Скачать или смотреть O’CONNELL v THE MINISTRY OF DEFENCE [2025] EWHC 2301 (KB)

QOCS Protection Lost Where Dishonesty Inflated Claim Value By 100 Percent

In O’Connell v Ministry of Defence the court considered the defendant’s application for a finding of fundamental dishonesty to displace the claimant’s QOCS protection under CPR 44.16(1). Following dismissal of the substantive personal injury claim on liability, the costs hearing focused on whether the claimant’s presentation of her disability was fundamentally dishonest. The defendant relied on surveillance evidence from March 2022 showing the claimant performing physical activities inconsistent with her reported disability, evidence of her responsibility for horses contrary to her accounts, and representations about vehicle adaptations, including Facebook messages seeking false evidence about work that had never been done. The claimant contended the surveillance showed brief, exceptional activity enabled by medication and that inconsistencies were due to litigation stress. Applying the dishonesty test from Ivey v Genting Casinos Ltd [2018] AC 391, Christopher Kennedy KC sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge found the claimant knew her evidence was untrue and that it was dishonest by ordinary standards. Applying Howlett v Davies [2018] 1 WLR 948 and the three questions from Muyepa v Ministry of Defence [2022] EWHC 2648, the court found the dishonesty began by December 2018, went to the root of the claim, and would have resulted in the dishonestly inflated claim being worth perhaps double the underlying valid claim. The court granted permission to enforce any costs order to its full extent, finding this an appropriate case to engage the exception to QOCS protection in CPR 44.16(1).

https://tmclegal.co.uk/fundamental-di...