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Bill Braithwaite QC considers what issues arise when there is evidence to suggest a claimant may not have been wearing a seat belt ‘The burden of proof is firmly on the defendant, but this definitely does not mean that the claimant should wait and see how the defence put the argument.’ Seat belt issues never …
Continue reading "Advocate’s Advice: Road traffic accidents"
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Patrick Limb QC examines the decision in the appeal case of IEG v Zurich ‘The relaxation of the causal requirement in mesothelioma claims emerged from the conjoined appeals in Fairchild precisely because the insurers were hoping that such claims would founder on the rock of uncertainty created by the inability to satisfy the “but for” …
Continue reading "Fairchild Rules: Fair enough?"
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Andrew Hogan reviews the first Court of Appeal decision and if it will be possible to depart from an approved budget Because they are simply ‘taken into account’, if an arbitrary figure of costs claimed in the bill exceeds by 20% more than the estimate, on any assessment, they are often breached with impunity. On …
Continue reading "Costs Budgeting: A new era in satellite litigation?"
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Contemporaneous evidence; contributory negligence Significantly, in the later of the two reports, when the line manager had had further time to reflect, criticism was leveled at the project manager, the contractors and the porter for not doing their jobs properly.In this case, it was held that an allegation of contributory negligence had to fail where …
Continue reading "Case Report: Germaine v Epsom & St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust [2013] All ER (D) 248 (Jan)"
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Georgina Hirsch highlights the main changes The government justifies the removal of a loss of earnings award to those still in work on the grounds that the state already compensates them.Austerity has affected many aspects of justice in the UK, and compensation for victims of violence is no exception. On 27 November 2012 a new …
Continue reading "Victims Of Violence: Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme 2012"
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Araba Taylor considers the affairs of the incapacitated in the first of two articles The test of the mental capacity of a litigant either to bring litigation or to commence civil proceedings, without the need for a litigation friend, depends on the specific transaction involved. Clients without capacity present client care issues for all practitioners, …
Continue reading "Client Care: Clients without capacity – taking instructions"
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Mark Bailey provides a defendant’s perspective of the post-April changes and how these should be tackled It is proposed that once a costs management order has been made and a budget approved, the court will thereafter control the parties’ budgets. The purpose of this article is to look at aspects of the new rules, potential …
Continue reading "Civil Procedure Rules: Collaborative costs management – a way forward?"
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Paul Jones looks at the pros and cons DBAs provide a whole new wilderness for the majority of personal injury lawyers to navigate through. Conditional fee agreements (CFA) were confusing enough when they were first introduced but now we have new-style CFAs (with unrecoverable success fees and ATE premiums) sitting alongside DBAs. The main provisions …
Continue reading "Funding: Damages-based agreements: the basics"
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Robert Cumming gives a view from the Bar and considers the practical consequences of the new rules The introduction of the CPR 1998 ushered in a new culture of active case management. Parties were no longer to be trusted to run their litigation efficiently free from judicial scrutiny. In little over three years Lord Justice …
Continue reading "Procedural Reform: PI litigation in Jackson’s brave new world"
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Jonathan Wheeler reviews the case law in the last 12 months A set of recent cases from 2012 have been concerned with establishing whether there is a relationship giving rise to vicarious liability on the part of the defendant at all. Vicarious liability is a doctrine of strict liability on the part of a defendant …
Continue reading "Vicarious Liability: Is the connection close enough?"
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