The scenario is common during any trial: two witnesses give evidence who were both present at a particular event but whose recollection about what was said or what they saw is so completely at odds one wonders whether they witnessed the same thing.  Whether it is a dispute between a claimant and a doctor about what was said during a consultation, the drivers of two cars that have collided abo... [Continue Reading]

Personal injury lawyers know all about the 1957 Act (“OLA”). In fact, along with the Highways Act 1980, it is probably one of statutes we deal with most often outside of an employer’s liability context. It is a short Act, with just three substantive sections, and it’s been on the statute book for over half a century. So it’s odd, perhaps, that in that time only two ca... [Continue Reading]

Many readers will be aware of the recent dispute over allegedly inflated subrogated motor repair costs claimed by Royal Sun Alliance and other insurers in road traffic accident claims. For those of you not familiar with it, there are a number of claims going through the courts this year in which insurers have submitted Breakdown of Invoiced Costs (“BIC”) documents as evidence of the re... [Continue Reading]

It was a hot Friday afternoon following a road traffic accident trial and as I walked back to the train station why was it that Bucks Fizz “Making your Mind Up” was playing in my head? Two reasons: 1. It’s usually poptastic, but very uncool songs that stick in my mind the longest; the Vengaboys is another example. Oh dear.  2. There had come a time for the judge to make his ... [Continue Reading]

The NHSLA published its annual report on 4 August 2011. Last year: (a)    it faced 8,655 clinical negligence claims, an increase from 6,652 the year before (up about 30.11%); (b)   of those,  5,398 cases were settled with only about 4% being resolved by litigation; and (c)    it paid out £729,100,000 pursuant to these, which was an increase from &... [Continue Reading]

One is forever hearing about ludicrous people taking the collective moral panic of “health and safety” to ludicrous extremes. Children being made to wear safety glasses to play conkers in the playground, and the Mayor of Maidstone having her mayoral flag removed from her car on the ground that it constituted a distraction to other drivers, are but two examples which spring to mind. &nb... [Continue Reading]

The Commons Public Accounts Committee has deemed the Government’s plans for NHS Electronic Care Records (“ECR”) was “unworkable" and the government should scrap the project. To many, especially those with an ear to the ground within the NHS, this comes as no surprise. To many others the fact that it would mean that some £2.7 Billion will be wasted is still less of a s... [Continue Reading]

In my recurring theme as to contributory negligence and protective headwear (not to mention my citing of the most authoritative legal sources – this time “The Metro” 29 July 2011), there is a corpus of medical opinion which advises against making cycling helmets compulsory. This is on the grounds that such a law is likely to decrease cycling activity and that it is “inconcl... [Continue Reading]

  Some avid readers have read a recent article in the Solicitors Journal entitled “Judge condemns 'forum shopping' by claimant personal injury lawyers”. In this article a Romford-ian circuit judge is referenced as being “deeply troubled” as to what he appeared to perceive to be PI lawyers attempting to “boost costs” in a recent case before him. The judge ma... [Continue Reading]

In November 1977 Paul Simon released his “Greatest Hits” album. It included two new tracks one of which was the smooth ballad, “Slip Slidin' Away”. Fifty years earlier in The Carlgarth [1927] P93 Scrutton L.J. had a different form of sliding in mind when he famously illustrated how the law has always distinguished between the duties owed by occupiers to lawful visitors to ... [Continue Reading]