Personal injury claims and credit hire claims used to go hand in hand. Since the whiplash reforms, personal injury claims seem to be less prominent in credit hire litigation, which now seems to predominantly relate to vehicle damage claims, with consequential loss including the cost of credit hire charges. Yet, when a personal injury claim is entwined with a credit hire claim, goes to trial, and the claimant is found to be fundamentally dishonest under section 57 of the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015, does that necessarily mean that the credit hire claim will fail along with the personal injury claim? Not necessarily.
Section 57 provides as follows of the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015 states:
(1)This section applies where, in proceedings on a claim for damages in respect of personal injury (“the primary claim”)—
(a)the court finds that the claimant is entitled to damages in respect of the claim, but
(b)on an application by the defendant for the dismissal of the claim under this section, the court is satisfied on the balance of probabilities that the claimant has been fundamentally dishonest in relation to the primary claim or a related claim.
(2)The court must dismiss the primary claim, unless it is satisfied that the claimant would suffer substantial injustice if the claim were dismissed.
(3)The duty under subsection (2) includes the dismissal of any element of the primary claim in respect of which the claimant has not been dishonest.
(4)The court’s order dismissing the claim must record the amount of damages that the court would have awarded to the claimant in respect of the primary claim but for the dismissal of the claim.
(5)When assessing costs in the proceedings, a court which dismisses a claim under this section must deduct the amount recorded in accordance with subsection (4) from the amount which it would otherwise order the claimant to pay in respect of costs incurred by the defendant.
(6)If a claim is dismissed under this section, subsection (7) applies to—
(a)any subsequent criminal proceedings against the claimant in respect of the fundamental dishonesty mentioned in subsection (1)(b), and
(b)any subsequent proceedings for contempt of court against the claimant in respect of that dishonesty.
(7)If the court in those proceedings finds the claimant guilty of an offence or of contempt of court, it must have regard to the dismissal of the primary claim under this section when sentencing the claimant or otherwise disposing of the proceedings.
(8)In this section—
“claim” includes a counter-claim and, accordingly, “claimant” includes a counter-claimant and “defendant” includes a defendant to a counter-claim;
“personal injury” includes any disease and any other impairment of a person’s physical or mental condition;
“related claim” means a claim for damages in respect of personal injury which is made—
(a)in connection with the same incident or series of incidents in connection with which the primary claim is made, and
(b) by a person other than the person who made the primary claim.
(9)This section does not apply to proceedings started by the issue of a claim form before the day on which this section comes into force.
In R v Quintavalle[2003] 2 AC 687 Lord Bingham said as follows:
8. The basic task of the court is to ascertain and give effect to the true meaning of what Parliament has said in the enactment to be construed. But that is not to say that attention should be confined and a literal interpretation given to the particular provisions which give rise to difficulty. Such an approach not only encourages immense prolixity in drafting, since the draftsman will feel obliged to provide expressly for every contingency which may possibly arise. It may also (under the banner of loyalty to the will of Parliament) lead to the frustration of that will, because undue concentration on the minutiae of the enactment may lead the court to neglect the purpose which Parliament intended to achieve when it enacted the statute. Every statute other than a pure consolidating statute is, after all, enacted to make some change, or address some problem, or remove some blemish, or effect some improvement in the national life. The court’s task, within the permissible bounds of interpretation, is to give effect to Parliament’s purpose. So the controversial provisions should be read in the context of the statute as a whole, and the statute as a whole should be read in the historical context of the situation which led to its enactment.
As further noted in Hassam v Rabot [2024] UKSC 11:
36. The question raised in these appeals is one of statutory interpretation. It is now well-established that the modern approach to statutory interpretation requires the courts to ascertain the meaning of the words used in the light of their context and the purpose of the provisions: see, eg, News Corp UK & Ireland Ltd v Revenue and Customs Comrs [2023] UKSC 7, [2024] AC 89, para 27.
In addition, section 3 of the Human Rights Act 1998 provides as follows:
(1)So far as it is possible to do so, primary legislation and subordinate legislation must be read and given effect in a way which is compatible with the Convention rights.
(2)This section—
(a)applies to primary legislation and subordinate legislation whenever enacted;
(b)does not affect the validity, continuing operation or enforcement of any incompatible primary legislation; and
(c)does not affect the validity, continuing operation or enforcement of any incompatible subordinate legislation if (disregarding any possibility of revocation) primary legislation prevents removal of the incompatibility.
The law has long recognised that one road traffic accident may give rise to more than one cause of action. In Brunsden v Humphrey (1884) 14 QBD 141, the claimant’s cab was damaged and he also suffered personal injury in the same collision. Having first pursued a claim for the damage to the cab, he was held entitled to bring a further claim for personal injury.
The Court of Appeal held that damage to goods and injury to the person, although caused by the same wrongful act, infringed different rights and gave rise to distinct causes of action. Brett MR stated that two actions may be brought in respect of the same facts where those facts give rise to two distinct causes of action.
Bowen LJ explained the matter by reference to the different rights infringed and the different evidence required to prove the claims. The principle has recently been recognised by the Supreme Court in Nasir v Zavarco plc[2025] UKSC 5, where Brunsden was described as deciding that a claim for personal injury was a different cause of action from a claim for damage to property caused by the same traffic accident.
In Brown v Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis [2019] EWCA Civ 1724 Coulson LJ explained how one accident could give rise to multiple claims:
54. The starting point is that QOCS protection only applies to claims for damages in respect of personal injuries. What is encompassed by such claims? It seems to me that such claims will include, not only the damages due as a result of pain and suffering, but also things like the cost of medical treatment and, in a more serious case, the costs of adapting accommodation and everything that goes with long term medical care. In addition, contrary to the submissions advanced by Ms Darwin and Mr Jaffey, I consider that a claim for damages for personal injury will also encompass all other claims consequential upon that personal injury. They will include, for example, a claim for lost earnings as a result of the injury and the consequential time off work. In other words, a claim for damages in respect of personal injury is not limited to damages for pain and suffering.
55. For these reasons, as Whipple J noted at [60] of her judgment, claimants in a large swathe of ‘ordinary’ personal injury claims will have the protection and certainty of QOCS.
56. I acknowledge that, in personal injury proceedings, another common claim will be for damage to property. For example, in RTA litigation, there will usually be a claim for the cost of repairs to the original vehicle, and the cost of alternative vehicle hire until those repairs are effected. Such claims are not consequential or dependent upon the incurring of a physical injury: they are equally available to a claimant who survived the accident without a scratch as they are to a claimant who broke both legs in the accident. They are claims consequent upon damage to property, namely the vehicle that suffered the accident, and therefore fall within the mixed claim exception at r.44.16(2)(b).
The context within which section 57 was enacted, is that the courts and the common law have long recognised that a single accident can given rise to separate and different causes of action, and claims, for personal injury and property damage. Perusing section 57, the immediate and striking feature of the section, is that it is wholly concerned with personal injury claims brought by claimants and has no express application to property damage claims at all.
This cannot be viewed as anything other deliberate. If the purpose of the statute is to discourage dishonest personal injury claims, it would logically seek to deprive such claimants of their personal injury damages. But to go further and to seek to deprive them of their property rights would require extremely clear words, and raise issues about the proportionality of such a sanction under A1P1 of the Human Rights Act 1998.
Moreover, such a sanction would likely infringe the property rights of third parties. Insurance companies who have made payments, or settled claims using their rights of subrogation, persons who have bailed a vehicle to a claimant, who brings an action against a defendant as bailee in possession, or credit hire companies or others who have advanced benefits to accident victims on credit. Turning to the wording of Section 57 it might be thought, that it is only concerned with personal injury claims within proceedings:
(i) First, the court must find that the claimant is entitled to damages in respect of the claim-which must mean damages for the primary claim.
(ii) Secondly that the court must find that the Claimant has been fundamentally dishonest in relation to the primary claim or a related claim (which must also be a personal injury claim)
(iii) Thirdly subject to the question of injustice, it must dismiss the primary claim and all elements of it, but when dismissing the claim, the court must record the amount of damages that it would have awarded in respect of the primary claim.
It follows that proceedings are not to be read as synonymous with claim: there can be more than one claim, within one set of proceedings, and the scope of section 57 is limited to those claims which are personal injury claims.Such an approach that section 57 applies to a personal injury claim within proceedings, but not the totality of the claims in the proceedings, is wholly supported by the caselaw including binding authority from the High Court.
In the case of Andrew Reynolds v Chief Constable of Kent Police [2024] EWHC 2487 (KB) Sheldon J found per paragraphs 48 to 54, that section 57 had no application to a claim for the tort of false imprisonment, made alongside a personal injury claim in the same proceedings. Secondly in the non-binding County Court decision of Senay and Obadi v Mulsanne Insurance Company Limited [2024] EWCC 12, HHJ Charman in the County Court at Birmingham concluded that section 57 had no application to a property damage claim, including a claim for credit hire charges. Thirdly in the non-binding case of Diaw and others v ERS Syndicate Management Limited County Court at Manchester 25th February 2020 Mr Recorder Mark Jones found that section 57 did not extend to cover claims for property damage to a car.
The case of Senay noted above also contains reference to Hansard, with HHJ Charman considered. In so far as may be necessary the Claimant relies on the principle in Pepper v Hart [1993] AC 593 to rely on the following statement by the Minister sponsoring what was then the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill.
On amendment 128:
This is because an amendment to the bill to achieve precisely what the Defendant contends for in this case was proposed by Lord of Hunt of Wirral as amendment 128. The amendment was rejected by the Minister responsible for the bill in the House of Lords, Lord Faulks. In doing so, his words made clear that the intended meaning and effect of the words of the bill put forward by the Government, and which were enacted, was that the section would not result in the dismissing of claims other than in respect of personal injury and claims related to personal injury, such as claims for property damage and credit hire.
In his response to the amendment, Lord Faulks said:
“Amendment 128 was tabled by my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral, to whom the House listens very carefully on all things, but perhaps particularly in areas such as this. It would extend the scope of Clause 49 to cover claims for items linked to the personal injury claim of making insurers less inclined to make payments in respect of this kind of loss to genuine victims of accidents for whom, for example, the rapid replacement of a vehicle could be essential.
The complexity of the law on subrogated rights means that the potential for this type of unintended consequence would be high. In any event, I do not consider the amendment necessary. The existing focus of the clause on personal injury claims avoids complexities of the nature, and ensures that the core matter in relation to which the Claimant has actually been dishonest, and where the main scope for dishonest behaviour arises— the personal injury claim— will be dismissed whenever the court considers it appropriate. We are confident that this should provide a sufficiently powerful deterrent to discourage Claimants from seeking to bring fraudulent and exaggerated claims, and believe that the amendment could on balance run the risk of creating uncertainty in the law and would make the clause unnecessarily complex in practice.”
Of course, although this analysis, suggests that as a matter of law, a credit hire claim will survive a finding of fundamental dishonesty, one cannot ignore the simple fact, that when the wheel comes off, in litigation, it tends to keep on rolling.