There is very convoluted litigation taking place which has as its focus a witness statement, prepared by a solicitor acting for a number of insurance companies who are defending personal injury claims arising from road traffic accidents (RTAs). And part of the argument (and a satellite claim) has now become about compliance with data protection law.
Five original claims were made for damages arising from RTAs. The defendant insurance companies were represented by law firm DWF, and one of DWF’s solicitors prepared a witness statement which contained an analysis of claims data collected by DWF in relation to a number of claims submitted by claimants represented by the solicitors who acted on behalf of the five claimants. The statement sought to adduce that in an unusually high number of the claims claimants had been referred for further psychological assessment, by a doctor who in 100% of those cases diagnosed a psychiatric condition and in two thirds of those cases said that the recovery period would be over two years. In short, a large number of claimants in the relevant RTAs appeared to develop long-term psychiatric conditions.
The claimant sought unsuccessfully to debar the witness statement, although the judge (on appeal) noted that it would be “for the Judge at trial to make of this evidence what they will [although] there are questions as to the extent to which this evidence assists without more in proving fundamental dishonesty”.
Notwithstanding this, an initial 317 (now reduced to three) claims were then made by people whose personal data was accepted to have been processed by DWF for the purposes of preparing the witness statement above. The claims here are for various breaches of the UK GDPR (such as excessive processing, and lack of fairness, lawful basis and transparency).
In a judgment handed down on 1 April, on an application by the claimants for specific disclosure in the UK GDPR claim (and an application by the defendant to amend its defence and strike out a witness statement of the claimants’ solicitor) Mrs Justice Eady DBE dismissed the disclosure applications (made under various headings), on the basis that much of the information would clearly be privileged material, or not relevant, or that the application was a fishing expedition.
If this gets to trial it will be interesting though. This sort of processing of personal data takes place in the course of (non-data-protection) private litigation routinely. It is generally not assumed that any issues of illegality arise. Any ultimate findings would be notable for litigators, and those who need to advise them on data protection compliance.
The views in this post (and indeed most posts on blog) are my personal ones, and do not represent the views of any organisation I am involved with.
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