A respondent who had been injured in an accident at work but had grossly exaggerated the effect of his personal injuries and his incapacity to work, was nonetheless entitled to his award of damages. The Supreme Court so held on Wednesday, June 27 in the case of Fairclough Homes Ltd v Summers [2012] UKSC 26.
At first instance, the county court had initially decided in the respondent’s favour when determining liability but when assessing damages at a later date the appellant disclosed surveillance footage which showed the respondent had exaggerated those injuries as well as his incapacity to work. On account of that surveillance evidence Manchester County Court assessed the damages to be paid at £88,716 as the genuine part of his claim of £838,000.
The appellant applied to strike out the proceedings entirely, on grounds that the claim was ‘substantially fraudulent’ and therefore amounted to an abuse of process. The Court of Appeal upheld the court of first instance's decision and held that it was bound by authority to refuse the application.
The Supreme Court unanimously held that although it had jurisdiction to strike the claim out for abuse of process, to do so would be disproportionate in this case. Lord Clarke said, “The Court rejects the submission that unless exaggerated claims are struck out, dishonest claimants will not be deterred”.
Authority suggests that a claimant cannot be deprived of damages to which he is otherwise entitled on the ground that he is guilty of an abuse of process. There is, however, express language in the Civil Procedure Rules that supports a jurisdiction to strike out a claim for abuse of process even if doing so would defeat a substantive claim.
The Court determined, however, that it was bound by the restriction of deciding cases in accordance with the overriding objective of determining cases justly. The respondent, Mr. Summers, accepted that in making statements of truth, which he knew to be false, and in presenting a dishonest case as to the effect of his injuries and on quantum, he was guilty of a serious abuse of process. Lord Clarke said, however, that Mr. Summers “did suffer significant injury” as a result of breach of duty by Fairclough Homes.
Accordingly, the fact that the respondent had suffered significant injury as a result of the appellant’s breach of duty undermined the appellant’s application to have the case struck out. To have struck out the claim on this basis would have been disproportionate and not in accordance with the overriding objective