Personal Injury Claims

Shailesh Vara Excerpts

Monday 9th June 2014 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Shailesh Vara)]

My noble Friend, the Minister for civil justice and legal policy, Lord Faulks QC, has made the following written ministerial statement:

The Government intend to bring forward at the earliest opportunity legislative measures aimed at tackling unjustified personal injury claims.

First, we intend to introduce legislation to require the court to dismiss in its entirety any personal injury claim where it is satisfied that the claimant has been fundamentally dishonest, unless it would cause substantial injustice to the claimant to do so. These provisions are particularly relevant both to cases where the claimant has grossly exaggerated his or her own claim, and to cases where the claimant has colluded with another person in a fraudulent claim relating to the same incident (for example, a “phantom passenger” case where a claimant is genuinely injured in a car accident, but colludes with another person who dishonestly claims to have been in the vehicle and also injured).

Under the current law, the courts have discretion to dismiss a claim entirely for fraudulent behaviour, but will only do so in very exceptional cases, and will generally still award the claimant compensation in relation to the “genuine” element of the claim. We intend to strengthen the law so that dismissal of the claim in its entirety should become the norm in such cases.

Secondly, the Government intend to bring a statutory ban on the offer of inducements by lawyers in personal injury cases. Examples abound of solicitors offering money or gifts such as iPads to clients for pursuing a personal injury claim.

This encourages unnecessary claims, and suggests that lawyers are making too much money out of the process and seeking to offset the effect of the Government’s much needed ban on the payment and receipt of referral fees.

On 1 April 2013, the Ministry of Justice banned claims management companies from offering cash inducements to consumers to make claims, and we propose to introduce a similar prohibition to cover lawyers as soon as legislative time allows.