to borrow your parents’ car is to steal it

2023-05-01 06:00:37

Lteenager who steals his parents’ car keys, to “take a walk”, is he stealing? This is the question posed by the following case. On the morning of Sunday April 21, 2019, the X family sedan, whose keys were taken by the son, Tom, and entrusted to his cousin, William Y – the first names are changed -, who did not driver’s license, violently collided with a low wall, at the exit of a bend. Tom and his sister, Margot, are badly injured. Tom, unconscious, must be extricated by the emergency services, then transported by helicopter to the nearest hospital.

The correctional court of Châteauroux finds William guilty of involuntary injuries and contravention of the highway code – he was under the influence of alcohol and drove at excessive speed. He sentences him to eighteen months in prison suspended and a fine of 500 euros.

On the civil level, he declares him responsible for the damage suffered by his two passengers. But he says that the MAAF, the insurer of the vehicle, is not required to guarantee those suffered by Tom, author, or at the very least accomplice, of the theft of the car, since he took the keys in the bag of his mother, while she slept.

Since January 5, 1994, the insurance code (article L. 211-1 paragraph 2) specifies, in fact, that the contract which covers a stolen vehicle, involved in an accident, must not guarantee the repair of the damage suffered by the victims who are « aauthors, co-authors or accomplices of the theft”.

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This exclusion was introduced by a law of December 21, 1993 (article 18), in response to a judgment of the Court of Cassation (91-15.867, of November 17, 1993), which, taking into account the legislation then in force, had condemned the insurer of a stolen car, involved in an accident, to cover the damage suffered by the passenger, co-author of the theft.

Fraudulent subtraction

The X’s protest that the stealing of keys is not a « vol »within the meaning of the Penal Code (article 311-1), i.e. a “fraudulent embezzlement of another’s property”. But the Bourges Court of Appeal gives them the wrong, on May 12, 2022, after referring to Margot’s hearing before the investigating judge: it emerges that Tom “was aware of the unlawful nature of his acts”and that the seizure of the vehicle has taken place “without parental consent”SO « and fraud “, even if no prosecution for theft has been initiated, due to the“family immunity” provided for by law.

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The X are appealing in cassation, and their lawyer, M^e Claire Le Bret-Desaché, maintains that the young man only did“borrow the car for a ride”without having “the will to appropriate it”, which would characterize fraudulent intent.

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