Mecheck Willis was seriously injured in a motor vehicle accident in 2001. The driver of the other vehicle was 16-year-old Devar McFarlane. The latter reportedly lost control of his vehicle and crashed into the car that Willis was driving. McFarlane died as a result.
Willis, a 40-year-old higgler, suffered injuries to his legs and has been unable to work.
Eleven years later, thanks to the glacial pace of the local justice system, a Supreme Court Judge found that the company that supposedly insured the vehicle McFarlane was driving, was not legally responsible to pay Willis’ claim for $34 million.
McFarlane did not hold a driver’s licence. As a result, the car owners’ insurance offered no protection. Willis’ claim would be not recoverable.
This outcome was not expected. When the motor vehicle accident compensation system was set up over six decades ago it was anticipated that all victims of road accidents would get compensation as set out by law.
Willis’ attorneys filed an appeal. The Court of Appeal upheld the judgment of the Supreme Court. The insurance company did not have to pay a dime the three judges decided.
McFarlane was not legally permitted to drive a motor vehicle. There was no valid insurance policy in place at the time of “the accident that has had such catastrophic consequences of the life of Willis,” the judges said. “It would be wrong to impose on an insurer a liability the insurance policy did not purport to cover.”
The judges were very sympathetic to the plight of Mr Willis. He was seriously injured. Also, he had to wait 11 years to have his case heard only to learn that he would not get any compensation.
The then head of the Appeal Court, Justice Panton, said situations like these “require the intervention of the state in the creation of a fund that would provide for innocent, unfortunate victims “ and that it was “most unfortunate that no facility exists … to satisfy the judgment of this claim.”
Justice Hillary Philips agreed with Justice Panton. “The Jamaican legislature ought to take the crucial step … to implement a scheme in order to cure the social evil created when unlicensed drivers cause personal injury, property damage or death to innocent third parties for which there is no compensation,” she said.
Great Britain enacted legislation “to protect innocent third parties from the actions of uninsured drivers”. An entity that is funded ultimately by all motorists was established in 1946 for this purpose.
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