Motor Vehicles Insurance (PNG) Trust v Insurance Commissioner

• Jurisdiction: Papua New Guinea
• Court: National Court
• Judge: Sevua J
• Judgment Date: 22 May 1998
• Citation: (1998) N1725
• Judgment Number: N1725
• Year: 1998

National Court: Sevua J

Judgment Delivered: 22 May 1998

N1725

PAPUA NEW GUINEA

[National Court of Justice]

OS 350 of 1997

BETWEEN: MOTOR VEHICLE INSURANCE

(PNG) TRUST

Plaintiff

AND: INSURANCE COMMISSIONER

Defendant

Waigani: Sevua, J

1998: 23rd April & 22nd May

Practice – Motor Vehicle accidents – Action against MVIT – Notice - Prescribed period – Failure to claim within statutory time – Extension – Extension by Insurance Commissioner – Sufficient cause – Motor Vehicle (Third Party Insurance) Act Ch 295 s.54 (6).

Judicial Review – Insurance Commissioner’s granting of extension – Failure – Sufficient cause – Principle discussed - Commissioner’s decision subject to review.

The Motor Vehicles (Third Party Insurance) Act Ch 295 s.54(6) provides a statutory time limit within which a notice of intention to make a claim against the Trust is to be given. After the expiry of that time limit, an extension of time may be granted at the discretion of the Insurance Commissioner or the Court upon sufficient cause being shown. The Commissioner considered an application to extend time and granted such application without sufficient cause being shown.

HELD: (1) The Commissioner is a public authority and his decisions are

subject to judicial review.

2

(2) It is not desirable to lay down any rigid definition as to what does or does not constitute “sufficient cause”.

(3) Sufficient cause may be shown by an applicant by establishing, one or more of the following factors – ignorance or mistake as to his rights to give notice; delay in obtaining contemporaneous medical and/or police reports; difficulties in securing a lawyer; inaccessibility to or unavailability of public and/or private legal services; prolonged admission in hospital, etc.

(4) The applicant (Gorugahe Kei) had not shown sufficient cause to have warranted the extension granted him by the Insurance Commissioner.

(5) The decision of the Insurance Commissioner given on 6th June, 1997, is quashed.

CASES CITED:

· Ridge –v- Balwin [1964] AC 40.

· Motor Vehicles Insurance (PNG) Trust –v- Dixon Popo, Unreported, N1048, 28th February, 1992 (Brown, J).

· Graeme Rundle –v- Motor Vehicles Insurance PNG Trust [1987] PNGLR 44.

· Sophron –v- The Nominal Defendant (1956-57) 96 CLR 469.

· Whitgob –v- The Nominal Defendant (1951) 69 WN (NSW) 1.

· Shotts Iron Co. Ltd –v- Fordyce [1930] AC 503.

· Harris –v- Metropolitan Water Sewerage & Drainage Board (1940) 57 WN (NSW) 43.

Ms M. Thompson for Plaintiff

Ms H. Polume for Defendant

3

22nd May, 1998

SEVUA, J: This is an application for judicial review pursuant to Order 16 of the National Court Rules in respect of the defendant’s decision made on 6th May, 1997. Leave was granted on 10th September, 1997.

The defendant had, on 6th May, 1997 granted an extension of 28 days to one Gorugahe Kei (the claimant) to give notice of intention to make a claim against the plaintiff.

The defendant’s decision was in respect of a letter dated 20th June, 1997 from Gorugahe Kei, who claimed to have been injured in a motor vehicle accident which had occurred at about 9 pm on 24th May, 1993 at Two Mile Hill, along the Sir Hubert Murray Highway. The claimant said as a result of the accident, he received injuries to his left leg, ankle joint, waist and head. He and other injured passengers were taken to Port Moresby General Hospital and he was treated and released while the other passengers were admitted to hospital.

On paragraph 7 of his letter, the claimant said that, “due to financial problems and very very expensive to get a lawyer to assist me lodge a claim had consumed up the time to lodge a claim and I had written to the Insurance Commissioner on 25th February, 1997 seeking his approval for late claim which he gave his blessing some three months later, letter dated 6th May, 1997 which I received on the 27th of May, 1997.” I presume the claimant was trying to explain the delay in making a claim. A copy of the claimant’s letter was received by the plaintiff on 14th February, 1997.

A police road accident report was compiled on 25th September, 1993, some four months after the accident. A medical report dated 20th October, 1995, that is two and a half years later states that the claimant claimed “to have had outpatient treatment at that time for soft injuries to left lumber region and left thigh.”

However, there is no other evidence of any hospital admission notes or discharge summary and no medical report on the alleged date of accident or immediately thereafter.

The granting of the 28 days extension by the defendant almost four years following the accident raises the issue of whether sufficient cause had been shown...