Judgment was handed down on 19 April 2021 by Recorder Stephens sitting at Warwick County Court.
The Claimant’s claim was for personal injury and special damages which included:
- Hire - £23,010.00 (originally claimed at £34,380.40) Recovery charge - £250.00
- Storage charges - £3270.00 Engineer’s fee - £144.00
- Physiotherapy - £600.00
The Judge found that the claim for personal injury had not been proven and that the presentation of the claims for recovery and storage were fundamentally dishonest. The entire claim was dismissed and QOCS were disapplied with the Defendant being awarded
£10,000 in costs. At trial, the Judge also granted the Defendant’s application to join the credit hire organisation (CHO) into proceedings for the purposes of a non-party costs order.
Pre litigation fraud concerns
There were no concerns with the accident circumstances and so liability was admitted.
Quantum validation checks were then commenced by Verisk who handled the claim on Aviva’s behalf pre litigation. A credit hire investigation report was completed which highlighted concerns with the storage claim (the vehicle was advertised for sale outside of the Claimant’s property when it was supposedly in storage). The report also noted that the credit hire vehicle’s insurance didn’t commence until after the hire period had ended and the vehicle’s private hire licence didn’t cover the first 23 days of hire
Capturing this evidence, which included social media entries, at the earliest opportunity was crucial. The entries were subsequently removed/deleted and without them the defence of the claim would have been very different.
A repudiation offer was made, but the Claimant issued proceedings.
Litigation tactics and investigations
The Claimant did not include his personal injury claim within the proceedings. For tactical reasons, the Defendant agreed for the claim to be amended to include the personal injury claim so that s57 and fundamental dishonestly would be an available remedy.
At disclosure, the Defendant filed and served witness evidence exhibiting the findings of the the credit hire investigation report obtained pre litigation.
There were inconsistencies in respect of the personal injury as the Claimant had failed to inform the medical expert that he had attended hospital for back pain months before the accident (as evidenced in his medical records).
There were also issues with the Claimant’s financial disclosure and it was suspected he had failed to disclose all of his accounts. His statements also evidenced that he had sufficient funds to repair his own vehicle much sooner than he did.
Upon serving the evidence raising issues with the storage claim the Claimant was invited to discontinue. He refused, and in response, served supplementary evidence from himself, the person who purchased his vehicle and the director of the CHO.
The Claimant alleged that he had photographed his damaged car the day of the accident and then it went into storage where the purchaser viewed it. He said that the vehicle was taken from storage when it was purchased. The purchaser also provided a statement which said that he had viewed the car at the storage facility and that the car had then been delivered to him. The director of the CHO reiterated this and confirmed that the vehicle had been in storage the whole time. However they all said that the vehicle had been viewed and removed from storage on 12 February 2019 yet the storage was charged and claimed up until 8 March 2019
This evidence was not accepted and concerns remained that the:
- Claimant’s vehicle had not been recovered
- Vehicle had not been stored for the period alleged
- Claim for personal injury was exaggerated or fabricated due to the Claimant’s inconsistencies in respect of his injury and physiotherapy.
The claim therefore proceeded to trial.
Trial
Upon cross examination by Nicholas Robinson of Ropewalk Chambers, the Claimant’s evidence led to further issues:
- He said that he had driven his car home from the accident and also to the storage facility. It transpired that the vehicle was not recovered.
- He could not explain why he had claimed storage up to 8th March 2019 when he admitted to removing the car from storage on 12th February 2019
- When asked why he has claimed recovery, he said that he thought this related to it being delivered to the purchaser of his vehicle.
- However, he also confirmed in his evidence that he drove his vehicle to the purchaser.
- When Counsel put it to him that his claim for recovery was fundamentally dishonest he claimed he couldn’t understand the question.
- He admitted that he had another private vehicle at home this was despite his statement that he needed the hire vehicle for social use. He also confirmed that he used this other vehicle to drive to the CHO offices
- He was asked about physiotherapy treatment and claimed that he had undertaken it but could not explain why there was no documentary evidence to support it. It transpired that he had not in fact undertaken the treatment.
At trial it was accepted that given that the Claimant was debarred from raising impecuniosity due to a failure to fully disclose financial evidence and evidence that he had another car for SDP, he would not establish need and would be restricted to Loss of Profit only as pleaded within the Defence.
The claim was defended by Nadine Gabbidon in our Vehicle Hire & Damage Fraud team.
