county court has dismissed a lawyer’s legal claim following a car accident after concluding that she had been ‘fundamentally dishonest’ about her symptoms.
Claire Thomas, 39, of Merthyr Tydfil, issued proceedings in 2019, three years after her car, which was stationary in traffic, was hit by another vehicle. The claimant, described as a non-practising lawyer, said she suffered injuries including soft tissue damage to her neck, head, shoulders and back, as well as psychological consequences. The basis of her claim was ongoing symptoms that affected her mobility, pain and all aspects of daily living.
Insurance company LV=, whose policyholder’s vehicle struck Thomas’s car, was suspicious of Thomas’s symptoms and asked City firm Clyde & Co to investigate.
In a press release issued today about the county court’s judgment, Clyde & Co said that following a surveillance operation and review of her social media, the firm found that, among other activities, Thomas attended a concert by singer P!nk, volunteered to help at the Leeds Music Festival and undertook a strenuous Four Waterfalls Walk in the Brecon Beacons National Park.
In a judgment handed down on 21 March, His Honour Judge Harrison at Cardiff County Court said he was driven to the conclusion that the insurer ‘established on the balance of probability that the claimant has not presented a truthful account of her symptoms, to the medical experts in this case and/or to those to whom she reported the extent of the same following the accident’.
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