Court of Appeal Overturns 'Michelin Man' Pay-Out Decision - Charles Bagot, Hardwicke
13/08/15. It had been 10 years since a secondary victim claim had reached the Court of Appeal when the important case of Taylor v A.Novo(UK) Ltd [2014] QB 150 was decided, in March 2013. By contrast, the last six months have seen a series of key decisions illustrating the approach first-instance Courts will take in the light of Taylor, namely Wild v Southend NHS; Brock v Northampton NHS; Berisha v Stone Superstore; Shorter v Surrey & Sussex NHS and culminating in another landmark Appeal decision in Liverpool Women’s Hospital NHS Foundation Trust v Ronayne [2015] EWCA Civ 588.
As long ago as 1999, in White, Lord Hoffmann observed, “It seems to me that in this area of the law, the search for principle was called off in Alcock v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire [1992] 1 A.C. 310. No one can pretend that the existing law, which your Lordships have to accept, is founded upon principle.” This lack of principle made it hard to advise clients on likely outcomes. A series of decisions followed Alcock and White which were difficult to reconcile with each other. But taken as a whole, the five cases decided in the months since December 2014 bring some welcome consistency for practitioners advising in this complex and policy driven area of law...
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