Third Party Should Pay Costs of Spare Vehicle
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HOW far is an operator of specialized vehicles entitled to recover costs when one of his vans is off the road as a result of an accident caused by the third party ? This question, which is not as straightforward as it appears, was put to The Commercial Motor by a la/se bakery concern, which holds a 10-pr-cent. reserve vehicle pool to cover maintenance and the repair of vehicles that may become involved in accidents.
The bodies are specialized and hiring is out of the question, Daily deliveries are made to a fairly close timetable, and snare vans must be kept licensed to replace damaged vehicles at short notice.
An argument developed between the company and their insurance brokers. The brokers said that unless the corn
• pany hired a replacement van or licensed an additional vehicle, they could not claim from the insurers of the third party for the cost of using a van to replace the vehicle which was under repair.
The operators argued that they should recover not only the cost of the accident repairs. but also the cost, while the van was laid up. of the tax, insurance
and half the normal rate of depreciation of the spare van employed. In equity they halved the depreciation charge, because a damaged van was not depreciating quite so much when under repair as when it was on the road.
The Commercial Motor took counsel's opinion. He nointcd out that normally damages in such a case were assessed either as the cost of repair, plus hire charges to replace the damaged vehicle, or as the market value of the damaged vehicle before the accident, plus hire charges until replaced. less its scrap value.
Different considerations applied to a. specialized vehicle in,whieh no replacement could readily be hired. In the case of the "Mediana " (1900), the House of :Lords held 'that, a harbour board which maintained an emergency lightship ready at short notice to replace any damaged vessel, was entitled not only to the cost of repairs to the damaged vessel, hut also to substantial damages for the loss of its services during the time its place was taken by the substituted vessel, or to damages in respect of the services of the emergency lightship.
On the authority of this case; counsel. who said that the point was most interesting, held that the bakers were entitled to a fair proportion of the annual cost of maintaining a spare vehicle.