Advocate’s Advice: Discount rate delight or disaster

Bill Braithwaite QC explains multipliers and the future of the discount rate in personal injury compensation ‘Almost every penny of compensation is allocated to a specific need in the future. Take away the money, and the therapy and support stop, and the claimant and his or her family can no longer afford to live in …
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Discount Rates And Offers: Now is the summer of our discount rates

Patrick Limb QC provides practical advice on how and when to make offers following the lowering of the discount rate ‘Those acting for claimants – particularly where for some of the most seriously injured individuals, the approval of the court will be required – have considered it to be an unpalatable and (too) risky a …
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Accommodation: An all-time bungalow

Nigel Spencer Ley reviews the effect of the new discount rate on accommodation cases like Roberts v Johnstone ‘It cannot be right that a claimant who has a real financial need as a result of the defendant’s negligence has to pay damages to the defendant.’ Amid apocalyptic warnings from insurers as to the impact of …
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Periodical Payments And Lump Sums: A lifetime commitment

Jennifer Stone, Nick Leech, Andrew Sands and Nick Martin reflect on the implications of the change in the discount rate ‘An investor placing capital into ILGs and holding the investment until the redemption date (date of maturity) is at today’s prices guaranteed to have less purchasing power with that money than they had at the …
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Costs: Interesting times

After the discount rate cut, Paul Jones predicts increased legal disputes over interest on legal costs ‘Interest on legal costs is calculated from the date of the order giving a party the right to costs, rather than the date when those costs were assessed, the so-called incipitur rule.’While the legal and insurance professions come to …
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Consent To Medical Treatment: Changing priorities

Paul Sankey investigates a decision in the Court of Appeal after it had applied the Montgomery test ‘There have been a number of reported decisions from the lower courts since Montgomery but this is the first Court of Appeal decision to apply the new definition of a doctor’s duty in giving advice.’The recent decision in …
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Case Report: Darnley v Croydon Health Services NHS Trust [2017] EWCA Civ 151

Duty of care; A&E; head injury; waiting times ‘It was not fair, just and reasonable to impose a duty of care on the receptionist to give a patient accurate information about waiting times or not to provide inaccurate information on waiting times.’In Darnley v Croydon Health Services NHS Trust [2017] the court looked at what, …
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