Accident Victim Defeats Malingering Claim and Wins £1.8 Million

A road accident victim who 'surprisingly' managed to pass the UK Citizenship Test – despite having suffered serious brain damage – has won more than £1.8 million in damages after accusations that he was 'a malingerer' who had 'deliberately exaggerated' his injuries were rejected by the Court of Appeal.

The young man was a student when he was hit by an uninsured motorist whilst crossing the road on the way back to college from a lunch break. He suffered devastating head injuries in the accident.

The Motor Insurers' Bureau (MIB) – the body which compensates victims of uninsured drivers – admitted 80 per cent liability to compensate him, but mounted a fierce attack on his credibility.

The MIB pointed to his highly unexpected success in the citizenship test as evidence that he was not as badly injured as he claimed to be. However, his lawyers insisted that he had passed the test by learning information on British traditions and customs 'by rote' and was 'very lucky indeed in the questions that came up'. A judge accepted that the impairment to his cognitive ability was entirely genuine and awarded him more than £1.8 million in compensation for his pain and suffering, lost earnings and the costs of his future care.

Rejecting the MIB's challenge to that decision, the Court of Appeal accepted that it was very unlikely that the man would have been capable of 'pulling the wool over the eyes' of the cohort of medical experts who had examined him. There was no doubt that he had suffered a very severe brain injury and all the experts were agreed that he was not a person who could have 'kept up a mere pretence of incapacity' for so long.

It is not widely known that it is possible to receive compensation when the person responsible for an accident is uninsured or cannot be traced. See the MIB's website for further information.