High Court Judgment Template

whether they should be made subject to particular conditions and safeguards and, if so, what those conditions and safeguards should be.

(6) Cameron

80. The decision of the Supreme Court in Cameron (para 51 above) highlighted further and more fundamental considerations for this developing jurisprudence, and it is a decision to which we must return for it forms an important element of the case developed before us on behalf of the appellants. At this stage it is sufficient to explain that the claimant suffered personal injuries and damage to her car in a collision with another vehicle. The driver of that vehicle failed to stop and fled the scene. The claimant then brought an action for damages against the registered keeper, but it transpired that that person had not been driving the vehicle at the time of the accident. In addition, although there was an insurance policy in force in respect of the vehicle, the insured person was fictitious. The claimant could not sue the insurers, as the relevant legislation required that the driver was a person insured under the policy. The claimant could have sought compensation from the Motor Insurers’ Bureau, which compensates the victims of uninsured motorists, but for reasons which were unclear she applied instead to amend her claim to substitute for the registered keeper the person unknown who was driving the car at the time of the collision, so as to obtain a judgment on which the insurer would be liable under section 151 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 (“the 1988 Act”). The judge refused the application. 81. The Court of Appeal allowed the claimant’s appeal. In the Court of Appeal’s view, it would be consistent with the CPR and the policy of the 1988 Act for proceedings to be brought and pursued against the unnamed driver, suitably identified by an appropriate description, in order that the insurer could be made liable under section 151 of the 1988 Act for any judgment obtained against that driver. 82. A further appeal by the insurer to the Supreme Court was allowed unanimously. Lord Sumption considered in some detail the extent of any right in English law to sue unnamed persons. He referred to the decision in Bloomsbury and the cases which followed, many of which we have already mentioned. Then, at para 13, he distinguished between two kinds of case in which the defendant could not be named, and to which different considerations applied. The first comprised anonymous defendants who were identifiable but whose names were unknown. Squatters occupying a property were, for example, identifiable by their location though they could not be named. The second comprised defendants, such as most hit and run drivers, who were not only anonymous but could not be identified.

83. Lord Sumption proceeded to explain that permissible modes of service had been broadened considerably over time but that the object of all of these modes of service

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