JUDGEMENT OF District JUDGE HURLEY
In the case before me today, a claim is made by Mr Ian Wright against HP Information plc. Mr Wright’s claim is for the basic sum of £1,595 plus the court fee plus interest. The claim centres around his purchase of a white Ford Escort van which bore the registration plate number G935 HKY. The van also had on it, in the appropriate place, the matching VIN number. Unknown to Mr Wright the VRM and VIN belonged to a similar vehicle which had been involved in a road accident in September 1996 alley which the vehicle had been scrapped. According to a report by the Police, the officer at the scene had considered the vehicle to be a write off as did the garage to which it was taken.
It appears that the owner disposed of the vehicle as salvage but that the engine and gear box had been kept by the garage to which it was sold. The garage sold the shell of the vehicle. I note that the owner at the time of the crash sent the vehicle registration certificate V5 to the DVLA recording the vehicle as having been scrapped on 25 September 1996.
I have no further evidence regarding that vehicle other than what was told to the DVLA. According to HPI records, which are produced on the annotations history report, the DVLA notified HPI on 5 October 1996 (i.e. after the road traffic accident) about the mileage of the vehicle but did not apparently inform NP! that the vehicle had been written off
After these events, Mr Wright, acting innocently, as both the Police and myself found, became interested in purchasing a white Ford Escort van. Unknown to him, a third party had acquired the registration plates and VIN number of the car which had crashed and put them on a similar stolen van, removing that van’s original plates and VIN. Once Mr Wright saw the vehicle, he quite properly decided to carry out a check and telephone HPI on 3 January 1997. There is some dispute between Mr Wright and Mr Hubbard as to what was said in Mr Wright’s conversation with HPI. HPI has produced its standard script and, although Mr Wright remembers some aspects of it, he says others were not relayed to him. The Defendants have not called the telephone operator as a witness.
As a result of the phone call, Mr Wright was told that nothing was recorded against vehicle registration number G935 HKY. Both the VIN and VRM matched and Mr Wright was told the basic details of the vehicle. He bought the vehicle the next day but did not see the registration form V5 at the time he purchased the vehicle. The seller came up with a plausible excuse for it having been mislaid. At that time, Mr Wright had not received written confirmation of the HPI check and the written terms and conditions. Mr Wright thinks they arrived the day after i.e. 5 January [Note. 5 January was, in fact, a Sunday but it is quite probable that the details did not arrive until the Monday].
Today, Mr Wright has accepted that based on the information which he had before him and which he related to HPI, no-one could have said that that vehicle was stolen. For HPI to say that the vehicle was not stolen was truthful, correct and accurate.
However, in September 1996. the van which had legitimately borne the G registration plate had been in a road accident and sold as scrap, as I have previously found. Why was Mr Wright not told that?
I accept as fact that HPI did not know about that accident I have before me printed information which HPI had about the G registration vehicle. The printed information shows the DVLA giving information to HP! alter the accident, by means of a tape which would be loaded automatically onto HPIs computer registers. It would not be input manually. The information received from the DVLA shows no indication that the car had been written off. Indeed, the only information I have that the car was written off was a letter from the Police which refers to the vehicle as having been “scrapped”. There is a difference between scrapping a car and writing a car off
HPI’s records show no information that HP! knew the vehicle had been in a road traffic accident. I accept that HPI’s records are reliant on information provided by third party sources. HPI does not seek out the information. They are a well established and well known firm and are used and contacted by all organisations associated with vehicles.
Mr Wright has an impossible task to show that HP! possessed information which they did not reveal to him and to his credit he has not sought to argue that HPI gave the information to him according to its records, and that information was truthful accurate and complete on that day.
Mr Wright points to the HPI insurance cover. The terms of the document say that the insurance indemnifies against the provision of untrue, inaccurate or incomplete information. An argument centres on whether that “untruth, inaccuracy and incompleteness” is related to such information as HPI has at the time of the enquiry or whether it is blanket cover, so that Mr Wright would be subsequently indemnified on discovery of the truth. In this case, HPI did not know on 3 January 1997 that the van which ought to have borne the G registration plate had been badly damaged in a road traffic accident. That only came to light when the police became involved. If Ms Wright’s argument is correct, then he has the basis of a claim.
However, that would make the insurance cover extremely wide. The charge which HPI makes for the service is reasonably modest and includes a premium, or a contribution towards the premium, the insurance cover. Mr Wright at the end of his submissions, posed a rhetorical question about the clarity of that clause which I share with him [i.e. clause 1 of the policy]. I do not think that the clause is as clear as it could be. Whilst I understand and can appreciate Mr Wright’s argument, it would be too wide a definition to say it was blanket cover. It has to be interpreted in the tight of all the information, and in particular, the way in which HPI operates as a collator of information.
I find as a fact that on 3rd January l997 they gave all the information they then had to Mr Wright. I think that the scope of’ the insurance cover has to be interpreted so that effectively the insurance covers loss suffered if the information supplied to Mr Wright was untrue based on what was shown on HPI’s register.
With a little regret and sympathy, I am afraid I cannot bring Mr Wright’s circumstances within the scope of the insurance cover because of the deceit and fraud practised on him by a third party. HPI’s response was true, accurate and complete. HPI could not have been aware that the vehicle was stolen. Should they have been aware that the vehicle had been in a road traffic accident? No, because HPI is reliant on others. I do not think that the insurance cover can be the wide cover which Mr Wright has argued (and argued well) to persuade me and accordingly, I do not feel he has a basis for a claim against HPI. Because of this I dismiss the claim.