The High Court dismissed a motorcyclist’s personal injuries action after finding that he knowingly advanced materially misleading evidence about his loss of earnings and told a vocational consultant that he had given up car drifting because of his injuries.
In a judgment delivered on 20 January 2012, Mr Justice Esmond Smyth found the first named defendant, a taxi driver, primarily responsible for the November 2005 collision near Tollerton, Co Carlow. The judge apportioned liability 60% to the driver and 40% to the plaintiff, finding that the driver failed to keep a proper lookout and yield right of way when emerging from a private entrance. He also found that the plaintiff had been travelling at excessive speed and failed to slow when dazzled by headlights.
The court assessed damages at €125,000 for pain and suffering, €27,444.30 for past loss of earnings after stated deductions, and €40,000 for loss of future opportunity. The judge said the plaintiff could not return to alarm fitting but could undertake other work. He did not have a sufficient evidential basis to calculate future earnings by applying a multiplier. The court noted that the special damages schedule needed clarification before the total damages could be ascertained.
Those assessments did not result in an award. At the close of the case, the defendants applied under section 26 of the Civil Liability and Courts Act 2004, which requires dismissal where a plaintiff knowingly gives or adduces materially false or misleading evidence, unless dismissal would cause injustice.
The judge found that the plaintiff’s claim relied on an earnings schedule projecting increases unsupported by evidence. The schedule underpinned claims of €142,000 for past loss of earnings and €447,000 for future loss. The judge found the loss-of-earnings claim deliberately exaggerated and inferred that the plaintiff knew the figures were materially misleading.
The court also found that the plaintiff had told a vocational rehabilitation consultant he had stopped car drifting because of his injuries, although videos showed him taking part in demonstrations after the collision. The judge was satisfied that this evidence was knowingly misleading in a material respect.
The defendants also argued that the plaintiff was paid for demonstrations and had been untruthful about Garda efforts to obtain a statement. The judge was not satisfied that either issue was false or misleading for section 26 purposes. He nevertheless concluded that the successful parts of the claim could not be rescued from the section’s provisions and that dismissal would cause no injustice. He therefore dismissed the action.