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Justin Valentine argues that disclosure of all medical records in personal injury litigation is not necessary with modest claims ‘The pre-action protocols for low value personal injury claims provide that the medical expert should identify records relevant to the claim which should then be disclosed.’ It is not a precondition for bringing a modest claim …
Continue reading "Disclosure: Privacy v relevance"
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Paul Jones highlights a recent case concerning costs incurred during the transitional provisions ‘Even where the global costs have not been held to be disproportionate, it was still open to the judge to apply the test of necessity to individual costs which he considered to be disproportionate.’ The 1 April 2013 brought a new test …
Continue reading "Costs: Proportionality"
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Charles Bagot analyses the consequences of a recent decision ‘The observations of the senior judiciary that the Fatal Accidents Act is anomalous, while being plainly legal rather than political observations, may strike a chord with those in government and the civil service looking to reduce the level of compensation generally.’ This article considers a recent …
Continue reading "Reform: The ‘anomalous’ Fatal Accidents Act"
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Fatal Accidents Act; jurisdiction; assessment of damages ‘The Supreme Court upheld the decision that the damages rules of the Fatal Accidents Act could not be applied to Mrs Cox’s cause of action under the German Burgerliches Gezetzbuch (BGB).’In this case the Supreme Court considered whether provisions of the Fatal Accidents Act 1976 applied to the …
Continue reading "Case Report: Cox v Ergo Versicherung AG [2014] UKSC 22"
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Emma Sole reports on the effects of the judgment in Woodland v Essex County Council [2013] ‘The Supreme Court has not increased the scope of public authority liability, from a historical perspective, but rather preserved it at the level it had been before the advent of mass outsourcing.’In handing down its decision in Woodland v …
Continue reading "Non-Delegable Duties: A cause for concern?"
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Tim Hirst considers the potential pitfalls of trying to prevent a limitation defence ‘If an agreement not to plead the statute is not adhered to by the defendant, that gives a claimant a second cause of action; that is to say to sue for the breach of that agreement.’ Perhaps as a result of the …
Continue reading "Standstill Agreements: Can the Limitation Act really be suspended?"
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Peter Kirby QC, a High Court costs assessor, provides guidance on how to ensure you recover your costs ‘The imperative is to try and get the budget right the first time and, if necessary, during the course of the litigation to have the same revised in the light of changing circumstances.’ Billy Joel once sang, …
Continue reading "Civil Procedure: Case Management Orders – when will a costs judge depart from them?"
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Julian Matthews looks at the case law and some recent illustrations ‘The touchstone for liability in clinical negligence claims remains the Bolam test, and Chester and Birch do not warrant a wholly different approach in cases concerning advice.’ The standard of care the law requires of a doctor has become well established using the terms …
Continue reading "Clinical Negligence: What does a clinician have to tell the patient?"
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Stephanie Prior examines a range of cases that have arisen due to issues with third-generation contraceptives ‘Doctors must take into consideration the individual patient’s risk factors before prescribing the patient a combined hormonal contraceptive pill.’ In January 2011 I was interviewed on the radio and on TV to discuss the implications of the implanon contraceptive …
Continue reading "Family Planning: Yasmin – the designer contraceptive pill, or is it?"
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Paul Jones reviews five areas still causing confusion ‘Costs which the court considers disproportionate will no longer be recoverable even if those costs were reasonably and necessarily incurred.’We are now over a year on from the implementation of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO) which brought a whole raft of …
Continue reading "Costs: The new costs landscape – a land of confusion"
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