Chronically fatigued banker wins right to £2.4m as judge accepts ‘good and bad days’
A HIGH-FLYING banker whose career was wrecked when he was struck by chronic fatigue can claim up to £2.4 million after judges rejected claims he was faking his condition.
Charles Miley, 52, has been plagued by crippling tiredness, leaving him unable to work since 2009.
The former triathlete, who had a £ 1 3 0,0 0 0 -a-ye a r exe c u t ive rol e a t investment bank Piper Jaffray, began claiming money in 2009 from an insurance policy set up by his employer to cover 75 per cent of his wages when he was unable to work. But in September 2013 Mr Miley was accused by insurers Friends Life of faking his condition and exaggerating symptoms, and was confronted with covert footage of him propping up the bar at a “beer festival”.
Friends Life said its investigation had unearthed evidence of Mr Miley socialising and taking holidays at times when he said he was unable to work, which it said proved he had given a “deliberately false” account of his condition.
However, Mr Justice Turner rejected the insurer’s claims in 2017, saying Mr Miley has “good days and bad days”.
Lord Justice McCombe, sitting with Lord Justice Moylan and Lord Justice Haddon-Cave, yesterday rejected an appeal by Friends Life. The judge said Mr Miley was not a “cheat” as suggested, and he had given the court an honest account of his life. He said: “It seems to me to be impossible for Friends Life to contend that Mr Miley had made any positive misstatement of material fact, either fraudulently or innocently.”
At the 2017 hearing,
Mr Miley, from Rugby in Warwickshire, gave evidence that he had reached an all-time low in 2010 when he was so ill he often could not leave the house. “My wife, Rachel, would be out in the garden if it was a sunny day and call me outside, and I wouldn’t be able to do it,” he said.
“There were times when I could barely speak.”
Friends Life pointed to holidays in Southampton, Norfolk, France and skiing trips as signs Mr Miley was exaggerating the effect of his condition. It also shot covert footage of Mr Miley, who had been the head of institutional equity sales at Piper Jaffray, drinking and socialising with friends.
But Mr Justice Turner said Mr Miley has “good days and bad days”, adding: “Any bad days are likely to have been those upon which he did not venture out of the house and were thus not captured on video.”
Under the terms of the insurance p o l i c y, Mr Mi l ey c a n c l a i m u p to £2.4 million if the fatigue condition stops him from working up to the age of 65. The three judges in the Court of Appeal unanimously dismissed Friends Life’s challenge to the original court ruling.