The Court of Appeal has allowed Zurich Insurance’s appeal in a dispute over which insurance policy should respond to a claim arising from a recycling worker’s serious injury. It set aside the High Court order that Zurich indemnify his employer, Urban and Rural Recycling Limited.
The worker, Joseph Moore, was injured on 19 December 2013 while operating a mechanical lift on a recycling truck at Sinnott’s Store, Duncormick, County Wexford. A wheelie bin containing glass fell from the lift and struck him on the head. Moore had brought a personal injuries claim against his employer. The separate proceedings addressed whether Zurich’s motor fleet policy or RSA’s employer’s liability policy should cover any liability the company might have to him.
The High Court had decided that any such liability was required to be insured under the Road Traffic Acts and that Zurich’s policy provided indemnity. Zurich appealed. The Court of Appeal considered the agreed facts and the insurance documents; it was not deciding Moore’s personal injuries claim or whether the company was in fact liable to him.
The appeal turned on the distinction between using a vehicle and who was using it. The court accepted that operating the truck’s lift was part of the vehicle’s use and that liability arising from that use could be subject to compulsory insurance. But it concluded Moore was the user at the time: he loaded the bin and operated and controlled the lift. The company could not itself operate the vehicle, and the court rejected the High Court’s conclusion that it was the user merely because the truck was being used for the company’s business.
The court held that the Road Traffic Acts require insurance for liability arising from a user’s negligent use of a vehicle, including an owner’s vicarious liability for that use. Because a user could not be liable to pay damages to himself, the company’s possible liability to Moore was not liability for negligent use by the user that had to be covered under those Acts.
The Zurich policy initially covered bodily injury caused by or connected with the truck. However, the court concluded the policy’s exclusion for injury to a person “in charge of the vehicle for the purpose of driving” applied. It found Moore was in charge of the vehicle for that purpose, and therefore Zurich did not have to indemnify the company under the policy.
The court allowed the appeal and set aside the High Court order. Zurich was wholly successful on appeal. The judgment proposed that it receive its costs in both courts, while allowing the respondents 14 days to make written submissions if they sought a different costs order; Zurich would then have the same period to respond.