Kuwait Court of Cassation principle number 576

The direct perpetrator. His definition. The nature of direct infliction differs from indirect causation. The direct perpetrator’s liability for diyah. Its basis. His direct infliction of the damage. Negation of fault on his part or fault on the part of the injured party. His liability is not lifted. The injured party’s intentional self-injury or the occurrence of the injury as a result of his gross and deliberate misconduct. Its implication. The direct perpetrator’s liability is lifted. Determining this falls within the authority of the court of merits. Its condition. - The insured car’s collision with the injured person’s car after it changed its direction to the same direction as the first car. Injury to the driver of the second car. The implication: the movement of the insured car is what led to the occurrence of - 116 - Obligation injuries as a result of its collision with the second car, and the driver of the first car is the direct perpetrator. This is not altered merely by the driver of the second car, in which the injured person was travelling, veering into the part of the road occupied by the first car. The rationale: this deviation is no more than a violation of traffic rules and does not rise to the level of gross and deliberate misconduct which does not remove the characterization as direct perpetrator.