Multipliers and Fatal Accident Claims: A Wrong Remedied by the Supreme Court - Harry Trusted, Outer Temple Chambers
1. Knauer v Ministry of Justice is a landmark Supreme Court decision. The speech of Lord Neuberger and Lady Hale (with which five other law lords concurred) finally laid the ghost of the earlier House of Lords decision in Cookson v Knowles [1979] AC 556 which had dictated the basis of fatal accident calculations for nearly forty years.
2. In simple terms, the Cookson decision had meant that the multiplier for future loss following a death was calculated from the date of death and not from the date of trial. Hence if the trial was some years after the death, dependents would lose a significant part of their damages, especially if the ‘but for’ life expectancy was comparatively short. This approach was criticised by the Law Commission in their report entitled Claims for Wrongful Death [1999] Law Com 263. It was also criticised by the members of the Ogden Working Party (see comments by Robin de Wilde QC in paragraphs 19 -2 1 of the introduction to the 7th Edition), reproduced at page 48 of ‘Facts and Figures 2015/16”.
3. It is instructive to ask why their lordships decided Cookson as they did. In paragraph 12 of their speech, Lord Neuberger and Lady Hale remind us that in 1979...
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