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Practice: Read all about it

Jamie Hill reviews the latest Judicial College Guidelines ‘Between May 2017 and June 2019 there has been a continued period of inflation. Accordingly, nearly all the brackets have been increased by a factor of circa 7% to take account of RPI over the same period.’ On 26 November 2019 the fifteen edition of the Judicial …
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Deputyships: What’s passed, what’s current and what’s ahead?

Christine Bunting and Tom Hall reflect on changes to the day-to-day running of deputyships and revisit the key reasons for ensuring that costs are carefully calculated ‘The OPG now requires professional deputies to estimate the amount of their activity within the course of a deputyship year, as well as the associated costs.’ In the July/August …
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Contempt of court: Committal where the die has already been cast

Anthony Johnson reports that judges will not tolerate dishonesty ‘The judge concluded that, having exercised the discretion under CPR 81.13(3)(a) afresh, the public interest in the case clearly militated in favour of committal proceedings being brought.’ The Court of Appeal’s recent decision in Zurich Insurance plc v Romaine [2019] is essential reading for any party …
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Costs orders: QOCS or not?

Do not assume QOCS automatically applies, warns Jasmine Murphy ‘Where a personal injury claim includes claims for other things like car repairs or credit hire for example, QOCS protection is not automatically given.’ It is easy to assume that qualified one-way costs shifting (QOCS) applies automatically to every personal injury case. However the most recent …
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Breach of duty: Assessing the standard of care: junior doctors

Does conferring with a consultant absolve a junior doctor? Rajkiran Barhey summarises a recent case ‘While at first blush it may seem unfair to require the same standard of care from junior doctors as their more senior colleagues, a number of considerations must be borne in mind.’ The Scottish case of Andrews v Greater Glasgow …
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Evidence: Covert recording in a PI claim

Grace Nicholls considers the implications of a recent case that concerned the recording of medical examinations by the claimant ‘While noting that the covert recordings of Mr M and Mr K were “reprehensible”, the judge observed that the evidence obtained through the recording of Dr T’s examination was highly relevant and probative, indeed as were …
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Service: Late delivery

Applications for extensions of time for service of a claim form are risky and should be avoided. Ian Meikle reports on the latest Court of Appeal guidance ‘The reason given for the need for more time was simply “there have been delays in arranging for service of the documents”. No witness statement was served with …
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Motor insurance: Racing exclusions in motor policies

John McDonald explores the interesting area of insurance policy exclusions and who ultimately ends up footing the bill ‘Even if an insurer can establish that the racing exclusion in its policy wording is on its face effective to exclude cover in respect of the activity being carried on by its insured at the time of …
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Psychiatric injuries: A forgotten primary victim remembered

Ann Houghton and Richard Baker outline the complexities involved in pursuing a claim for an involuntary participant ‘Adding “involuntary participant” to the claimant practitioner’s armoury is not fostering a compensation culture: it is enabling victims to seek recourse under a long-standing doctrine which the highest courts have recognised for decades.’ As all practitioners know, facing …
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