with Andrew Dalton, White Dalton Motorcycle Solicitors
‘Videos show me walking and lifting while injured. Should I take insurer’s offer?’
Q I HAD A nasty bike crash that stopped me from working; I fractured a wrist and shin. I am a plant operator in the building trade.
Court proceedings are about to start and my solicitors have had ‘served’ on them hours of video footage. They want me to take a low offer on the basis I have been exaggerating my injuries but the video evidence does not prove I am lying.
They say the problem is that I told my medical expert I could not carry heavy objects and my walking was limited. Videos show me lifting hay bales and carrying them into a barn, and hoisting a 10kg bag of horse feed on to my shoulder and walking 12 paces with it into a feed barn. There is another video showing me taking a large flat ‐screen TV out of the back of my girlfriend’s car and carrying it for ten paces, and a video of me Christmas shopping.
The insurers have selectively picked out parts of my expert’s medical reporting – “Mr X says he is limited in lifting large or heavy objects and has difficulty moving items such as two-litre bottles of drink on to a high shelf”, and “Mr X is limited to 500m of walking before he is pain and needs to rest”. I accept I said these things, but on my Christmas shopping day I had taken two ibuprofen and two paracetamol and I was in bits the following day and barely got out of bed.
The insurers have offered me £30,000 for my broken bones, nothing for loss of earnings past the first six months, and said: “If accepted we will not pursue any remedy for material dishonesty.” The videos don’t show me putting anything above head height. Should my solicitors push on or am I in difficulty?
A SADLY, I THINK you are in difficulty – you are describing some quite extreme levels of restriction, over and above those for your pretty routine injury.
I do not accept your description of your injuries is honest. I note your shin injury repaired itself without an operation and your wrist fracture was described as uncomplicated. While it might be that you had a remarkable reaction to an ordinary set of injuries, the video evidence hugely undermines your credibility.
For you to show extraordinary consequences to a pair of ordinary injuries, your medicolegal surgeon needs to be backing you up, but he uses code words that clearly indicate he thinks there is not a lot wrong with you. I select some choice phrases: “Mr X’s reaction to stimuli is inconsistent.” And: “From an orthopaedic perspective, the l
