Houghton v Trafalgar Insurance Co Ltd [1954] 1 QB 247
Court: Court of Appeal. Judgment: 11 November 1953. Further citation: [1953] 2 Lloyd’s Rep 503.
An ambiguous motor-insurance exclusion did not clearly remove cover because a car carried one more person than its seating capacity.
Facts
Houghton’s car was involved in an accident on 18 March 1951 and became a total loss. Six people occupied the five-seater car: two sat in front and four in the rear, with one passenger sitting on another’s knees.
The insurer relied on an exclusion concerning a car carrying “any load in excess of that for which it was constructed”. It argued that the extra passenger brought the accident within that wording.
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Gorman J rejected this defence. The insurer appealed against the decision concerning damage to the car. A separate claim relating to passengers’ injuries had already been dealt with and was outside the appeal.
Issue
Did the wording about an excessive load clearly exclude cover when a private car carried an additional passenger?
Decision and reasoning
The Court of Appeal dismissed the insurer’s appeal. Somervell LJ explained that uncertainty in the insurer’s own clause was to be resolved in the insured person’s favour: the contra proferentem approach.
In his view, the words clearly addressed vehicles with a specified weight capacity, such as a lorry or van. They did not clearly express the proposed restriction on passenger numbers in this private car. Other parts of the clause could apply to ordinary cars, but that did not settle the meaning of the particular words relied upon.
Excluding insurance merely because there was one additional rear-seat passenger required much clearer wording. Somervell LJ also emphasised that a provision of that kind should be prominently drawn to the insured person’s attention.
The insurer therefore could not use this exclusion to defeat the claim for damage to the car.
