Cases - Midland Mainline Ltd and Others v Eagle Star Insurance Company Ltd

Record details

Name

Midland Mainline Ltd and Others v Eagle Star Insurance Company Ltd

Date

[2004]

Citation

EWCA Civ 1042

Keywords

Insurance - contracts – business interruption – delay - railway – train operating companies - extension of time – causation – effective cause of interruption – insured loss

Summary

This case arose out of claims by train operating companies for losses sustained by track speed restrictions following the Hatfield train crash and the subsequent focus on corner gauge cracking. In this case the Court of Appeal had to determine whether the proximate cause of the losses was the imposition of speed restrictions by Railtrack (an event for which the train operating companies were insured) or corner gauge cracking resulting from wear and tear (an event for which the train operating companies were not insured).

The Court of Appeal referred to Leyland Shipping Co Ltd v Norwich Union Fire Insurance Society Ltd and concluded that there can be more than one proximate cause of loss.

In this case the Court of Appeal held that if they had to find one proximate cause of loss it would be the corner gauge cracking but that alternatively there were two proximate causes of the loss which were approximately equal in effectiveness without one of them being clearly more decisive than the other.

Having found that corner gauge cracking was a proximate cause of the loss (either by itself or in common with the imposition of speed restrictions) the Court of Appeal applied this to the terms of the insurance policy and found in favour of Eagle Star.