Dutchman in appeal against €20,650 award to insurer says evidence of intoxication absent

Lawyers representing a man ordered to pay €20,650 to his insurers for a car crash, have asked a court to revoke the parts of the judgement that had found him liable

The lawyers argued that the judge's conclusion
The lawyers argued that the judge's conclusion

A Dutchman who was ordered to pay €20,650 to Gasan Mamo Insurance earlier this month over an accident that was allegedly caused by drink-driving, has filed a comprehensive appeal, arguing that the judgement was contradictory and that there was no evidence that the accident had been caused by alcohol.

Gasan Mamo Insurance Ltd had sued Alexander Jan Edward Van Reeven and his mother over a claim relating to a 2009 traffic accident in Paola. Van Reeven had been driving his mother's car, which was insured with Gasan Mamo Insurance when he skidded and crashed into two parked cars. The insurer had eventually paid €10,489 and €10,065 to the owners of the two damaged cars.

In a connected case in 2009, Van Reeven had been charged and later convicted of filing a false police report, for claiming that the car had been stolen before the accident. 

Gasan Mamo had then filed a lawsuit before the First Hall of the Civil Court against the mother and son, asking to be reimbursed for the payouts they had made to the third parties.



In her decision, earlier this month, judge Jacqueline Padovani Grima had concluded that Van Reeven had breached the conditions of his insurance cover by driving whilst under the influence of alcohol. For this reason, the court ordered the man to reimburse the insurer the sum it had paid to the injured parties.

But in an appeal application filed on Friday, Van Reeven's lawyers Joseph Gatt and David Camilleri argued that judge Padovani Grima had contradicted her own evaluation of the evidence. The application states that a reading of the sentence “clearly shows that the court of first instance was not morally convinced by the amount of evidence put forward by the company.”

Van Reeven had not been breathalysed after the accident. The judge had stressed that it was the insurance company that needed to provide evidence of the appellant's lack of sobriety, “but then in a strange and contradictory manner, did not apply this principle,” the appeal application reads.

In fact, the first court's sentence had appeared to rebuke the insurer for failing to summon an expert to tell the court whether the amount of alcohol Van Reeven had allegedly consumed was enough to put him over the drink-drive limit. “This when it is well known that the level of intoxication is not determined solely by the amount that a person has drunk, but also by the stature and muscle mass of that person,” the judgement reads.

It had also noted that the police did not testify to the accused either smelling of alcohol or appearing to be intoxicated. The applicant had consumed two beers, the application reads, raising questions about whether this could plausibly lead to the intoxication of a man of large stature, like the Dutchman. “These are all questions that we do not find answers to in the acts of this case.”

The lawyers argued that the judge's conclusion – that Van Reeven's actions, the dynamics of the incident, the amount of damage caused, van Reeven's panic and the subsequent false report he had filed, together “led to the probability that Reeven had, in fact, driven under the influence of alcohol, over the limit established by law” – contradicted the rest of the judgement.

“The first court could not have reasonably reached this conclusion, much less after it had discussed the lack of evidence showing the appellant as being over the legal limit,” his lawyers argued.

Van Reeven's lawyers also took issue with the apparent taking of the amount of damages he had caused as a factor imputing his guilt, describing it as a “legal absurdity.” “Had the appellant been involved in a collision with a far less valuable vehicle, would this automatically mean that he was not drunk?”

The application goes on to argue that at first instance, the court “dedicated a substantial part of its sentence” to affirm that the false police report was not relevant to the central issue of the insurance claim, only to then “use it as justification, that in effect, the appellant had drunk more than the legal limit.”

Arguing that the court had made an incorrect appreciation of the facts, lawyers Joseph Gatt and David Camilleri asked the court of Appeal to revoke the parts of the judgement that had found Van Reeven liable.