The Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal by Jason Platt, upholding the High Court’s decision to dismiss his personal injury action under section 26 of the Civil Liability and Courts Act 2004. The appeal judgment was delivered by Ms Justice Irvine on 28 July 2017.
Mr Platt sustained serious, life-threatening injuries in a fall from a bedroom window seat at a hotel in Kinsale on 15 February 2009. The High Court had found the hotel defendants liable, subject to a 40% reduction for Mr Platt’s own blameworthiness. But after a seven-day trial in June 2015, it granted the defendants’ application to dismiss the action, finding that Mr Platt had knowingly presented a materially false or misleading account of his injuries and disabilities.
The Court of Appeal reviewed video surveillance recorded on seven occasions between March 2014 and March 2015, amounting to 17 minutes. The footage showed Mr Platt walking without crutches, driving, shopping and moving his right arm overhead. The judgment contrasted those activities with his reports to experts and evidence that he was largely housebound, could not walk or bear weight without assistance, and needed extensive care.
The appeal court accepted that Mr Platt had serious injuries, including fractures to his vertebrae, ribs and right femur. It also recorded that the hip fracture had not achieved bony union and that an interlocking nail had fractured, a problem first identified on x-rays in July 2014. Mr Platt argued that pain and his belief that doctors had not accepted his condition explained his exaggerated reports. The court held that the trial judge was entitled to reject that explanation and find that the false evidence was knowingly given and material to the claim.
The court also upheld the finding that a third affidavit of verification, sworn on 30 April 2015, was knowingly false or misleading. It supported a schedule claiming about £1.49 million in past and future special damages. One item was £285,448.33 for adapted bungalow accommodation; the occupational therapist who had supported that claim could not stand over it after viewing the surveillance footage.
Section 26 required dismissal once its conditions were established unless dismissal would result in injustice. The Court of Appeal said the High Court had been entitled to find no such injustice, despite the seriousness of Mr Platt’s injuries. It rejected arguments that the court could preserve uncontested parts of the claim or that the defendants’ handling of their medical evidence justified relief. The judgment left open questions about when withdrawing expert reports might affect a section 26 application; it did not decide them.
The appeal was dismissed. The High Court’s dismissal of the action and award of costs to the defendants therefore remained in place.