Fundamental Dishonesty: The truth of the matter

Hannah Saxena examines the ability of the court to set aside qualified one-way costs shifting ‘You might have thought that with an entirely new phrase being added to our vocabulary, with potentially serious consequences, that guidance would be forthcoming with exactly what was intended by the phrase fundamental dishonesty.’ Two and a half years ago …
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Enhanced Court Fees: Mitigating the impact

Holly Tibbitts considers what lawyers can do to minimise the effect of the government’s latest assault on civil justice. ‘Fee remission is available only to those liable to pay court fees. If a CFA is in place which requires the claimant to meet the cost of disbursements, then there should be no issue with gaining …
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Disability: Handling chronic pain claims

Nicholas Baldock discusses the factors courts take into account when considering chronic pain claims ‘Claimants should be warned of the dangers of exaggerating any element of their claim and client care letters may need to spell out those dangers as diplomatically as possible.’Whether acting for the defendant or claimant, chronic pain cases can and do …
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Costs: Of budgets and bills – Part 2

In the second part of his article Paul Jones explains the new code system of the new bill of costs pilot scheme ‘The ultimate end-game for this initiative is to reform not just the format of the bill of costs but the way it is actually constructed and for this we have to turn to …
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Alternative Dispute Resolution: Being nice

Andrew Hogan sets out the different strategies for approaching mediation ‘What is crucial is to lay the groundwork early with a detailed and reasonable offer of ADR in whatever mode is thought appropriate.’Alternative dispute resolution (ADR) is an alternative to litigation. Seen 20 years ago, as touchy-feely nonsense, ‘being nice’ to the ‘being nasty’ of …
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Book Review: The latest thing

Rachel Heelis reviews the third edition of Clinical Negligence Claims – A Practical Guide Having previously owned copies of both the first and second edition of the book and in light of all of the recent and significant changes in the field of clinical negligence law, I was very eager to read and review the …
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Case Report: Thomas Morgan v (1) Arriva North West (2) Thomas Dures (t/a Sefton Motors) (2015) QBD, Mrs Justice Simler

Strike out; admission of liability; conflict of interest; solicitor default ‘Arriva applied to strike out the claim on 25 February 2014; the primary basis being the failure to deal with the conflict when it was raised at a juncture providing ample time to find alternative counsel.’ When is it appropriate to strike out a claim …
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Secondary Victims: A race between the claimant and the ambulance?

Brenna Conroy outlines the distinction between appreciation of an accident and witnessing a victim’s injuries for secondary victim claims ‘One of the key themes that emerges from recent authorities is that a secondary victim claim will fail where the primary victim has received treatment such as to make that scene sufficiently different to that at …
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