Can Our Courts Shoot Down Liars?

The Civil Liability and Courts Act 2004 was recently passed into law by the Irish Dil. This is interesting legislation as it creates a specific criminal offence for giving false evidence specifically in a personal injury claim and also provides for the dismissal of such a personal injury claim where the plaintiff knowingly gives false or misleading evidence unless it would be contrary to the interests of justice to dismiss the claim.

The Irish Supreme Court case of Shelly-Morris v Bus Atha Cliath reported last year appears to be one of the motivations for this new law. The claim was for injuries to the plaintiff's knee suffered when a bus jerked forward whilst she was climbing to the upper deck, carrying her child on her hip and causing her to fall backwards. She gave evidence that her injuries required her to walk with a stick and she was no longer able to pick up her child. The defendant, however, presented video footage of her undertaking normal physical activity including walking comfortably without a stick. Shelly-Morris was nevertheless successful with her claim and the defendant appealed to the Irish Supreme Court which, reduced the plaintiff's damages and refused to grant her costs but did not dismiss her claim.

Although perjury is a criminal offence in our law, we have no specific statutory provision providing for the dismissal of a civil claim (personal injury or otherwise) where the plaintiff knowingly gives false or misleading evidence. The credibility of any witness and accordingly the weight to be attached to the witness's evidence in both civil and criminal matters must be assessed by the presiding officer taking into account inter alia the general quality of the testimony, the consistency of the evidence when measured against other witnesses and objective facts, the integrity, objectivity and candour of the witness, and any personal interest the witness may have in the outcome of the litigation.

Our law of evidence requires each matter to be dealt with on its merits and has no hard and fast requirements that a witness who has...