The High Court has agreed to dismiss a worker’s personal injury claim under section 26 of the Civil Liability and Courts Act 2004, finding that he knowingly withheld information about a later road traffic accident and misled a medical examiner. The judge said there was no proper basis to find that dismissing the claim would cause injustice. The form of the final orders remained to be discussed with counsel.
The plaintiff, a Polish national employed by McArthur and Company (Steel and Metal) Limited, claimed that driving side loaders over rough ground at the company’s Blessington depot exposed him to whole body vibration and caused a back injury. He said his symptoms became apparent while lifting a wooden beam at work in September 2007. The company denied liability and alleged negligence and contributory negligence by the plaintiff.
The judgment records that the plaintiff had also injured his back in a December 2006 workplace fall and sustained further injuries in a December 2010 road crash. In replies to the company’s questions about earlier or later accidents, he initially said there had been none. A later reply disclosed the 2006 accident but omitted the 2010 crash. The plaintiff’s 2015 affidavit said he had not understood that he needed to update his earlier answer. The judge rejected that explanation, finding that the plaintiff knew the reply was incorrect when he verified it in May 2011.
The judge also found that the plaintiff intentionally failed to tell a defence medical examiner about the 2010 crash and its effect on his back when examined in July 2011. The judgment records findings of exaggeration and misrepresentation about his injuries. The judge rejected the plaintiff’s account that the company dismissed him, accepting the company’s evidence that he resigned to take a better-paid job.
The court’s section 26 ruling was the basis for dismissing the claim. Separately, the judge said that even if the application under that section had been refused, the claim would fail on causation. The judge considered that any back injury at work in 2007 most likely arose from lifting the beam, rather than whole body vibration. As no negligence or breach of statutory duty case had been pleaded over that lifting incident, the plaintiff had not established that the claimed injury was caused by the alleged working conditions.
The judgment was delivered on 24 April 2015. It records the decision to grant the company’s section 26 application and states that the final orders would be discussed with counsel.