B.C. Appeal Court orders ICBC to pay damages for injury sustained when vehicle is used to commit a crime

B.C.’s Appeal Court has ordered the province’s public insurer to pay damages to a claimant who was injured by a van used to snatch her purse.
Shirley Jane Hannah made a claim against the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC) for damages due to an injury she sustained in a supermarket parking lot in January 2003.
At that time, a van pulled up beside her and an unnamed passenger reached out to grab her purse. As the van drove away, it knocked Hannah over, and she was dragged by the van until the purse ripped.
Neither the driver nor the passenger in the van were identified.
S. 24(1) of the B.C. Insurance (Motor Vehicle) Act provides for insurance coverage in the event that a bodily injury “arises out of the use or operation of a motor vehicle” and “the names of both the owner and driver of the motor vehicle are not ascertainable.”
ICBC denied the claim, arguing that the “use or operation of a motor vehicle” in this case was intended to apply to negligence, and not to an “intentional act amounting to a civil assault and battery.”
The B.C. Appeal Court rejected this interpretation, referring to the Supreme Court of Canada’s decisions in Citadel, Chan, Collier v. Insurance Corp. of British Columbia and Lumbermens Mutual Casualty Co. v. Herbison. In these decisions, the court noted, “intervening acts” were the cause of the injuries.
But in Hannah v. John Doe, the court continued, “there is a continuous chain of causation stretching between the use of the motor vehicle on the one hand and the injuries sustained by the plaintiff on the other.”
Also, the court found, “the fact that a motor vehicle is used to facilitate or effect a criminal purpose does not render its use anything other than a motor vehicle.”