Copley v Lawn [2009]: What It Settled

§ 01What was the case about?

Two conjoined appeals in which non-fault drivers, already in or taking credit hire vehicles, received offers from the at-fault insurers to provide replacement cars free of charge. The claimants declined and continued their credit hire; the insurers argued the refusals were failures to mitigate, so the credit hire charges (or most of them) should be irrecoverable.

§ 02What did the court decide?

The Court of Appeal held that a claimant does not act unreasonably in declining an intervention offer, at least where the offer does not disclose what the car costs the insurer — the claimant cannot compare options they cannot price, and may make arrangements of their own. But mitigation still has teeth: where a refusal is shown to be unreasonable, damages are assessed at the cost the defendant's insurer would have incurred in providing the car, not at the credit hire rate. The measure, in other words, follows the offer.

§ 03What did it change in practice?

It wrote the rules of the intervention battle both sides still fight. Insurers responded with fuller, faster, better-documented offers — stating cost, duration and terms — because a well-made offer creates a recovery cap; credit hire companies and claimant legal representatives scrutinise offers for the gaps Copley identified. For the consumer, the practical consequence is that the intervention call in the first days after an accident carries legal weight either way; the early-days sequence is set out in how credit hire works.

§ 04Which later cases applied it?

Copley is applied routinely at county court level whenever intervention is in play, and its cost-to-the-insurer measure remains the operative rule. The broader mitigation framework it sits inside runs through the rates authorities: Pattni (2011) and Stevens (2015).

§ 05Related reading on this site

How credit hire works · Credit hire vs your own insurance