Exaggerated and false personal injury claims: section 26

What this guide is and is not

This guide states what the law provides where a personal injury claim is exaggerated or false, and what each side of a claim can and cannot do about it. It is written for the respondent who believes a claim against them is not honest, and for the claimant who has heard the word "fraud" used and wants to know what the law says. It states the rules and the consequences. It does not say how to make a claim look better, how to test one, or what any particular claim is.

The claimant's side of the Board's process is in the Board, start to finish, and the respondent's in the Formal Notice guide. The Board itself, its three names and what it is not are on the Board page, and its responding to a claim page is the Board's own account for respondents.

Section 25: an offence

Section 25 of the Civil Liability and Courts Act 2004 makes it an offence for a person to give, or dishonestly cause to be given, evidence in a personal injuries action that is false or misleading in any material respect and that the person knows to be false or misleading. It also makes it an offence to swear an affidavit under section 14 (the verifying affidavit, below) that is false or misleading in any material respect, knowing it to be so. The Act sets the penalties, on summary conviction and on indictment, and they include imprisonment. A prosecution is a matter for the Gardaí and the Director of Public Prosecutions, not for the other side of the claim.

Section 26: dismissal of the action

Section 26 is the civil consequence, and it is the provision that matters in most cases. Where a plaintiff in a personal injuries action gives or adduces, or dishonestly causes to be given or adduced, evidence that is false or misleading in any material respect, and knows it to be so, the court shall dismiss the action, unless the dismissal would result in injustice being done. The same applies where the plaintiff swears a verifying affidavit that is false or misleading in a material respect, knowing it to be so.

Four features of the section are worth stating exactly.

• The word is "shall". The court must dismiss; it is not a discretion to reduce.
• It is the action that is dismissed, not the false part of it. A claim with a genuine injury and a knowingly exaggerated loss of earnings is dismissed in full, and the courts have done so.
• The evidence must be false or misleading in a material respect, and the plaintiff must know it. An honest mistake, a poor memory or a doctor's note the plaintiff did not write are not within the section; a court decides on the evidence which it is.
• The exception is injustice, which the court decides on the facts. It is an exception, not a second chance.

A dismissed plaintiff also faces the ordinary consequence of losing: an order to pay the defendant's costs. The costs guide explains how costs follow the event.

Section 14: the verifying affidavit

Section 14 of the 2004 Act requires the plaintiff in a personal injuries action to swear an affidavit verifying the facts in the personal injuries summons and in any reply to a request for particulars, and requires a defendant who pleads facts in a defence or counterclaim to do the same. The affidavit is sworn before a commissioner for oaths or a practising solicitor and lodged in court. It is the point at which every assertion in a claim, including the account of the accident, the injury, the treatment and the losses, is put on oath.

The affidavit is the link between sections 25 and 26 and the ordinary case: a claim that was exaggerated in the pleadings becomes, on the affidavit, evidence that is false in a material respect. That is why a solicitor goes through the pleadings line by line with a client before the affidavit is sworn, and why the pleadings say what the medical reports and the receipts support and nothing beyond it.

What the Board decides, and what it does not

The Injuries Resolution Board assesses damages. Section 20 of the Personal Injuries Assessment Board Act 2003 has it assess the amount on the assumption that the respondent is fully liable, on the documents, with regard to the Personal Injuries Guidelines. It does not hear evidence, does not cross-examine, and decides no question of liability or of honesty. An assessment is not a finding that the claimant is telling the truth, and consent to an assessment is not an admission that the respondent believes it (section 16).

The Board does three things that bear on an exaggerated claim. It takes the claimant's medical evidence on its own Medical Assessment Form from the treating doctor, and can arrange its own independent medical examination. It requires special damages to be vouched. And where it suspects fraud, it can refer the matter to the Gardaí. What it does not do is decide the question. A respondent who disputes a claim, in whole or in part, has the Act's route: decline to consent within the 90 days, or reject the assessment within the 21 days, and an Authorisation issues. The claim then goes to a court, which is the only forum in which sections 25 and 26 operate.

The Board's own published figures bear on the scale of the ordinary case: in 2025 the median award was €14,020 and 74% of awards were for minor injuries, the Board's figures on the figures register. The Guidelines themselves, in their section on neck injuries, say that allegations of soft-tissue injury are easily made and not easily disproved and call for careful scrutiny; the whiplash guide quotes the paragraph.

The respondent's route

For a respondent, the law's route runs through the insurer and the evidence.

The insurer deals with the claim, as the Board recommends and as the policy requires, and it is the insurer that decides whether to consent, whether to accept an assessment and whether to contest the claim in court. The respondent's part is to give the insurer what it needs: the accident book, the CCTV preserved on the day, the cleaning and inspection records, the names of witnesses, the Garda reference, and an exact account of what was seen. The guide for shops, landlords, employers and dog owners lists what to keep.

In court, it is the defendant who raises section 26, by pleading it and by evidence: medical evidence of its own, the claimant's records, surveillance where an insurer has obtained it, social media and the claimant's own prior statements. The judge decides whether the evidence given was false or misleading in a material respect and whether the claimant knew it. A respondent does not decide it, does not investigate it personally, and does not contact the claimant about it; those are the insurer's and the court's.

The claimant's route

For a claimant, the law asks one thing: that the claim describe the injury and the loss exactly. The medical report is the treating doctor's, in the doctor's words; the Board's form asks for it that way, and the medical report guide explains what the doctor is asked and what the doctor should not be asked to write. Special damages are what the receipts and the payslips show. Where a symptom has resolved, the claim says so; where it has not, the claim says that. A prior injury to the same part of the body is disclosed, because the records will show it in any case.

Nothing in that is a disadvantage. The Board assesses on the documents, and a claim that matches the documents is the claim the Board can assess and a court can accept. A genuine claim is not at risk from section 26; an exact claim is not at risk from it at all.

The two forums

Where this leaves you

Sections 25 and 26 are the law's answer to an exaggerated claim, and a court is where they are applied. The Board timeline shows the Board's own dates, the 90 days, the 9 months, the 28 and the 21, and the point at which an Authorisation moves a disputed claim from the Board to the court.