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Loss of Earnings, Loss of “Perks” and Chances of Promotion: A High Court Example - Gordon Exall, Zenith Chambers

02/01/15. The case of Downing -v- Peterborough & Stamford Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust [2014] EWHC 4216 (QB) provides an interesting example of the court assessing damages in a case where liability was agreed.  Here we look at the judge’s approach to the claim for loss of earnings.

THE CLAIMANT

The claimant was 43 years old and left unable to work as a result of an operation.

THE CLAIMANT’S EMPLOYMENT POSITION

  1. Prior to the operation, the Claimant had been a warrant officer (class 2) in the Army Air Corps and had very good prospects of further promotion and indeed, in due course, of being commissioned. The likelihood is that he would have retired from the army at the age of 50 or, possibly, at 55 if he progressed to the rank of major and obtained a regular (as opposed to intermediate) late entry commission. There would, in either event, then have been a good chance that he would have obtained a responsible and reasonably well paid post in civilian life. He had been classified as an “outstanding” warrant officer and was spoken of in glowing terms in the evidence of the military witnesses, whose evidence was...

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