MUTT v County Council

[MUTT]

Hi all,

I need some advice on what to put into the POC section on the N1 form in a claim that I am about to make against my local county council.

 

Just some brief details- the claim is to recover costs for damages to my sons car last year which amount to £368.00. I have sent prelim & LBA but the councils insurance company have told me to get stuffed and that their client does not have a case to answer.

 

I believe that they do but not quite sure what I need to refer to in the particulars of claim.

 

Can give more details if anyone needs them if you think that you can help.

 

Many thanks

[blacksheep1979]

Think people will need to know the hows and whys before they can advise as to what to put in the claim.

 

So far all we can say is

 

"Claim is for damages to car for the ammount of £368"

[buzby]

It really depends on how the damage occurred, Council's can have a valid defence if a road defect caused the damage and they were unaware of it, or if a gritting lorry fired a block of rock salt through your windscreen. However, if a bin lorry reveresed into the side of your vehicle, thne you're on safe ground.

 

I'm interested why your sons insurance company not delaing with this?

[buzby]

It really depends on how the damage occurred, Council's can have a valid defence if a road defect caused the damage and they were unaware of it, or if a gritting lorry fired a block of rock salt through your windscreen. However, if a bin lorry reveresed into the side of your vehicle, thne you're on safe ground.

 

I'm interested why your sons insurance company not dealing with this?

[MUTT]

Hi blacksheep1979 & buzby,

Thanks for the replies. To put you in the picture the claim is based on the following: Last April (yes it has been going on for some time) my son was asked to give a friend a lift home in the early hours. This was not a problem and the pair set off travelling along unlit rural roads towards his house. After travelling along a fairly well used road my son heard an almighty bang and the car veered of the road. Luckily the speed he was doing at the time was around 35mph or things could have been much worse. After initial investigations it became clear that he had hit a very large pothole (1.5mtr long x .5mtr wide x 100mm deep) that was full of rain water and because of the conditions at the time (raining & dark) the pothole blended in with the rest of the road. The damage to the car was the offside front tyre was left with a gaping hole on the inner wall and the alloy wheel was badly marked. The tyre & wheel were only two weeks old and had done very little mileage. The breakdown services were called and a temporary repair was carried out to get him home.

 

I went up to the site the next day and could not believe the state that this road was in. I took some photos and later phoned the council to complain. It was during this phone call that I was advised to put in a claim against the council for the cost of rectifying the damage.

 

I contacted the Insurance Dept. as advised and was told that their insurance company would be in touch shortly. After about a week my son received a letter from ZURICH MUNICIPAL INSURANCE asking for details of what had happened, receipts for any costs photos maps etc and on receipt they would look at the claim. This we did.

 

My son and I later received a letter from the council asking to meet at the site to discuss what had happened. We did this and at the meeting it was emphasized by the council that they were not denying liability.

 

Some weeks later we received a letter from the insurance company to advise that they would not be meeting the claim because they insisted that their client had not been negligent in their duties to maintain a reasonable but above all safe road network within the county as I had claimed. They insisted that their client had an annual inspection schedule in place which they deemed sufficient to maintain the road to an acceptable standard. They also claimed that because their client was not aware of the defect and that no one had reported it and that the incident had occurred after the annual inspection then there was no case to answer.

 

My reply to this was to provide photos of other roads nearby which had been recently patched up to make them safe. I had also taken photos of a road sign just 2mtrs away from the pothole that had collapsed due to corrosion and had been left propped up against a hedge with road cones around it. I discusesed this and the state of the road with some residents who live directly opposite the pothole and they advised that the council were aware of the road defect and had been to look at the sign post a good few months before the damage to my sons car occurred and was after the annual inspection in March.

 

I contacted the insurance company again and advised them of what I had discovered but again it was basically get stuffed we are not going to pay.

 

I then went through the usual prelim,lba etc without getting a reply. In a last attempt to avoid court action I contacted the Head of the Highways Dept. giving him fourteen days to respond. Here we are months later no response,nothing.

 

The state of the roads in this county are a joke and this shower should be brought to book. My son by the way who is only 18 was and still is fully insured but because of the cost of his premium (£1850 any claims would make it much higher) and the insistence of the council initially to lodge a claim we did as we were advised. We had already paid to have the damage repaired fully expecting the council to pay

 

I am determined to issue a claim through the courts but as I have said I want advice on how best to particularise this claim.

 

Sorry that it's my version of War and Peace but blacksheep 1979 you wanted the full details.

[buzby]

Thanks for the clarification, but can you explain why your sons insurer is not processing the claim for damage?

 

I'm sure many of us have been in similar situations with badly maintained roads (in my case I ran over a concrete stump thgat had been placed IN the roadway as part of a chicane system that had become dilapidated with no lighting, warning or other signage, and it was road I had never driven on. Zurich were the insurers of the council (I think they have a monopoly).

 

I lost for the very reasons you cite, no previous complaint, previous inspection 7 months earlier and all OK. All I claimed for was a new tyre at £180, but the action didn't succeed as the council would only have been held liable if the obstruction had been pointed out to them and they delayed in rectifying the fauly. (In my case, after calling them, it was fixed in 2).

 

I was clearly annoyed at this, which is why if I see potholes in my own area, I tell the council and before a week is up there's been a repair. Clearly if they don't know they cannot rectify a fault they are unaware of, and this argument is a valid one in court.

 

If your sons damage affected his vehicle (unless it was TP) they'll repair it, but as I had tyre damage, mine didn't. I wish you luck with any proposed action, but I think you'll find the insurance company will be able to have your case dismissed successfully. Incidentally, the state of roads adjacent would be irrelevant, only if a reported serious bemish was NOT fixed promptly, or after the annual survey (normally indicated with yellow spray paint marks).

[demon_x_slash]

What if the OP managed to get statements from the people living around the pothole? They said that the council were 'aware of the defect'? How? Did someone there report it? If you can speak to them again, and find out how they know that the council knew...if you can find the person who reported it, and get them prepared to speak up on your behalf, with a signed statement...that may put a different light on things.

 

In the meantime, does anyone here work for a council, any council, in Roads and Traffic, or Environmental? How are these reports of road defects logged? Are they entered into a system, dated, a note made of who reported it..? That may also help the OP. However, as Buzby says, if you can't prove that they knew about it prior to the accident...it stinks how much LAs can get away with, purely because they're a branch of The Government...

[buzby]

Actually, as a Council Tax payer, I see it from the other side. I was in the Roads Department about another issue, and a woman was holding the council liable for her car being wrecked at a 90 degree left-hand bend. Someone had stolen the reflective chevron sign for both directions, meaning according to her, the turn was now 'invisible' (despite a road sign warning of the bend). It turned out she was using the chevron sign as her signal to turn, as it wasn't there her forward montion continued and the car hit the embankmernt.

 

The council explained that they lost 4 of these expensive aluminium signs to metal theives, and at a cost of £600 EACH to replace, they had no budget to replace them that year. I support the council on this, especially as the woman was actually local and knew where the bend was! I was told that many of the claims are fraudulent with drivers wanting the council to fun ongoing vehicle repairs, and because of this the current system was developed. It could also be argued that if the driver was navigating at speeds in excess of what his headlights could pick up, there was contributionary negligence too... that why I don't think an action against the council or insurers would be a slam-dunk success.

[blacksheep1979]

I had exactly the same thing - tyre that was less than a month old and dent in alloy due to pothole. The council will not be found responsible unless they have been informed about the damage to the road.

 

Mutt - you aren't my father are you?

[MUTT]

Hi guys

Thanks for the replies. Buzby did you actually go to court and if so who defended was it Zurich.

 

blacksheep don't think I have been down your neck of the woods.

[buzby]

It was the council solicitor who was due to appear, and their defence was the standard liability one that they cannot be held liable for defect they are unaware of, and to be fair as much as it galled me, I appreciated their predicament. They paid my expenses (only) and the action was discontinued.

[MUTT]

buzby,

Thanks for the info, will have to think what I am going to do with this one.

Will keep you updated regardless.

 

cheers