3. ↑ Connell v Motor Insurers Bureau [1969] 2 Lloyd's Rep. 1
  4. ↑ Albert v Motor Insurers Bureau [1971] 3 WLR 291
  5. ↑ The Law Teacher - Albert v Motor Insurers Bureau
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.