Former Vodafone Exec Wins Damages Claim

A former Vodafone financial executive has won a claim for damages after she was injured in a road accident. However, she won only a fraction of the UK£10 million she had been claiming. Ingrid Van Wees had claimed to have a "very superior" IQ before a motorbike on which she was a passenger had collided with a car in London in May 2000.

However, the accident left her with impaired short-term memory, reduced concentration and a lack of self-confidence. The insurance companies for both the car driver and the motorcycle had not denied liabilities, but had contested the amount of compensation she was claiming.

The judge, Mr Justice Langstaff, said that the case "raises unusual difficulties", adding that "the loss is said to be so significant, of a career potentially so glittering, that it is to be measured in millions of pounds."

The judge added "The difficulties arise because the claimant is a woman of high intelligence, with a full scale IQ measured now, post accident, at 128, placing her in the top three per cent of her age group." The judge said he was "quite sure she genuinely feels that she is not the person that she once was". He ruled that "on balance" he did not regard her as "consciously exaggerating her case".

However, he also added that "She remains able to function at a level well above that of the average uninjured employee," and that her ongoing depression caused by her apparent failure to gain the rewards she had expected in her career were not something the insurance firms could be held liable for.

She was finally awarded UK£1.1 million in damages. Dutch-born Miss Van Wees is currently working part time in Germany."

Posted to the site on 23rd February 2007