Case Report: Weddall v Barchester Healthcare Ltd; Wallbank v Wallbank Fox Designs Ltd

Vicarious liability; assault; acting in course of employment ‘Recent authorities have highlighted the need to adopt a broad view of the nature of employment and what is reasonably incidental to an employee’s duties under it.’ This case concerns two contrasting decisions in conjoined appeals and addresses when an employer will be vicariously liable for anemployee’s …
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A Question Of Interpretation: CICA, suicides, and crimes of violence

Robert Glancy QC and Georgina Hirsch examine whether a tragedy for Gareth Owen Jones will prompt a narrowing of the CICA scheme? ‘When it was first set up, the Scheme simply provided compensation for injuries that resulted from a crime’. While the Ministry of Justice consults on changing the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme (the Scheme), …
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Industrial disease: Divisible and indivisible injuries

Tim Trotman reviews the tests for factual causation following Sienkiewicz v Greif (UK) Ltd ‘The tests can be encapsulated in familiar phrases: “but for”, “material contribution”, “material increase in risk” and “apportionment”, but discriminating factual cases and matching them to the correct legal test has become far more difficult in the recent past.’ This article …
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Advocate’s Advice: Good teamwork

Bill Braithwaite QC discusses the essential ingredients for effective case preparation ‘It may seem odd, but I believe that advocacy, in its wider sense, is just as important out of court as it is when presenting to a judge – if not more so.’ I would like to start the year with an exploration of …
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Costs: Interesting times

Paul Jones considers the date from which interest should run ‘In 2011 there were a number of decisions, including Gray v Toner [2011] and Motto & ors v Trafigura & anor [2011], that held that, where a case was funded by a CFA, interest should not run from the date of the order but should, …
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Cosmetic Surgery: The PIP breast implant controversy

Stephanie Prior explores the road to recovery ‘PIP was shut down and its product was banned last year, after it became apparent that the company was using non-authorised silicone gel that caused abnormally high rupture rates of these implants.’ In December 2011, an article was published in the National Post (‘Breast-implant-safety fears spread worldwide on …
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