A recent case in the High Court of Nolan –v- Mitchell & O’Neill [2012] IEHC 151 is a warning to anyone who is exaggerating or outright lying in personal injury cases.
Mr Nolan hit a taxi on his motorbike and was bringing a claim for loss of earnings as well as damages for his injury. The High Court decided he was 40% liable for the accident and awarded him €125,000 for damages and €67,444.30 for loss of earnings. But that was where Mr Nolan’s problems only started.
The Judge held that Mr Nolan had mislead the Court in relation to his claim for loss of earnings, and had lied to the Court about not being able to continue with one of his hobbies. These lies meant that Mr Nolan’s whole claim was refused. His claim failed entirely and he was disqualified from receiving any money!
Section 26 of the Civil Liability and Courts Act 2004 states that if a plaintiff in a personal injury action, gives or dishonestly causes to be given evidence that is false or misleading, and he knows to be false or misleading, the Court can dismiss the plaintiff’s action. This is unless, for reasons that the Court shall state in its decision, the dismissal of the action would result in injustice being done. Justice Smith did not find there would be any injustice and dismissed Mr Nolan’s claim.
This case highlight’s how serious it is to mislead the Court in any way in a personal injury claim. It is worth doing a bit of investigating if someone is bringing a claim against you. If you are bringing a claim, then it is very risky to exaggerate or embellish the truth.