Kershaw v (1) Carey (2) Banco Vitalicio de Espana [2011] September. HHJ Armitage QC (Manchester CC) This claim was brought by the Claimant in the Manchester County Court. It arose out of a rather unusual road traffic accident in Puerto Banus. The Claimant and the First Defendant were both British nationals and were domiciled in England/Wales. The Claimant was a retired lady. The First Defendant w... [Continue Reading]

The Court of Appeal’s recent decision in Sir Robert Lloyd & Co v Hoey [2011] EWCA Civ 1060 is a very useful reference point for how the courts should approach the “date of knowledge” under Section 14 of the Limitation Act. C had been exposed to asbestos in the course of his employment. He developed serious lung problems, caused to a large extent from pleural thickening result... [Continue Reading]

Those of you familiar with the work of Kieslowski and Bergman might have missed “The Hangover II”. It is part of a sub-genre of American comedy that, perhaps, also includes critically under-rated offerings like “Porky’s” and “Bachelor Party” (the latter being the sort of thing Tom Hanks got up to before he started to win Academy Awards). I confess tha... [Continue Reading]

Those personal injury practitioners who have had to grapple with the question of which law to apply to an accident which occurred abroad are bound to be aware of the vexed issue surrounding ‘the temporal scope of Rome II’. Rome II (the universal name given to EC Reg 864/2007) was intended to usher in a new era of simplicity and uniformity in this field, making it as easy as possib... [Continue Reading]

Clinical negligence lawyers will be fully aware that the Legal Aid Bill proposes to reverse the position under the Access to Justice Act 1999, whereby civil legal aid is available for any matter not specifically excluded. The Bill takes some types of case out of scope for legal aid funding and provides that cases would not be eligible for funding unless of a type specified in the Bill. It suffices... [Continue Reading]

  The Government has today announced that it will ban referral fees in personal injury claims. Just a week ago I published an article on the Butterworths Public Injury Law Forum (http://www.personalinjurylawgroup.co.uk/index.php?/Opinion/the-insurance-industrys-dirty-secret.html) setting out the criticisms made of referral fees and the proposals for reform.  Lord Justice Jackson recommen... [Continue Reading]

There has been a significant and until now unpublicised development in the long-running line of case concerning inflated repair costs claimed by RSA.   Well, as the judgment is on BAILII and publicised on the Judiciary Website, this is not quite an exclusive, but it is close!   Judgment was handed down in Kevin Fallows v Harkers Transport on Friday 2 September 2011. It came to my attent... [Continue Reading]