Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

CJCA 2015 s57: harassment anxiety damages are 'personal injury'; EWHC dismisses fundamentally dishonest claim; indemnity costs, QOCS disapplied, civil restraint order; warning for lawyers assisting off the record

Published on: 22 January 2026

Published by a LexisNexis PI & Clinical Negligence expert

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Article summary

Taiwo v Homelets of Bath Ltd [2025] EWHC 3173 (KB) What are the practical implications of this case?

For the purposes of CJCA 2015, s 57, a claim seeking damages for anxiety stemming from harassment under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 is to be treated as a personal injury claim. Consequently, where such a claim is held to be fundamentally dishonest, it must be dismissed unless the court is persuaded that dismissal would lead to substantial injustice.

Where fundamental dishonesty is established, the court may:

dismiss the whole claim, including components to which no dishonesty is attributed
award indemnity costs
disapply QOCS protection in respect of enforcement
make adverse costs orders for hopeless or abusive appeal conduct

The judgment also underlines that persisting with meritless grounds of appeal, particularly in an undisciplined fashion involving repeated applications and iterative documents, can warrant both adverse costs orders and the imposition of a civil restraint order.

Finally, lawyers who provide behind-the-scenes assistance to litigants in person without coming onto the record should be aware that authoring...

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