William Latimer-Sayer successfully defends accident victim against retrospective fraud claim
16 March 2011
A man awarded £3.4 million in damages after being severely injured in a motorbike smash in September 2003 has successfully resisted efforts by insurance company Direct Line to take back the cash three years after the original award was made.
Mark Noble was knocked off his motorbike by Martin Owens whilst driving on the A336. Mr Owens admitted liability for the accident and damages were awarded to Mr Noble who was unable to work following the accident due to the severity of the pelvic injury sustained in the crash.
Direct Line attempted to wrest back the money after arranging covert filming of Mr Noble some five years after the accident and many months after the trial. The footage showed Mr Noble sawing wood and driving a dumper truck. Direct Line claimed that the tapes showed that Mr Noble had been “untruthful at trial and that he had made a considerably better recovery from his injuries than he admitted to”.
Today Mr Justice Field dismissed the insurance giant’s claims saying, "At the time of the quantum trial, Mr Noble was determined to try to walk unaided and may have been confident that somehow he would succeed in doing so, but he did not dishonestly conceal from the court or the expert witnesses his then true state of disability or dishonestly emphasise his disability. The claim that he dishonestly misled the court at the quantum trial is accordingly dismissed."
Following the judgment, personal injury specialist Lisa Sullivan from Cloisters said:
“This is an important judgment for victims who are awarded damages to help them cope with the lifelong effects of accidents which occurred through no fault of their own.
“Direct Line was essentially using post trial evidence to speculate about the state of health of the claimant many months previously when the award was made. The whole of the Defendant's case was based upon post-trial surveillance evidence and an assumption that because Mr Noble could do what was seen on the video footage 6-9 months after trial that he must have been able to do that at the time of the trial
“Accident victims will breathe a huge sigh of relief at this verdict. It’s difficult enough coping with the injuries that many of these victims live with day after day without being called dishonest just because you make a better than expected recovery.”
Gerard McDermott QC, William Latimer-Sayer and Cara Guthrie (instructed by Reynolds Williams) acted for the Claimant