It’s been entered into the hymn books of third party liability insurers and could become a resident feature of responses to personal injury protocol letters of claim—Walton v Kirk [2009] EWHC 703, [2009] All ER (D) 70 (Apr).
Exaggeration
Con-tempt
The case is a powerful reminder that if a claimant exaggerates their claim for personal injury, they may well find themselves punished for contempt. In Walton, the High Court had jurisdiction to deal with county court contempt (Civil Procedure Rules 1998 (CPR) 32.14). The claimant had misrepresented her condition in an application for a blue badge for disabled driving and in an incapacity for work questionnaire. Her compounding sin was to verify as true in her civil claim the contents of these documents. Mr Justice Coulson ruled that exaggeration of claim was not, without more, automatic proof of contempt. What might matter was the degree of exaggeration. The greater the exaggeration, the less likely it was that the maker had an honest belief in the verifying statement and/or the circumstances in which any exaggeration was made.
Contempt was established. The claimant contemnor
