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Terry Mathieson
Member - 3 posts
I would value the opinion of this forum on the following scenario (appologies if it is a long thread)
An NHS employee, who is a part time Macmillan Comunity Nurse, had a lease car issued in 2005. Being the first "proper" car that he/she had had, and never having had to worry about scheduled servicing in the past, they missed their first (10k ml) service. The car has since been serviced at 20k, 30k, 40k and 50K miles. Late in 2007 the car started overheating and the employee contacted the local main dealer to ask for advice. They were instructed to "bring it in" when they explained that a journey of 60 miles was involved, they were told to "just keep an eye on things and take it easy". The result was that the engine seized and subsequently had to be replaced.
The manufacturer and main dealer have stated that because of the missed service, the vehicle warranty has been withdrawn and the repair is therefore chargable. My questions are - is it reasonable (legal)for the NHS Trust to ask the employee to pay the resultant £6000 repair bill? in view of the facts that the car has been serviced at least 4 times since the service was missed, and that if the car had not been driven 60 miles on the instruction of the dealer, the engine would have been repairable and the £6000 bill avoided. Can the Trust arrest the wages of this employee to pay for the damage?
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Jennifer Chapman
Member - 15 posts
I'm no lawyer, but -
1. What system do you have in force to check that services have been done - was this made absolutely clear to the person in the first place? (cos it could have been 9.000 or 12,000 - depends on the car make, doesn't it? - or possibly the terms of the lease? Who has a copy of the lease, were such clauses drawn to the employees attention at the time?)
2. If the warranty was breached - surely someone should have told you/her that 50,000 miles ago? Or is it perfectly clear in the wording of the warranty and have you/she both got a copy of the wording? Were the contents of that restrictory clause drawn to your employees attantion?
I think it could be a case of 'the car is the responsibility of the employer, not the employee' - there are many many ordinary people who have never had a brand new car in their lives - or even one that is new enough to have any sort of warranty - and I do not feel it is reasonable to assume that everyone would 'automatically' know what they 'should' be doing!
Unless the employer really has dotted all his iiii and crossed all his tttt - I think he may be skating on rather thin ice if he tries to dock any money!
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Robert Hacon Williams
Member - 65 posts
Like Jennifer, I am not a lawyer, however, I do write Driving Policies for my clients. As the Lessor is the NHS they have a duty to ensure that the car is insured, MOTd and serviced to the manufacturer's specification.
They can do this by passing some duties to the user, however, they must specify which duties have been passed to the user.
I also believe that even if they do pass the duties to the user they have a duty to ensure that the user completes their allocated tasks. I presume that they NHS paid for the servicing, MOT and insurance thus they should have a system for monitoring the legal requirements for the car. The NHS should also have monitored the driver's licence to ensure that the driver was permitted to drive and if they had points on their licence then this should have been passed to the insurers.
If they, the NHS, failed to ensure that the servicing and the other legally required aspects were undertaken then the NHS is at fault.
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Derek Chandler
Member - 12 posts
It may be in the contract of employment that they can recover such
costs suggest look there first. The first service is key on most new
cars and making sure any extra oil loss is replenished to avoid an
engine seize/wear is quite crucial and may have been the reason for the
later seizure...but still unlikely. Using the wrong fuel and not fully
cleaning up the situation may also have bought on the seizure however
typically the synthetic oil used in most cars these days is really robust
so was the correct oil used at the last service etc etc. I think I would have asked for an independant engineer review of this engine failure to fully
establish if this was an engine failure or driver error .... I think it unlikely
the driver contributed to the failure ....look on the web for the car manufacturer forums plenty of incidents are normally recorded to give one
a clue in this area.
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James Fairchild
Member - 210 posts
Surely the employers fleet management team (or outsourced provider) would book services anyway?
When I have had company cars before, someone has called me to arrange a convenient date for service etc.
I cannot imagine a situation such as this where it _would_ be reasonable to charge the cost of the repairs to the employee.
The employee could have had a 'fault' accident that caused several times this value of damage. Many large fleets these days have insurance policies that are third party only, and/or with a five figure excess, so its not as though there would be insurance - the effect would be that the employer would pay for the costs of the accident from its bottom line.
Thinking about it, isn't the NHS prohibited to carry insurance, and instead doesn't it maintain a fund for accidents/employee injuries/etc?
I think if anything, the NHS trust should put their energy into arguing with the vehicle manufacturer and warranty provider.
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Anne McAllister
Member - 115 posts
Having had a lease car for a number of years as an NHS employee I would just like to add that I know of at least one occassion where the car was taken into a well known dealer for a routine service and ws later checked by the employees husband and found to have numerous problems ie no oil change had been carried out despite the company charging the NHS for doing so and a few other minor issues .
It was sheer luck that this ladys husband was looking for something to do otherwise she could have found herself in a situation similar to this one.
He had to deal with the car lease company because they fobbed his wife off
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