AXA Insurance v Maher: High Court dismisses fundamental dishonesty appeal over road traffic claim

The High Court has dismissed an appeal by AXA Insurance against a County Court judgement awarding damages to David Maher following a road traffic accident in Barnoldswick in July 2018, rejecting arguments that the respondent had been fundamentally dishonest within the meaning of section 57 of the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015.

Mr Justice Mansfield, sitting in the King's Bench Division at Leeds, handed down his judgement on 5 June 2026, upholding the findings of HHJ Pema, who had awarded Mr Maher £3,609.83 following a trial in March 2024. The sum was considerably less than the £50,000 to £70,000 originally claimed. AXA had accepted liability for a soft tissue injury to Mr Maher's left hand and lower arm but contested any injury to his neck and shoulder in the months immediately following the accident.

The underlying dispute

The accident occurred when Mr Maher, standing in the street beside his parked work van, was trapped between the van and a passing pickup driven by AXA's insured, Mr Grogan. HHJ Pema found that Mr Grogan brought his vehicle into collision with Mr Maher while he was stationary, and that finding was not challenged on appeal.

The central factual dispute concerned whether Mr Maher had suffered neck and shoulder symptoms in the months between the accident and December 2018, when physiotherapy records first documented such complaints. AXA argued that the absence of any reference to neck or shoulder pain in contemporaneous medical records, a claim notification form, a police witness statement, and an incident report completed for his employer was incompatible with his account.

HHJ Pema had accepted that Mr Maher did experience minor soft tissue symptoms in his neck and shoulder shortly after the accident, albeit of a lesser degree than those which emerged from late 2018. The judge considered that those symptoms had gone unremarked because the hand and arm injuries were, at the time, the more obvious and pressing complaint.

The appeal

P N Hinchliffe KC, for AXA, argued that the trial judge had effectively begun with an acceptance of Mr Maher as a truthful witness and then reverse-engineered an explanation for the documentary record, rather than testing the oral evidence rigorously against the contemporaneous materials. He submitted that the conclusion was "absurd" and could not survive scrutiny under CPR 52.21(3).

Mr Justice Mansfield rejected that characterisation. Citing the well-established principles in Fage UK Ltd v Chobani UK Ltd [2014] EWCA Civ 5 and Clin v Walter Lilly & Co Ltd [2021] EWCA Civ 136, he emphasised that appellate interference with findings of primary fact is warranted only where the conclusion is plainly wrong, outside the bounds of reasonable disagreement, or infected by identifiable legal error. None of those conditions was met.

The judge also rejected the submission that Mr Maher had deliberately furnished his orthopaedic expert, Mr Mohammed, with a false account of the accident mechanics to explain his claimed symptoms. Mansfield J noted that no medical evidence had been adduced to establish that the accident, as found by the trial judge, was incapable of producing neck and shoulder symptoms. The relevant question was one for medical experts, and AXA's lawyers had not put that question to Mr Mohammed.

Fundamental dishonesty

On the section 57 question, Mansfield J upheld the trial judge's finding that Mr Maher genuinely believed he had suffered neck and shoulder pain following the accident. By the time he was examined by Mr Mohammed, more than a year had elapsed since the collision. He had experienced a complex and evolving symptom history, and identifying with precision where and when pain had been present at any given point was, the court accepted, not a straightforward exercise. The subjective belief finding was dispositive: absent dishonesty, section 57 could not be engaged.

The appeal was dismissed in its entirety.

AXA Insurance Plc v David Maher [2026] EWHC 1365 (KB). P N Hinchliffe KC (Clyde & Co LLP) for the appellant; Nyssa Crorie (Express Solicitors) for the respondent.