Interesting case report from HF for you;
Insurer Hastings Direct and leading legal advisers to the insurance and commercial sectors, HF, have succeeded in having a £50,000 claim dismissed due to the questionable evidence of an engineer and the knock-on effects.
The judge found that the evidence of the engineer, Mr James Quigley of Caljam, carried very little weight and set out a number of times, how Mr Quigley’s evidence affected his reliability. The claim dates back almost nine years, to October 2015, when the claimant’s motorcycle was struck and knocked off its stand in a golf course car park by a Citroen being driven by a valet company employee.
The claimant initially sued the owner of the Citroen (who was clearly not responsible for the collision). When that claim was struck out, he sued the valet employee (who admitted his fault) and h
is employers along with Hastings Direct, insurers of the Citroen.
Hastings Direct denied any liability since the collision was not on a road or other public place. The MIB was therefore added as a fifth defendant. They brought an additional claim against the Secretary of State for Transport because the claimant alleged the MIB would be liable if the golf course car park was private land (Lewis v Tindale).
NO EXAMINATION OF THE PHOTO EVIDENCE, NO PHOTOS
The claim totalled £50,000 – damage to the motorcycle (c. £1,650) which the claimant declared was a total loss, credit hire charges (including additional insurance) and storage and recovery charges (which were dropped without explanation). Given the multitude of parties the losing party stood to face six figure costs.
The key issues were whether the motorcycle was damaged and to what extent; whether it was unroadworthy, and whether the credit hire contracts were now enforceable.
Mr Quigley stated that the motorcycle was unroadworthy – despite the claimant having driven it 12 miles to a repair garage immediately following the collision. Some of the parts, that Mr Quigley had stated caused the motorcycle to be unroadworthy, were not supported by the (lack of) photos appended to his report and the photos he did provide did not support his assertions of unroadworthiness. The judge was further critical of Mr Quigley’s failure to comply with the Civil Procedure Rules.
The cost of credit hire was also not the responsibility of the defendant since the credit hire company, DAML (Direct Accident Management Ltd) issue contracts which have maximum 11 months before the hire charges become due. Since the incident occurred 9 years ago, the opportunity to sue for breach of contract had passed.
Graeme Mulvoy, Partner at HF said “It’s all too commonplace for vehicles to be declared unroadworthy when they are not. Time and again we see huge claims for credit hire when vehicles with some minor collision damages are capable of being used perfectly legally and safely. The court was rightly concerned with the expert evidence presented in this case and the inconsistencies more generally and it’s encouraging that His Honour Judge Murch dismissed the claim for vehicle damage in its entirety due to the ambiguous evidence regarding repairs; another challenge our clients are faced with all too frequently.”
Kay Denyer Head of Claims Fraud at Hasting Direct stated, “At Hastings Direct, taking care of our good and honest customers is our most important job. We therefore invest considerably in fraud defences so that we can be sure that fraudsters do not drive-up costs for our customers and the wider motor insurance industry. This case is a great example of how we tackle fraudulent claims, re-enforcing our zero tolerance approach.”
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