Home Subscribe Advertising Contact info Industry Links Company &    Ratings Search Daily service Email Us

Ruling limits legal liability of drivers to passengers     (Copyright Thompson’s World Insurance News     Not to be redistributed by individual recipients.)     The move by an Ontario judge to strike down part of a designated driver lawsuit (Thompson’s, June 14) should afford motorists some relief regarding legal liability to their passengers, a Toronto lawyer says.     “The decision has the effect of informing designated drivers that while they still bear the responsibility for what may happen to the drivers once they enter the automobile, that responsibility does not track backwards in time to when the consumption of alcohol began,” said Ian Gold of Thomas Gold Pettingill.     The plaintiff’s interest in expanding the duties of a designated driver as much as possible is presumed to widen access to the defendant’s insurance.     “Insurers — and establishments that serve alcohol — should be relieved to see that the court has restricted the obligations and responsibilities of designated drivers.”     The case involved a woman who drank at a house party and later jumped out of a vehicle, sustaining catastrophic injuries.     She sued her husband, who had been their designated driver for $7m saying he should have supervised her drinking at the party and prevented her from jumping.     Justice Edward Belobaba moved that the part of the woman’s claim that alleges the man as designated driver was required to monitor and control his partner’s consumption of alcohol at the party and generally supervise her behaviour be struck.     To decide otherwise “would not be in the public interest.     a more detailed report in our June 21 2010 edition. If you are not a regular reader, go to www.thompsonsnews.com and click on subscribe on the right hand side of the page.        Thompson’s World Insurance News P.O. Box 1027,  Waterloo, Ontario,  Canada  N2J 4S1 Tel: 519-579-2500 Fax: 519-745-7321 mpub@sympatico.ca THOMPSON’S WORLD INSURANCE NEWS , Canada’s only independent weekly for p&c insurance professionals, has been the industry’s most trusted news source since 1988.