24 September 2006
Personal
injury lawyers don’t exactly have a good reputation at the best of times.
However, this has been exacerbated this month with a spate of news items
uncovering fraudulent claims. This is nothing new to the civil justice system
in itself. However, it is the number of cases which is perhaps surprising.
This is also reflected in the increase of such suspected claims going through
the County and higher courts. This might be due to the increased number of such
cases although it is probably more likely due to other factors as well. The
first is advances in technology in the past few years. This includes
increasingly sophisticated methods of both gathering and sorting data as well
as enhancements to old fashioned detective work such as improved hidden cameras
and CCTV. The other factor may be that the insurance industry has scored large
successes in recent years in fighting first credit hire cases and then costs
cases on a large scale. Having sharpened their collective teeth on these
issues, the spotlight now appears to be shining on fraud. This will mean that
defendant lawyers will have to keep up with those at the forefront of this area
if they are to keep their business. It will also mean that claimant lawyers
will have to be even more careful about the claims they take on. The issues
now surrounding fraudulent and exaggerated claims are now issues of which all
personal injury lawyers need to be aware. What remains to be seen is how the
legal arguments develop over the next few years. For example, how the courts
will view low impact claims and also what view they will take as to the effect
of one fraudulent element of claim on the other heads. Unfortunately, as with
so many of these issues, what is often forgotten in these fights is that the ultimate
victims are likely to be those who pay liability insurance premiums on the one
hand and those needing to take out after the event insurance premiums against
possible costs orders on the other.
Tim
Kevan, Duncan McNair (Co-editors, PIBULJ)
