Mother sues driver over fuel spill she says caused crash

Melissa Bruce maintains that her car skidded on a patch of fuel and went off the road and overturned as she drove her two daughters to school.

She claims that her vehicle skidded on leaked diesel which had come from the engine of Alastair Brown’s Land Rover Discovery.

Ms Bruce, 39, of The Corse, Crimond, in Aberdeenshire, has raised an action for £250,000 damages at the Court of Session in Edinburgh.

She blames Mr Brown, 40, of Rowanbank, Memsie, near Fraserburgh, in Aberdeenshire, for driving the Discovery on a public road while fuel was leaking from its engine.

In the contested action she also blames Pentland Motor Company, trading as Pentland Land Rover, which had replaced the cylinder head on Mr Brown’s Discovery’s engine the day before, for failing to check that a fuel pipe was properly connected.

Ms Bruce also blames manufacturer Land Rover, which sold the cylinder head with pipework attached, for supplying the part with a loose fuel pipe connection.

Liability is in dispute in the case and there are also issues about the level of damages.

Lawyers acting for Mr Brown asked Lord Stewart for the case to be put out for a debate on the relevancy of her claim against him.

But the judge rejected the move and said he would allow the action to go to a hearing of evidence.

Lord Stewart said in a written judgment issued yesterday: “She and her daughters were injured in the crash.

“Presumably the daughters’ claims have settled.

“The only claim presented in the current process is for the pursuer herself.

“A substantial element of the claim is for psychological injury.”

Ms Bruce said she was driving on the A90 Fraserburgh to Peterhead road on 11 October in 2006, near the St Fergus gas terminal, when her vehicle suddenly and without warning went into a skid and went off the road and overturned.

She maintains that she lost consciousness in the incident, and when she came round was in extreme distress.

She suffered injury to her head and shoulder and developed depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, it is claimed.

The judge was told that the claim against Mr Brown was “based on inference” – an adequately maintained motor vehicle does not leak diesel from its engine and he ought to have been aware of the leak and not to have driven on a public road while it was leaking fuel.

But lawyers acting for Mr Brown maintained that the mere fact of a fuel leak cannot raise an inference of negligent failure to inspect and maintain a vehicle by the owner where the cause of the leak was a loose fuel pipe connection in a part that was supplied by the manufacturer and fitted by a main dealership the day before.

It was argued that for her case to succeed, Ms Bruce would have to prove that the defect came, or should have come, to Mr Brown’s attention between the time when the Discovery was returned to him the previous day and the point when the fuel spill caused the accident.

Mr Brown, who was travelling in the same direction as Ms Bruce ahead of her, maintains that his journey was without incident until he was 2.7 miles beyond the gas terminal entrance and that it was not until he had gone nearly another half mile that he realised fuel was leaking.

Lord Stewart said that, despite the submissions that were made on behalf of Mr Brown, he had decided that the case should go to an eight-day hearing of evidence.