Road Accident Caused by a Sudden Brake, Tyre or Steering Failure in Kuwait: Is the Driver Excused, and Who Pays?

The brakes go soft at a red light. A tyre bursts on the highway. The steering wheel suddenly stops answering your hands, and a second later your car has hit another vehicle, a pedestrian or a wall. Once the shaking stops, almost every driver thinks the same thing: "It was not my fault, the car failed." And the injured person asks the opposite question: "What does your mechanical problem have to do with me? Who is going to pay?" Between those two sentences lies a real legal question that trips up many people: does a sudden technical failure relieve the driver of responsibility, and if not, who ultimately bears it?

The short answer surprises many drivers. In Kuwaiti civil law, a defect inside the vehicle is, in principle, not an outside cause that frees the person in charge of the vehicle from liability toward the injured party. But that does not mean the driver carries the final cost alone. He may then turn to whoever actually caused the failure: the workshop that repaired the car badly, the agent or distributor that supplied a faulty part or ignored a recall, or the seller who concealed a defect or refused to honour a warranty. In truth there are two connected disputes: the driver against the victim, and the driver against whoever damaged his vehicle.

This article focuses on that second layer. It does not repeat the general rules on road-accident compensation covered in our article on road accidents and compensation in Kuwait, nor the general rules on the liability of the person in charge of a thing explained in our article on liability for things under the Kuwaiti Civil Code. It applies them to a sudden breakdown: when the driver is relieved and when he is not, what neglected maintenance does to his position, how a claim against the workshop, the agent or the seller is built, what insurance and the technical inspection report contribute, and how to preserve evidence before it disappears.

Quick Answer

Toward the injured party: as a rule, a sudden failure of the brakes, tyre or steering does not relieve the person in charge of the vehicle of civil liability. A defect inside the thing is neither force majeure nor a foreign cause in the legal sense; it is one of the risks of the thing, borne by the person who controls it and benefits from it. In practice, compulsory third-party motor insurance is usually the first route by which the injured person is paid.

Toward criminal proceedings: the position differs. Criminal liability for negligent injury or death requires personal fault such as negligence, carelessness or breach of regulations. If a technical inspection shows a sudden failure that could not have been foreseen or avoided, and no neglected maintenance can be attributed to the driver, the element of fault may fall away. If neglected maintenance or ignored warning signs are proven, liability remains.

Recourse afterwards: depending on the facts, the driver, the owner or the insurer may pursue the workshop if the failure follows a defective or earlier repair, the seller under the warranty against hidden defects if the defect pre-dated the sale and was not apparent, and the agent, distributor or manufacturer under the terms of the warranty and consumer-protection rules. All of this depends on proving a causal link between the defect or faulty repair and the failure, which usually requires a technical expert report and, above all, keeping the vehicle exactly as it is, without repair or dismantling, until it has been examined.

Legislative Framework

Several complementary Kuwaiti statutes govern this question:

• The Civil Code (Decree-Law No. 67 of 1980): contains the general rule of liability for wrongful acts, the special rule on the person in charge of things requiring special care, including mechanical equipment, the rules of sale and the warranty against hidden defects, the contract-for-work rules that govern the relationship between a vehicle owner and a workshop, and the rules on contractual liability, rescission and damages.
• The Traffic Law (Decree-Law No. 67 of 1976) and its executive regulations: require vehicles to be roadworthy and to meet safety conditions, subject them to licensing and periodic technical inspection, make third-party insurance a condition of operating the vehicle, and penalise driving an unfit vehicle or endangering others.
• The Penal Code (Law No. 16 of 1960) and the Code of Criminal Procedure (Law No. 17 of 1960): regulate negligent homicide and negligent injury, their elements, the procedures of investigation and trial, and the injured person's right to join the criminal case as a civil claimant.
• The Consumer Protection Law (Law No. 39 of 2014): recognises the consumer's right to a safe and fit product, to a warranty and to accurate information, and places responsibility on suppliers and sellers for defects. It is an important basis for claims against an agent or distributor.
• The Law of Evidence in Civil and Commercial Matters (Law No. 39 of 1980): governs the means of proof, including expert evidence, which is the central tool in this kind of dispute.
• The Civil and Commercial Procedure Law (Law No. 38 of 1980): governs filing a claim, joining parties, requesting the appointment of an expert and urgent applications to record the state of an asset.
• The Insurance Regulation Law (Law No. 125 of 2019): regulates insurers and their supervision, and is the reference for verifying a policy and understanding insurance rights.

We have also discussed what compulsory and comprehensive insurance each cover in earlier articles. Our piece on accidents with an uninsured vehicle or a fleeing driver explains what happens when insurance is missing, which matters here if the policy turns out to have lapsed when the failure occurred.

Substantive Rules

First: does a technical failure relieve the driver?

To answer this you must distinguish three levels of liability, because a mechanical failure may affect one of them and not the others.

Civil liability as the person in charge of the vehicle. The Civil Code places a special liability on whoever has charge of mechanical equipment, or a thing that requires special care, for the harm it causes. The person in charge is the one who holds actual control over the thing, in its use, direction and supervision, for his own account. That is usually the owner or someone to whom the owner handed the vehicle in a way that gave him control. This liability rests on presumed fault: the injured person does not have to prove that the person in charge did anything wrong, only that the harm was caused by the thing. The liability can be defeated only by proving a foreign cause for which the person in charge is not responsible, such as force majeure or an unforeseeable event, the victim's own fault, or the fault of a third party.

So is a sudden brake failure "force majeure" or an "unforeseeable event"? Courts and commentators in legal systems close to Kuwait's have long treated force majeure as requiring something external to the thing, unforeseeable and impossible to prevent. A defect within the thing itself, such as a broken brake line or a weakened tyre wall, is not external to it; it is one of the ordinary risks of the thing, borne by the person who controls it. For that reason the argument "the car broke down by itself" is generally not accepted as a defence. By contrast, if the true cause of a blow-out or a break was genuinely external, such as a foreign object thrown onto the road in a way no one could have foreseen, or deliberate sabotage by another person, it may qualify as a foreign cause, depending on the court's assessment of the facts.

Criminal liability. The rules are different. Negligent homicide or injury requires fault on the part of the accused: negligence, rashness, lack of caution or failure to observe laws and regulations. If it is shown that the vehicle was sound and had been maintained in the ordinary way, that the failure was sudden and unforeseeable, and that the driver reacted as a careful driver would on discovering it, fault may not be attributable to him. If, on the other hand, the brakes had been weak for a while and warnings were ignored, or the technical inspection was not renewed, or the car was driven on worn tyres, negligence is established and criminal liability follows. The criminal court assesses these facts in light of the expert's report.

Traffic-law liability. Separate violations relating to the condition of the vehicle itself, such as being unroadworthy or having an expired inspection, may be recorded regardless of who caused the collision. They strengthen the opponent's case on negligence where they existed at the time of the accident.

Second: different kinds of failure, brakes, tyres and steering

The practical picture varies with the nature of the failure:

• Brakes: symptoms usually appear before total failure: a soft pedal, grinding noise, vibration under braking, a dashboard warning light, or a fluid leak. Proof that the driver noticed such symptoms and did nothing strengthens the negligence argument. If the failure follows a recent brake repair at a workshop, attention turns to the quality of the work and the parts.
• Tyres: a blow-out may result from wear, age, wrong inflation, overloading, a manufacturing defect, or damage from a foreign object. The inspection looks at the manufacturing date, tread wear and the way the tyre tore, to decide whether the problem lies in the tyre, in the way it was used, or in an outside cause.
• Steering: a sudden loss of control may come from a damaged joint or linkage, a pump defect, an earlier repair, or a manufacturer's recall for a known problem in the model. This is where the role of the agent or distributor in announcing a recall, and the owner's awareness of it, become relevant.

The point of this classification is that each type of failure carries different clues about its cause and about who produced it, and the expert looks for specific signs in each case. That is why the safest course after an accident is not to touch the vehicle before it is examined.

Third: the duty of periodic maintenance and its effect

Maintenance is an obligation on the person in charge of the vehicle, not just good advice. Breaching it matters in three places:

• In the criminal case: it supports the charge of negligence. Someone who drives knowing that the brakes or tyres are unsound has breached the duty of caution.
• In the civil case: it prevents the driver from claiming that the failure was a foreign cause, because a failure that ordinary maintenance would have prevented is not "sudden" in the legal sense.
• In recourse against others: it weakens the driver's claim against the workshop, the seller or the agent, because they will argue that the failure came from the owner's neglect, not from any defect on their side. The better the maintenance record, the easier it is to show that the defect was hidden or the repair faulty.

Maintenance evidence includes workshop invoices, the dealer's service record, the periodic inspection certificate, parts-replacement receipts and, if they exist, photographs of the dashboard from before the accident. Each of these papers can mean the difference between acquittal and conviction, or between a successful and a rejected recourse claim.

On the other hand, an ordinary driver is not expected to detect what only a specialist could. He is not answerable for a hidden defect in a component that does not show up in a routine check or in symptoms, as long as he kept up periodic maintenance and had the vehicle checked at reputable workshops. This is an assessment the judge makes with the help of an expert.

Fourth: recourse against the workshop

The relationship between the vehicle owner and the workshop is contractual. It is usually characterised as a contract for work, or a repair contract that includes the supply of spare parts. The workshop owes certain duties: to perform the work skilfully and to professional standards, to use suitable and sound parts, to warn the owner of dangerous defects it discovers that fall outside the job ordered, and not to hand back a vehicle that is unsafe.

Opinions differ on how to characterise the workshop's obligation, whether as an obligation to achieve a result (a safe, working vehicle) or merely to exercise care (competent work). It is for the judge to decide according to the type of work and what was agreed, and we do not settle a disputed point here. What is generally accepted in practice is that a workshop that repaired the brakes, which then failed shortly afterwards for a reason connected with the repair itself or the part it fitted, answers for the harm, unless it proves that the failure had another cause unrelated to its work.

For a recourse claim against a workshop to succeed you need:

• proof that the workshop did the work on the failed system: an invoice, work order, messages or witnesses;
• proof of a defect in the work or the part: an expert report showing wrong installation, an inferior component, or a necessary check that was skipped;
• proof of a causal link between that defect and the failure that led to the accident;
• a claim for the owner's loss: what he paid or must pay the injured person, the repair of his own vehicle, and the use he lost.

A warranty line on the invoice helps, but a workshop is not freed merely because it wrote an exclusion clause where gross fault or fraud is proven, and the court may review unfair terms. The workshop can be joined to the main case, sued separately once responsibility is established, or made the target of an urgent application to record the vehicle's state before its features change.

Fifth: recourse against the car's seller under the hidden-defect warranty

If the failure came from an old defect in the vehicle itself, the field is the warranty in the contract of sale. We covered the rules of the hidden-defect warranty in our article on hidden defects in Kuwaiti law, and here we confine ourselves to what matters for breakdown accidents.

A seller guarantees that the item is free of defects that reduce its value or usefulness for its intended purpose. In general the defect must pre-date delivery, must be hidden, meaning the buyer did not know of it and could not have found it by a normal inspection, and must be significant. The warranty gives the buyer remedies that range from returning the item and rescinding the sale to a price reduction and damages, depending on which conditions are met. The seller must be notified of the defect at a suitable time after it is discovered, and these rights can be lost by delay or by disposing of the vehicle after learning of the defect, according to the law and the circumstances of each case.

In sudden-failure accidents, however, caution is needed for two reasons. First, a used car is normally sold "as is" after the buyer's own inspection, so the seller will say the defect was visible, known or accepted. Second, time between the purchase and the accident lets the seller argue that the failure arose after delivery through use, not from an earlier defect. That is why the expert matters: he determines whether the defect is old, pre-dating the sale, or the product of ordinary wear and use.

If the seller concealed the defect on purpose, or deliberately disguised the vehicle's condition, for example by hiding a prior accident and repairing it badly, the matter goes beyond warranty into fraud and misrepresentation, which opens the door to full damages and may carry criminal consequences. We looked at a close example in our article on a used car with a tampered odometer or a hidden accident.

Does damages for the defect extend to what the buyer paid an injured person after an accident caused by it? That is something the court assesses by reference to causation, the seller's knowledge and whether such loss was foreseeable, and the prospects improve where the seller acted in bad faith.

Sixth: recourse against the agent, distributor and manufacturer

For a new or recent vehicle, the wider door is the commercial warranty offered by the agent or distributor. Several routes exist:

• The written manufacturer or agent warranty: the agent is bound by what it promised in the warranty document, whether repair or replacement, and the warranty terms form part of the contract. A failure in the brake or steering system during the warranty must be fixed at the guarantor's expense, and a person harmed by a failure to repair can claim damages.
• Consumer rights: the Consumer Protection Law recognises the consumer's right to a safe product fit for use and places responsibility on suppliers and sellers for defects and for failing to disclose known risks. This supports a claim against the businesses that dealt with the consumer in selling and supplying the vehicle.
• Recall campaigns: if the manufacturer announced a dangerous defect in a model and the agent failed to notify the owner, neglected to repair the car, or delayed supplying the part, that neglect is a strong ground of liability. Conversely, if the owner was told of the recall and did not respond, the argument may turn against him, and that may count as his own negligence.
• Manufacturing defects: if the defect lies in design or manufacture, the owner and the injured party may pursue whoever produced, imported or distributed the product under the general rules and the consumer-protection provisions. This is harder to prove and needs specialist expertise, sometimes research into the model and into similar failures.

A common mistake is to have the car repaired at an unauthorised workshop during the warranty period, after which the agent argues that the warranty has lapsed. The judge may examine that defence in light of the wording of the warranty document and the link between the outside work and the failure; not every outside intervention voids a warranty unless it caused the failure or the condition was explicit and lawful.

Seventh: the role of insurance and the technical inspection report

Compulsory third-party liability insurance is the fastest route to compensation for the injured person. The victim usually does not care why the vehicle failed, and claims against the insurer of the vehicle that caused the harm. The insurer pays within the compulsory cover and then considers its own right of recourse against whoever caused the loss, according to the policy and the law. It therefore has an interest in pursuing the workshop, the seller or the agent, and may step into the insured's position under the rules on subrogation.

Damage to the driver's own vehicle is not covered by third-party insurance. It falls under comprehensive insurance where one exists, and here the insurer may rely on exclusions in the policy such as mechanical breakdown, ordinary wear or poor maintenance. The policy must be read to see whether a sudden failure that led to a collision is an insured peril; in many policies, mere mechanical breakdown is one thing and the collision that follows it is another. We do not decide that outcome without seeing the policy wording concerned.

When an insurer argues that the failure came from neglected maintenance, in order to cut or refuse a claim, the burden of showing that rests on it, and the deciding evidence is usually the technical inspection report. A good report answers these questions:

• What exactly failed, in which part of the system, and with what symptoms?
• Was it sudden, or gradual with earlier signs?
• Does it come from a manufacturing defect, an inferior part, wrong installation, wear from use, neglected maintenance or an external act?
• Could an ordinary driver have discovered it before it happened?
• Once it happened, could the driver have avoided or reduced the outcome?
• Roughly when did the defect arise: before the sale, after the repair, or after delivery?

Courts normally appoint a technical expert in these cases. His report is subject to the court's assessment: it may adopt it or set it aside with sound reasons, the parties may object, and a fresh mandate or a panel of experts may be requested where needed. A report from a traffic technical authority or an accredited inspection centre can be useful as preliminary evidence, but it does not replace the court-appointed expert once it is challenged.

Eighth: several responsible parties and how the burden is shared

One accident can have several causes: a hidden brake defect together with excessive speed, an old tyre with an overloaded car, a faulty repair with an ignored warning. In such cases responsibility is divided among those who contributed to the harm in proportion to the seriousness of each one's fault, and the driver's own fault can reduce his right of recourse by the extent of his contribution.

The outside victim is relatively safe from this apportionment, since he can claim against those responsible jointly in the situations the law provides, and they then settle matters among themselves. So a driver should not spend his energy on exculpating himself against the injured person at the expense of his real right of recourse. The more important fight is to prove who spoiled the vehicle, not to deny responsibility to the person who was hurt.

Where the loss is to the vehicle itself, or to its value and use, see our discussion of loss of a car's value, downtime and replacement rental for the heads of loss that can be claimed.

Ninth: special situations that can change the picture

• The driver is not the owner: where a driver is using someone else's vehicle, civil liability as the person in charge may fall on the owner or whoever held actual control. The driver may turn on the owner if the owner concealed a known defect, and the owner may turn on the driver for misuse. This resembles what we explained about the minor driving a car in terms of allocating control and responsibility.
• A work or government vehicle: if the vehicle belongs to an employer or a public body, the injured party has a different target, and the body keeps its own right of recourse against the workshop or supplier, as we described in struck by a government car.
• A training vehicle: if the failure occurs during a driving lesson, the instructor and school have particular duties to check the car beforehand, set out in our article on accidents during driving lessons.
• A rented vehicle: allocation between the renter and the rental company is shaped by the rental contract, and the company owes delivery of a roadworthy vehicle, as discussed in our article on accidents in a rented car.
• The road itself: a tyre that burst because of a pothole or an obstacle is not a self-originating failure but damage from the road, governed by other rules explained in a pothole or roadworks damaged my car. The expert should be asked to tell the two apart.

Principles of the Court of Cassation

The Court of Cassation has, in general terms, settled a number of principles that govern these situations, which we set out in their general sense:

• That liability of the person in charge of things requiring special care rests on presumed fault that can be rebutted only by proving a foreign cause, and that the person in charge is the one with actual control over the thing in its use, direction and supervision for his own account.
• That an internal defect in the thing, such as a fault in its manufacture or one of its parts, is in principle not force majeure that relieves the person in charge, since force majeure must be external to the thing and impossible to foresee or prevent.
• That criminal liability for negligent injury or death arises only on proof of fault by the accused and a causal link between that fault and the result, and that deciding whether fault exists is for the trial court, provided its reasoning is sound.
• That assessing the expert's work and deciding how far to rely on his report is for the trial court, which may set the report aside for sound reasons and may appoint another expert or a panel.
• That the hidden-defect warranty requires a defect that is old, significant and unknown to the buyer, and that deciding whether it is old, hidden and material is a question of fact for the trial court with the help of experts.
• That a final criminal judgment binds the civil court on what it necessarily decided about the occurrence of the act, its attribution to the perpetrator and its legal description.
• That assessing compensation for material and moral harm is for the trial court, provided it sets out the elements of the harm it compensated.

Methodological note: we have deliberately not cited appeal numbers or judgment dates in this article, because citing a specific judgment accurately requires its full text and facts. These principles are presented in their general, settled wording. When a statement of claim or memorandum is prepared, the lawyer cites specific judgments from official sources and checks later developments.

Practical Steps and Documents

First: at the scene and in the first hours

• Stop safely, switch on the hazard lights and call an ambulance if anyone is hurt.
• Report to the traffic police and ask that the report record clearly that you state the vehicle failed, and describe the failure in your own words as it happened: "the brakes went", "the tyre burst", "I lost the steering".
• Photograph the vehicle, the location, skid marks or their absence, the dashboard and any warning light, and the damaged tyre or part from several angles.
• Take names and numbers of witnesses and make sure their statements describe exactly what they saw.
• Notify your insurer at once, and do not settle or waive anything before reviewing your position. Read our article on amicable settlement of a road accident without a traffic report before any compromise, because a hasty settlement can destroy your later right of recourse.

Second: preserving the vehicle and the technical evidence

• Do not repair or dismantle the vehicle before it is examined. Replacing, cleaning or swapping the failed part destroys the evidence and hands your opponent a strong argument.
• Keep the failed parts themselves, such as the burst tyre and the brake components, and document their storage and who held them.
• Ask for an inspection by an accredited specialist, ideally in the presence of the parties or after notifying them, or by court order, so that the other side cannot challenge its impartiality.
• If you fear the evidence may be lost or altered, you can apply to the urgent-matters judge to record the vehicle's state and appoint an expert to examine it before anything changes.

Third: correspondence and the recourse claim

• Send a dated written notice to the workshop, seller or agent describing the failure, inviting them to inspect the vehicle, and reserving your right to compensation. Keep proof of delivery.
• Gather copies of workshop invoices, work orders, the service record, the warranty document, the sale contract and any messages or advertisements about the vehicle's condition.
• If there is a recall, collect proof of when it was announced and proof of whether you were told of it or responded.
• After the expert's report, decide on the right defendant: the workshop, the seller, the agent, or more than one, and whether to join the insurer.

Documents to collect

• The traffic report, any criminal case file and witness statements.
• Photographs and video of the accident, the vehicle and the damaged parts.
• The vehicle licence, the periodic inspection certificate and the insurance policy.
• The maintenance record and invoices from workshops and for spare parts.
• The purchase contract, the warranty document and any correspondence with the seller or agent.
• The technical inspection report or expert report.
• Proof of loss: medical reports, repair invoices, and evidence of downtime and expenses.

Hypothetical Cases

Case one: brakes fail after a recent repair

A driver had the brake system repaired at a workshop, and a few days later the brakes failed at a signal. He struck the vehicle ahead and its driver was injured. The injured man claimed from the insurer, and a report was drawn up. The victim is entitled to claim from the insurer without regard to the cause of the failure, and the driver and the insurer keep their recourse against the workshop. If the expert finds that the brake line was fitted wrongly or the part was inferior, the workshop is liable to reimburse what was paid and what the driver lost, and the driver is likely to be free of criminal fault because the defect could not have been anticipated. The invoice, the work order, and the fact that the part was kept and not repaired before inspection, decide the case.

Case two: a burst tyre on the highway in a used car

A man bought a used car as it stood, and some time later the front tyre burst, the car swerved and hit another vehicle. The inspection shows the tyre was old and worn and the inflation pressure irregular. Here the defect was probably not hidden from the buyer and not something a normal check would miss, so recourse against the seller is weak, while negligence by the driver in not monitoring his tyres is easier to establish. The driver bears responsibility, third-party insurance remains the way the injured person is compensated, and the insurer may have recourse against him according to the policy. Had the tyre been new and shown a manufacturing defect in its body, the picture would change and recourse against the supplier would be worth considering.

Case three: faulty steering in a new car subject to a recall

An owner bought a new car from the agent, and months later the driver lost control of the steering, the car overturned and a passenger was hurt. It emerged that the manufacturer had announced a recall of the model for a steering defect, and that the agent never told the owner, or sent a message that never reached him. The owner and the insurer may pursue the agent for its failure to notify and repair, on the basis of the warranty and consumer rights. The injured passenger keeps his claim against the driver or insurer, and that does not prevent the party who pays from going after the agent. If the owner knew of the recall and ignored it, he may carry part of the responsibility himself.

Quick Comparison of Who to Pursue

• The workshop: basis is the repair contract and a breach of skilful performance or an inferior part. Strongest when the failure follows a recent repair of the same system. Key evidence: invoice, work order and expert report. Typical defences: another cause for the failure, an owner who refused recommended work, or an exclusion clause.
• The car's seller: basis is the hidden-defect warranty or fraud. Strongest when the defect was old and hidden at the time of sale and the buyer gave timely notice. Typical defences: the defect was visible or known, the car was sold as is after inspection, or the fault came from use.
• The agent or distributor: basis is the commercial warranty, consumer rights and failure to notify of a recall. Strongest for a recent car within warranty or covered by a recall. Typical defences: warranty voided by an unauthorised workshop, misuse, or expiry of the warranty.
• The manufacturer: basis is a design or manufacturing defect. The hardest to prove and requires specialist expertise; reached in practice through the local agent or distributor.
• The insurer: compensates the outside victim within compulsory cover and has a right of recourse according to the policy and the law; it sometimes relies on neglected maintenance or on mechanical-damage exclusions in comprehensive cover.
• The driver or person in charge: civilly liable to the victim in principle, and an internal defect does not relieve him; he then pursues whoever caused the failure. Criminally, he is liable only if his own fault is proven.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does a sudden brake failure excuse me from responsibility for the accident?

Not in principle as regards civil liability to the injured person, because an internal defect in the vehicle is not a foreign cause and you, or the owner, are the person in charge of it. Criminal fault, however, may fall away if it is shown that the failure could be neither foreseen nor avoided, and you keep a right of recourse against whoever caused the failure.

What is the difference between civil and criminal liability here?

Civil liability concerns compensation and arises from your position as the person in charge, with presumed fault that only a foreign cause can defeat. Criminal liability concerns punishment and arises only on proof of personal fault such as negligence or lack of caution. You can be civilly liable and criminally not liable.

Is a sudden failure force majeure?

Generally not, because force majeure must be external to the thing and impossible to foresee or prevent, whereas a latent defect comes from inside the vehicle. A truly external cause, such as another person's act or a foreign object that could not have been foreseen, may be a foreign cause at the court's discretion.

How does neglected periodic maintenance affect my position?

It supports a finding of negligence against you in the criminal case, prevents you from arguing in the civil case that the failure was sudden, and weakens your recourse against the workshop or seller, who will say the failure came from your neglect. A regular maintenance record and a valid inspection certificate strengthen you.

When can I claim against the workshop?

When it is shown that the failure resulted from a faulty repair, an inferior part or a necessary check the workshop skipped, for example when the brakes fail soon after repair for a reason connected to its work. You must prove the work by invoice, the defect by a technical report, and the causal link between the defect and the failure.

Can I claim against the seller of a used car?

Yes, if the defect was old and hidden, you did not know of it and could not have found it by a normal check, you notified the seller in good time, and the contract does not validly exclude the warranty. If the defect was visible, or you bought the car as it stood after inspecting it, your position is weaker. If the seller hid the defect by fraud, the claim is broader.

What is the agent's role if the car is new?

The agent is bound by its written warranty and by consumer rights, and by the duty to notify owners of recalls and deal with the defect. If the failure happens during the warranty period, or the car was covered by an unaddressed recall, the agent is the first party to pursue.

Will the insurer pay the victim even though a breakdown caused the accident?

In principle yes. Compulsory insurance covers the insured vehicle's liability to third parties, and the victim need not look at the cause of the failure. The insurer then considers its right of recourse against whoever was responsible for the failure, subject to the policy and the law. Check your own policy for damage to your car.

Does comprehensive insurance cover damage caused by a mechanical failure?

It depends on the policy. Some exclude pure mechanical breakdown and wear, yet may cover the collision that results. The policy text and its exclusions decide, so get a complete copy before assessing your position.

Should I repair the car first and inspect it afterwards?

No. Have it inspected first and repaired later. Repairing, replacing or dismantling parts before inspection destroys the key evidence and lets your opponent argue that you hid the cause of the failure. Keep the damaged parts and document that you did.

Who pays for the technical inspection?

At first, the party who requests it. If the court appoints an expert, it sets which side deposits his fees, and costs are then allocated in the final judgment, generally against the losing party. They can be claimed as part of compensation where liability is established.

What if my car is rented or belongs to my employer?

The target of the claim and the allocation of control change according to the rental contract or the employment relationship, and the owning entity may be liable alongside you or instead of you. Notify the rental company or employer at once and review the contract before any correspondence or settlement.

Is it better to settle with the injured person straight away?

An amicable settlement can help, but the risk is admitting liability or giving up your right of recourse without meaning to, or breaching the conditions of your insurance policy. Do not settle before documenting the failure, notifying the insurer and reviewing your legal position.

Conclusion

A sudden technical failure does not erase responsibility, but it changes its direction. Toward the injured person, civil liability stays with the person in charge of the vehicle and, behind him, the insurer, while in the criminal case fault may fall away if the failure could not have been foreseen or avoided. After that begins the driver's right of recourse against the workshop that repaired badly, the seller who concealed the defect, or the agent that failed in its warranty or its duty to notify.

Two things decide how these claims turn out: what you do in the first hours, and what papers you keep. Someone who preserves the vehicle and the damaged parts untouched, gets the failure recorded in the traffic report, obtains an impartial technical inspection, keeps a maintenance record and notifies the other parties in writing has built his case before filing it. Someone who repaired the car the next day to get rid of the nuisance has thrown away the evidence on which every later claim depends.

This article is no substitute for studying the facts in detail. Every failure has its own symptoms, every insurance policy its own conditions, and every sale or warranty its own wording, and in most cases the technical expert has the last word.

Legal Notice

This article provides general legal information about Kuwaiti law. It is not legal advice and does not create a lawyer-client relationship between the reader and the firm. The provisions described are subject to legislative amendment and to judicial application to the facts of each case.

If you were involved in an accident caused by a sudden failure in your vehicle, the team at Yumnaak Law Firm can study the facts and the technical inspection reports, identify the responsible workshop, seller or agent, and file and follow the claims until the right is recovered. Reach us through the contact page or book an appointment at our office.