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A disturbing decision
Page 37
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If the Queen's Bench judgment recorded on page 36 stands unchallenged we may expect to see increases in goods-intransit insurance premiums or a rapid rephrasing of condition 3(4) of the Road Haulage Association's 1967 Conditions of Carriage. Ever since the conditions were modified from the 1961 version, to give less onerous terms to the customer, claims for loss of or damage to goods in transit have been more likely to cost the haulier's insurer money, but it has nevertheless been accepted that the haulier (on behalf of his insurer, in effect) could claim back from the trader any excess amount, over the £800 per ton limit, for which he had been successfully sued. Similarly, the haulier could claim back from the trader any amount paid which he would not have been liable to pay if the '67 Conditions had applied—for example, a claim which the haulier could have turned down under clause 10, time limits for claims. Last week's decision by Mr Justice Browne drastically alters this situation and is likely to be taken as a precedent with wide application to cases where negligence is admitted or can be proved.
This is tortuous territory for the layman, and simplification is dangerous; no doubt the lawyers will already be considering whether there are grounds for appeal—there appears to be no dispute about the facts, so any appeal would have to be on a point of law. But it will, in the circumstances, be surprising if the insurance world and the Road Haulage Association do not consider such a point of principle worth fighting—right through to the House of Lords if necessary.
Transport insurers, brokers and the RHA are well aware of the implications of this Queen's Bench Division judgment, and hauliers' interests—very much on a par with insurers' in this instance—are in capable hands. Not everyone is affected equally: operators work under a wide range of conditions, or none at all, and in the present case those using the 1961 RHA terms may be little affected. But for many others the legal decision has costly implications as it affects good-in-transit policies.