Kuwait Court of Cassation principle number 154

Summary: - The insurer's recourse against the insured to recover compensation it has paid, whether to the insured or to a third party. Its condition. Proof that the driver of the insured vehicle violated the restrictions and duties contained in the insurance policy, whether the driver was its owner or a person whom the owner permitted to drive it. Rationale: - Interpretation of contracts and their terms falls within the authority of the court of merits. - A judgment containing a defect affecting the soundness of the inference. Its effect. It is considered vitiated by faulty reasoning. Rule: It is established—in the jurisprudence of this Court—that the criterion for the insurer's recourse to recover compensation it has paid, whether to the insured or to a third party, is proof that the accident involving the insured vehicle occurred as a result of its driver's violation of the restrictions and duties contained in the insurance policy. It makes no difference whether its driver was its owner or a person whom the owner permitted to drive it, since the compulsory motor insurance policy issued in accordance with the statutory form specifying its terms equated the obligations of the insured owner and the driver whom the owner permits to drive the vehicle, and the restrictions and duties imposed upon each of them. It is established that the court of merits has full authority to interpret the wording of contracts and disputed terms in the manner it considers most faithful to the intention of their contracting parties, guided in this by the facts and circumstances of the case. It is established that the reasons for a judgment are considered vitiated by faulty reasoning if it contains a defect affecting the soundness of the inference. This occurs if the court bases its conviction upon evidence that is objectively unfit to support that conviction, or fails to understand the factual elements established before it, or pleas of contradiction between those elements, as in the case where the conclusion reached by the court does not follow logically from those elements established before it.