Breach Of Duty: Employer’s liability claims post Jackson

Andrew Mckie examines the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act (ERRA) 2013 and the impact of the Small Claims Track (2017) ‘Claimant lawyers will now have to be more careful than ever to show there has been a breach of duty of the common law duty of care and that breach caused the accident.’ It may …
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Legal Principle: Overturning the Cookson defect

Christopher Sharp QC explains why Knauer v Ministry of Justice marks a fundamental change in claims for future loss of dependency in fatal accident cases ‘The decision in Knauer was not unexpected but it is to be welcomed. It is to be hoped that a similar opportunity to have the Supreme Court review the position …
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Costs: Cost budgets – all change

Paul Jones evaluates the latest updates to the CPR intended to save courts time ‘This new document sets out the figures claimed and offered for each phase of the budget and requires either the agreed sums to be recorded or a summary of the reasons why they cannot be agreed.’ Every practitioner loves costs budgets. …
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Restitutio In Integrum: ‘What’s done cannot be undone’

Christopher Kennedy QC considers the principles behind the notion of ‘full compensation’ in cases involving serious personal injury and how they have been applied ‘What sounds perfectly straightforward in the judgment of an eminent jurist can appear more challenging when considering the messy facts of an individual case.’The phrase ‘restitutio in integrum’ means restoration to …
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Treatment: Life after Montgomery

Sophie Beesley highlights the development of the ‘reasonable patient’ in recent cases concerning patient consent ‘Patients should not be bombarded with information, but helped to understand what matters or is likely to matter to them as individuals, beyond the pure percentages of risk. Dialogue is key.’ Consent to medical treatment is only valid if it …
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Case Report: Lafferty v Newark and Sherwood DC [2016] EWHC 320 (QB)

Landlords’ liability; injuries arising out of latent defects ‘Section 4(4) did not create a form of strict liability. It extended the application of s4(1) to relevant defects which were otherwise outside its scope, and remained subject to the requirement of s4(2).’ This important case resolves (for the time being at least) the question of whether …
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Clinical Negligence: Delay of reckoning

The material contribution test for causation in clinical negligence has been maintained and clarified following Williams and John. Suzanne Farg reports ‘The defendant appealed to the Privy Council on the basis that the Court of Appeal had been “led into error by a misinterpretation of ‘material contribution’ as sufficient for the purposes of causation.”’The recent …
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