This category can only be viewed by members.

Cost Budgeting: The essential guide

Nick Kitchen sets out what every practitioner needs to know ‘Where costs budgets have been filed and exchanged, the court will normally make a costs management order unless it is satisfied that the litigation can be conducted justly and at proportionate cost in accordance with the overriding objective without such an order being made.’ The …
This post is only available to members.

Animals Act 1971: Prosecuting and defending equine claims

John Snell provides invaluable advice on this difficult area of law ‘Where the Animals Act 1971 applies, there will often be little or nothing to be gained for a claimant by also pleading a claim at common law.’ A horse, as Lord Justice Lewison observed in Turnbull v Warrener [2012] at para 56, is a …
This post is only available to members.

Equine Claims: An expert’s perspective

Charlie Lane gives guidance to practitioners on what to expect when dealing with an equestrian expert ‘Dealing with the issue of the unpredictability of horses is of course a problem… it is for the lawyers to ensure that, while they obtain the most helpful opinion, the expert is not encouraged or allowed to be more …
This post is only available to members.

Costs: Trivial pursuits

Paul Jones highlights an example of an application for relief from sanctions in detailed assessment proceedings ‘The court considered the breach by reference to all the surrounding circumstances of the case. In particular, the claimant had commenced detailed assessment within the required three months.’ Relief from sanctions has been the dominant theme in the post …
This post is only available to members.

Health And Safety Regulations: New hope for injured employees

Sam Collard and Ewelina Ochab outline an important case when considering non-delegable duty of care ‘It is still unknown whether Woodland v Essex CC will be used in employers’ liability, however the case gives hope for injured employees seeking compensation for their injuries.’On 1 October 2013, s69 of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 …
This post is only available to members.

Fundamental Dishonesty: QOCS CPR 44.16 – claimant caught ‘bang to rights’

Patrick West looks at the growing impact of one of the most important costs consequences of the Jackson reforms and what it means for parties seeking to recover their costs ‘A Part 36 offer, if effective, will wipe out a claimant’s damages by permitting enforcement of a costs order in favour of the defendant capped …
This post is only available to members.

Case Report: Christine Reaney v University of North Staffordshire NHS Trust (1) and Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust (2) [2014] EWHC 3016 (QB)

Negligent treatment of pre-existing paraplegia; establishing the appropriate counterfactual; whether credit should be given for care required in any event ‘One might say that the paradigmatic negligent act is to make that person worse. A court may well have sympathy with a vulnerable individual whose quality of life is reduced even further by those in …
This post is only available to members.

Workplace Claims: Testing the boundaries

Gurion Taussig reviews recent significant employer’s liability cases ‘The duty upon the employer can not be easily displaced and even hazards with a low risk of eventuating will engage the PPE Regulations.’ This employer’s liability article focuses on some of the more significant decisions of the Court of Appeal in the last 18 months. During …
This post is only available to members.

Costs: Qualified one-way costs shifting – round 1

The first Court of Appeal decision looking at the QOCS reforms has been handed down, Paul Jones reports ‘The third party’s appeal was simply that QOCS did not apply to the Part 20 proceedings in Wagenaar v Weekend Travel Ltd and Serradj between the defendant and the third party, but the defendant’s appeal was more …
This post is only available to members.

Relief From Sanctions: Denton and the misunderstanding of Mitchell

In a recent case the Court of Appeal takes a new view of Mitchell, Jim Hester discusses ‘The court’s new guidance replaces what was generally seen as a two-stage process under Mitchell (Was this a trivial breach? Was there a good reason?) with a new three-stage process.’ Hot on the heels of the seminal Mitchell …
This post is only available to members.