An airport chef who claimed a workplace accident left him barely able to walk had his £2.2 million compensation claim dismissed after he was photographed kayaking with his kids on Facebook.
Ferenc Sumegi, 49, of Berkshire said he injured his back lifting a fish tray at Heathrow and that the ‘unbearable’ ongoing pain forced him to walk with a stick or crutches and that he frequently spent 18 hours a day lying down.
He filed a claim for £2.2 million in damages against his former employer, airport caterer Gate Gourmet UK Ltd, for his injuries and the end of his career in the kitchen.
But after Facebook evidence surfaced showing him kayaking, carrying his children on his shoulders, and tossing a stick for a dog, his case was dismissed and he was hit with a £75,000 court costs bill.
Judge Melissa Clarke found Mr. Sumegi’s claim to be “fundamentally dishonest” at Oxford County Court in March, and Mr. Justice Yip upheld the decision at the High Court last week.
The court was informed that Mr. Sumegi hurt his back while cooking meals for airplane flights at Heathrow Airport in October 2012.
He said that while lifting a tray of fish from a trolley, he strained his back and suffered from “unbearable” pain that affected both his work and daily life.
He said he couldn’t lift anything heavy or ‘do sudden movements’, couldn’t take his kids to the park, run, kneel or squat down, and had to spend around 18 hours each day lying down.
Although he managed to return to work after taking time off to recover, he said he had to quit his job with Gate Gourmet in June 2013 due to his disabilities.
Mr Sumegi claimed £2.2million compensation for his alleged ‘significant and continuing disability’ and stated: ‘I was unable to work as a chef as I could not do any lifting and could make no sudden movements.
‘If I have to stand for too long then the pain in my back would be unbearable. There is no way I could go back to work as a chef.’
He told a medic he resorted to holding onto furniture to get around at home, although he sometimes used his stick.
The doctor said Mr Sumegi walked around his surgery, when examined, with ‘a rather crab-like wide based gait’.
Lawyers for Gate Gourmet accepted that he suffered a genuine back injury, but insisted any symptoms caused by the accident would have cleared up within 14 months.
They said that the £2.2 million lawsuit was wildly exaggerated and “fundamentally dishonest,” and that his compensation claim was only worth roughly £5,000.
His travels were secretly recorded by a surveillance operation, and his previous employers accused him of “basic dishonesty” in his claim after looking at social media posts.
According to them, pictures showing him “vigorously tossing a stick for his dog,” “burying his daughter in the sand at the beach,” and “standing in a river with a daughter on each shoulder” were all taken.
He was also seen kayaking, paddle boarding, and fishing.
Mr. Sumegi argued that the Facebook proof was false because his girlfriend, who “always posts nice photographs on her page,” had submitted the images.
He insisted that he too had good and terrible days.
He said, “She doesn’t publish photographs of me with a stick or that reveal my disability.”
When Judge Clarke dismissed Mr. Sumegi’s complaint last year, she used video footage from September and November 2020 as proof that Mr. Sumegi was able to walk without assistance, fill up his vehicle with gas, and complete the grocery run without incident.
He doesn’t seem to be having any trouble completing the tasks he has set out to do, she observed.
Although she acknowledged that some of the Facebook photos may have been “staged,” she claimed that others of them couldn’t be “explained away.”
One of them, according to her, shows him spinning their older daughter in a circle. Even on a good day, I don’t think someone with the kind of back pain and handicap that he describes would attempt this activity.
In order to support his compensation claim, she discovered that Mr. Sumegi had “altered his gait” and exaggerated his difficulty climbing stairs. She came to the following conclusion: “I am further satisfied that in respect of all these misrepresentations relating to his functional limitations, Mr. Sumegi knew that these were misrepresentations because he was not functionally limited to the extent that he said he was.”
“I don’t think he really thought he was, but I think he did it to get the most amount of damages he could get in these procedures,” the author says.
“I am certain that these misrepresentations were dishonest as measured by the impartial criteria of common decent people,” the author said.
She stated that the seven-figure amount he sought was nothing near the value of his actual back injury, which would have only been worth £4,970 in damages.
On the grounds that the judge “simply got her judgement wrong” and “that he has not been dishonest and is not a liar,” Mr. Sumegi then appealed that ruling in London’s High Court last week.
However, Mrs. Justice Yip denied him permission to appeal after a short hearing, calling the decision against Mr. Sumegi a “model of justice.”
In her conclusion, she said that the judge’s conclusions “were readily accessible to her and appear inescapable on the material that was before the court.”
There was no “chance of an appeal being successful,” according to her.
Mr. Sumegi was left to pay the enormous legal fees associated with his “fundamentally dishonest” allegation, with an upfront payment of £75,000.
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