The High Court has dismissed Victor Olaru’s personal injury action against the Motor Insurers’ Bureau of Ireland (MIBI), finding that he failed to prove negligent driving and that the collision was most likely arranged to support a compensation claim.
The judgment, delivered by Mr Justice Bernard J. Barton on 19 November 2020, concerned two proceedings arising from a collision at the Manorfield Estate roundabout in Clonee, County Dublin, on 10 April 2009. The first action named the MIBI alone, on the basis that the other driver was unidentified or untraced. In the later action, Yaroslav Bogoysky was named as the driver alongside the MIBI. Bogoysky did not appear, and the case proceeded against the Bureau alone.
Olaru said the Mitsubishi Pajero struck his Jeep Cherokee and that the driver fled. At trial, he described the collision as an attempted murder. The MIBI argued that it had been staged to obtain compensation. The court noted that the Bureau could not be liable under the 2009 agreement for an intentional attack, which falls outside its cover for negligent use of vehicles.
The judge found that Olaru had dealt with the alleged driver before the collision and knew information about his insurance. Olaru had reported the crash to the insurer six days after it happened, identifying Bogoysky as the driver, but later told an investigator for the MIBI that he did not know the driver’s identity. The court found that he knowingly verified false or misleading assertions in the first proceedings that the driver was unidentified.
The court also considered conflicting accounts of Olaru’s injuries, medical records and forensic engineering evidence. It accepted the evidence that the Cherokee was stationary when struck and found that Olaru had not suffered the loss of consciousness he claimed. It found no credible evidence that negligent driving caused the collision.
The judge concluded that the collision was deliberate and most likely resulted from an arrangement between Olaru and an individual he variously identified as Bogoysky or Ruslan Baciu. The court found that Olaru had knowingly given materially false or misleading evidence and that pursuing the claim amounted to an abuse of process.
Applying section 26 of the Civil Liability and Courts Act 2004, the court dismissed the action, finding that dismissal would not cause injustice. The ruling addressed the application to dismiss; a proposed updated claim for €900,000 in special damages had been left for consideration after that ruling and was not determined in the quoted order.