A comprehensive insurance company does not have to pay for a customer’s damages after an accident. This was the ruling of the Saarbrücken Higher Regional Court in a recent ruling (File number: 5 U 102/23). In doing so, it overturned a ruling by the Saarbrücken Regional Court (14 O 402/20). This had acquitted him of intent and guilt – against which the insurer successfully appealed. The new ruling is final and no appeal is permitted.
The accident
A6 motorway, near the Homburg (Saar) junction, in the direction of Waldmohr. In March 2020, a man drove his Audi sports car (8J/TTS Coupé S) too fast and too close to another vehicle. He lost control and crashed into the central guardrail. A driver following behind tried to swerve and skidded. The occupants were slightly injured.
The Audi driver leaves the scene of the accident. In his car, police officers find an empty beer crate and an empty tablet packet in the footwell. On the guardrail, they find another empty beer crate, the driver’s car keys and wallet – and inside them, his address. But they don’t find him there.
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The next morning, the man goes to the doctor and tells her about an accident he was involved in. But he was so shocked that he fled in panic and ran cross-country. After that, he couldn’t remember anything until he woke up in his girlfriend’s apartment in the morning. According to her, he then had to vomit several times.
At the clinic, it is determined that the man is clear-headed and, apart from the blackout, unremarkable. The diagnosis: “post-traumatic psychological shock with memory gaps” – and a few bruises.
The lawsuit
The driver then demanded that his fully comprehensive car insurance cover the damage. He entered a female driver as the culprit on the claim form, allegedly because she had changed lanes. The issue was the difference between the replacement value and the residual value of the Audi – around 10,000 euros. This is how the finger-wrestling with the insurer began and the case ended up in court.
In his lawsuit, the Audi driver denied that he had left the scene of the accident without permission and had thus breached his duty. Because of his shock (which the doctor had also confirmed), he had acted neither intentionally nor maliciously, nor with gross negligence. And that the driver had caused the accident was just his opinion. Nothing more.
The insurer refused because the plaintiff drove too fast and too close. He also intentionally and maliciously violated his duty to provide information by fleeing. Alcohol and drug tests were therefore not possible, for example. And there is a lot of evidence to suggest that the plaintiff was simply disinhibited by alcohol and pills. This also explains his driving behavior and his attempt to take a crate of beer with him. And then he even called his girlfriend to pick him up at the Waldmohr rest stop.
The verdict
The Audi driver won in the Saarbrücken Regional Court. The judges held that he was innocent and not at fault due to the shock. The insurer appealed against this because it believed its customer was of sound mind and did not even believe that he had blacked out. And so it won – as already mentioned – in the Saarbrücken Higher Regional Court.
The judges there no longer accepted the shock explanation (in contrast to the district court), because they did not find the necessary signs. They therefore consider him guilty.
In legal terms, this means: “In view of the fact that the driver left the scene of the accident when there is strong evidence of disinhibition due to alcohol, pills or other intoxicants, in view of the driving behaviour observed by witnesses and false information in the damage report, the counter-evidence of causality that could be provided in the event of intent must also fail.”
According to the court, the plaintiff has thus breached his contractual obligation to provide information. And the insurance company does not have to pay.
