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John Schmitt provides a case update on life expectancy evidence in personal injury claims ‘Master Davison considered that bespoke life expectancy evidence from an expert in that field should be confined to cases where the relevant clinical experts cannot offer an opinion at all or state that they require specific input from a life expectancy …
Continue reading "Evidence: Call in the specialists?"
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Anthony Johnson reviews the costs position where a defendant pursues an unsuccessful counterclaim ‘Can a claimant (who may or may not have themselves pursued a personal injury claim) recover costs in the ordinary course of events or can the defendant rely upon QOCS protection deriving from their own personal injury claim?’ While the meaning and …
Continue reading "Counterclaims: QOCS – the outer limits"
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Clementine Coram James considers the factors necessary to establish causation ‘While it was natural to consider that there was a link between the significant overdose of pancuronium and the claimant’s severe neurological injury, the evidence did not establish the relevant causal connection.’ In AXO v Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust [2019], Yip J considered the issue …
Continue reading "Clinical negligence: Missing link"
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Paul Jones looks at a recent case that highlights the difficulties that arise when the court rules and practice directions are at odds ‘The Master concluded that the Practice Direction does no more than set out procedural requirements for provisional assessment and does not have any effect on the jurisdiction to conduct that assessment.’ One …
Continue reading "Costs: Provisional assessment problems"
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Pankaj Madan explores how a party’s capacity affects brain injury litigation ‘If a person is able to understand an explanation of the information relevant to a decision by the use of simple language, visual aids or other means, then they are not to be regarded as unable to understand the information because those adjustments have …
Continue reading "Catastrophic brain injury claims: Assessing mental capacity"
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Helena Drage considers what issues of mitigation arise when a claimant refuses a recommended course of treatment ‘When considering whether a claimant has acted reasonably or unreasonably in refusing treatment, the risk profile of the recommended intervention is likely to be balanced against what the medical evidence demonstrates to be the likely benefit conferred by …
Continue reading "Refusing medical treatment: Evidencing unreasonableness"
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Andrew Hogan examines the complex issues that occur with solicitor/client success fees ‘Given the way that a success fee is traditionally calculated by reference to a percentage uplift derived from the risks of the individual case, if a solicitor proposes to charge a success fee on a different basis it is incumbent upon the solicitor …
Continue reading "Conditional fee agreements: Solicitor-own client costs disputes"
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Paul Jones reviews a case which illustrates that commencing notification of a claim correctly has a bearing on the costs recovered ‘Regarding the claimant’s submission that the claim was never intended to be a Portal claim, the Master held that the claimant had, in fact, made it a Portal claim by submitting a claims notification …
Continue reading "Costs: How it all started"
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Noise-induced hearing loss, loss of earnings, Smith v Manchester awards ‘There was no evidence that the medical advice was taken into account by the claimant’s superiors, and no steps were taken to reduce his exposure to noise.’ In Inglis v Ministry of Defence [2019], a former Royal Marine was awarded £545,766 for noise-induced hearing loss …
Continue reading "Case report: Inglis v Ministry of Defence [2019] EWHC 1153 (QB)"
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Harry Sheehan analyses the recent Supreme Court decision of Vedanta ‘A parent company may not only be directly liable for harm caused as a result of flawed policies or systems it has designed, but also by a failure properly to implement and enforce policies or systems it has designed even when they are not flawed.’ …
Continue reading "Negligence: Developments in parent company liability"
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