Landlord’s Agent defeats £2 million harassment claim due to Fundamental Dishonesty (fourteen and a half years after the events)

In November 2016, an occupier of premises issued a Claim Form against the landlord’s agent claiming damages for unlawful eviction, harassment, assault and false imprisonment which were said to have occurred in September and October 2010, at the end of the contractual term, when the tenant was absent.

In a split trial on liability only, in April 2018, the Court found that the proceedings had been brought within the relevant limitation period because (a) the claimant had sent her Claim Form to the County Court Money Claims Centre within six years (albeit there had subsequently been a delay in issuing it); and (b) the relevant limitation period for the claim under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 was six years. Further, it would exercise the power disapply the special 3-year limitation period for a claim for damages in respect of personal injuries (under section 11 of the Limitation Act 1980) because it would be artificial to apply that bar to some of the heads of claim when it was explicitly excluded, by section 11(1A), in respect of the claim under section 3 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997.

In the liability trial, the Court went on to find that a series of three attendances by the landlord’s agent on 30 September, 1 October and 5 October 2010 constituted a course of conduct amounting to harassment, and that on the second of those occasions the agent had committed assault by touching the claimant. It dismissed a further claim of assault and the claim of false imprisonment. An appeal to the High Court was dismissed.

The claimant alleged that she had suffered severe psychiatric damage in consequence of the liability events, by reason of which she had lost well-paid employment, she had been rendered incapable of work ever since, her marriage had broken down and she had been prevented from living the family life she otherwise would have lived. In September 2019 she served a Schedule of Damages claiming £2.5 million (excluding interest) and she made an interim payment application in the sum of sum of £200,000.

That application was dismissed on at a costs and case management conference on 7 October 2019, at which time the Court also ordered the claimant to provide further information. The District Judge noted that the defendant had raised the issue of fundamental dishonesty in argument.

In March 2020, of its own motion, the Court raised the issue of whether the claimant, who was then a litigant in person, had capacity to conduct litigation. Thereafter, further progress towards the quantum trial was effectively suspended until December 2022, whilst issues were resolved concerning the claimant’s capacity and whether the Court should validate orders made in the proceedings before it had determined she was a protected party.

Eventually, the quantum trial was heard over 6 days in September 2024. By that stage, following detailed analysis of claimant’s medical records, records of benefits claims, records of a previous Employment Tribunal claim and records which the claimant had been ordered to disclose about her immigration status, the Defence had been re-amended to plead fundamental dishonesty within the meaning of section 57 of the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015 and it had prepared a very detailed 39-page narrative, annexed to its Counter-Schedule of Loss, which set out its conclusions from the claimant’s own disclosure.

The only witnesses of fact who gave oral evidence at the quantum trial were the claimant and a cousin. The case turned on the claimant’s credibility, assessed by her consistency or otherwise with the documents she herself disclosed and her responses to cross-examination. After having observed her giving evidence, the claimant’s expert psychiatrist revised his opinion about her capacity and prognosis.

Judgment was handed down on 2 January 2025. The Court found that the claimant was not a protected party and that she had been fundamentally dishonest in relation to her claim in two key respects: she had falsely asserted that the relevant events had led to the breakdown of a genuine marriage when, in truth, that was a sham arrangement; and she had deliberately and dishonestly exaggerated the nature and quality of her loss. The Court was not satisfied that she had suffered a depressive illness after October 2013, instead she had exaggerated her symptoms.

At a consequentials hearing on 13 March 2025 the claimant was ordered to pay the defendant’s costs of the claim, to be assessed on the indemnity basis if not agreed, and the Court disapplied the QOCS protection against enforcement of those costs.

In addition, the Court made orders joining the claimant’s litigation friend and another non-party as defendants for the purpose consideration whether to exercise the power under section 51 of the Senior Courts Act 1981.

Chris Maynard acted for the defendant between May 2018 and March 2025. He was led at the quantum by William Featherby KC. The instructing solicitor was Brendan O’Donnell of Juliet Hardick Solicitors.