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looks at recent decisions concerning the line to be drawn between personal responsibility and the liability of others Julian Matthews ‘The courts, often ready to find that there has been some degree of contributory fault, are now far more reluctant to fix individuals with the full consequences of their own actions then in earlier generations.’ …
Continue reading "Volenti: Dangerous activities"
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Shilpa Shah examines the difficult relationship between allocation and costs recovery ‘It was contended that the court should assess costs at the level allowed by reference to the small claims track provisions.’ While one of the aims of allocation was to enable the principle of proportionality to be dovetailed into the costs rules appropriate for …
Continue reading "Assessment: Stay on track with costs"
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Lisa Sullivan and Martyn Mcleish offer practical tips on how to navigate claims where allegations of exaggeration may arise ‘The defence operates as a rule of public policy by which an otherwise perfectly proper claim will not be allowed to proceed or a particular head of loss cannot be recovered because it offends public conscience …
Continue reading "Evidence: Problem issues and problem clients"
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Paul Jones discusses the prospects of appeal following a summary assessment of costs ‘A judge should consider the component parts of the claim for costs but he was not obliged to go through a box-ticking exercise in which he had to make a ruling on each and every one of the elements of the costs …
Continue reading "Costs: Summary execution"
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Liability of parent company; duty of care; asbestosis ‘The court had “little doubt that the defendant exercised control over some of the activities of CBP from the time that it came into existence and through the period during which the Claimant was one of its employees”.’ To what extent can a parent company be responsible …
Continue reading "Case Report: Chandler v Cape plc [2011] EWHC 951 (QB)"
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Bill Braithwaite QC gives an invaluable insight into current litigation trends ‘Personal injury lawyers could create their own system of dispute resolution. However, I’m quite sure that it could only be done with goodwill on both sides, and my feeling is that it is only just developing to the stage where true co-operation is practical.’ …
Continue reading "PI Blog: Advocate’s advice"
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Statutory interpretation; control; Occupiers Liability Act 1957 ‘A number of breaches were alleged against the defendant, including a failure to supply sufficiently safe access and egress under reg 5 of the 1996 Regulations (now reg 26 of the 2007 Regulations)… The appeal turned on the issue of control.’ Can a householder’s ‘control’ under the Occupiers …
Continue reading "Case Report: Kmiecic v Isaacs"
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Andrew Sands and Nicholas Martin examine the issues relating to the discount rate and conclude that a reduction in the rate should be inevitable ‘Reality means that life expectancy is always, by its very nature, an estimate so will be wrong. This introduces mortality risk, which if the claimant lives longer than expected means that …
Continue reading "Investment: Lack of return"
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Giles Eyre looks at keeping expert witnesses up to the mark ‘In Jones v Kaney, the Supreme Court, by a majority of 5:2, overturned 400 years of established law in removing the immunity of expert witnesses.’ For as long as any of us can remember, if in the course of personal injury or clinical negligence …
Continue reading "Expert Witnesses: Clamping down"
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Paul Jones considers the latest Predictable Costs case ‘Where a claimant has issued proceedings prematurely, possibly with a view to avoiding being limited to Small Claims Fixed Costs, they may assess their Standard Basis costs at a sum equivalent to the costs that would have been payable on the Small Claims Track. This way, the …
Continue reading "Road Traffic Accidents: When is a small claim not a small claim?"
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