News Category 3
Occupiers' Liability Special Considerations, Children and Independent Contractors - Andrew Mckie, Clerksroom
22/06/14. When dealing with occupiers’ liability cases, there are a number of important considerations and special circumstances to be taken into consideration when dealing with such cases. This chapter will look at the special considerations such as cases involving children and independent contractors, provide a summary of the cases in this area and special considerations to be given and for claimant solicitors when looking at such cases.
This directly links into the chapter of the book that deals with occupiers liability cases in general.
Infants
Section 23 of the Occupiers’ Liability Act 1957 says as follows:-
“The circumstances relevant for the present purposes including the degree of care, and of want of care, which would ordinarily be looked for in such a visitor, so that for example in proper cases – (a) the occupier must be prepared for children to be less careful than adults and an occupier may expect that a person in the exercise of his calling will appreciate and guard against any special risk ordinarily incident to it so far as the occupiers leaves him...
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Why Employment Lawyers Should Also Be Civil Lawyers and The Risk of Estopping Your Client - Richard Coulthard, Michael Lewin Solicitors
18/06/14. Most individuals assume that if a dispute arises between themselves and their employer that they will need to take action in the Employment Tribunal and will approach an Employment Lawyer.
Historically there have been significant advantages to the Employment Tribunal. It was previously free to pursue your claim and there was always minimal risk of any adverse costs. Times have changed and now there is compulsory referral to ACAS for mediation and now it is necessary to pay Tribunal fees. I have seen several reports in the Law Society Gazette about the dramatic decrease in the number of Tribunal claims issued with falls of approximately 80% reported from this time last year.
It seems however that many people are now reverting to bringing claims in the civil courts. Most Employment Lawyers I know will hold their hands up and say the civil procedure rules are about as alien to them as winning the World Cup is to Lichtenstein.
It has always been important for Employment Lawyers to understand the...
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The Future of Expert Evidence in Personal Injury Cases - Paul Phillips, Greenwoods Solicitors
19/06/14. As a solicitor involved in handling largely catastrophic personal injury cases, I spend many of my waking hours reading the often competing reports of a wide range of medical and non-medical experts. In a large number of cases the injuries are remarkably similar; the experts are pretty much the same; and distinguishing one case from another becomes increasingly difficult.
On 1 April 2013, CPR 35.4 was amended and now states:
(1) No party may call an expert or put in evidence an expert’s report without the court’s permission.
(2) When parties apply for permission they must provide an estimate of the costs of the proposed expert evidence and identify –
(a) the field in which expert evidence is required and the issues which the expert evidence will address; and
(b) where practicable, the name of the proposed expert.
(3) If permission is granted it shall be in relation only to...
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Private International Law and PI: Final Gasps of the 1995 Act? - Matthew Chapman, 1 Chancery Lane
09/06/14. As we move further and further away from 11 January 2009 (the date of application of the Rome II Regulation (EC No 864/2007) which governs applicable law in tort: see, Homawoo v GMF Assurances SA [2012] Case C-412/10) we see less and less of Part III of the Private International Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1995 (the domestic statute which used to govern these matters before the European Union piled in with Rome II). Those of us old enough to have dutifully ploughed through the 1995 Act provisions, cases like Roerig v Valiant Trawlers Ltd, Harding v Wealands and the pages of Dicey, Morris & Collins lovingly devoted to all this stuff, might have thought that cases like Middleton v Allianz IARD SA [2012] EWHC 2287 (QB) represented the final application of the 1995 Act (ss 11 and 12) for the determination of applicable law. However, the last couple of months have seen the publication of not one, but two important QB judgments in the personal injury field in which the English Court has again grappled with the question (per s 12 of the 1995 Act) whether it is “substantially more appropriate” to apply to the tort the law of a country other than that of the place where...
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Read more (PIBULJ subscribers only)...
The Real Cost of Litigants in Person - Simon Trigger, 1 Chancery Lane
07/06/14. We all know the stereotype of a litigant in person: they turn up at court with numerous carrier bags filled with copious quantities of irrelevant documents heavily annotated in green ink. The parties in Mole v Hunter [2014] EWHC 658 (QB), both litigants in person, did not conform to that stereotype. In the words of Tugendhat J they “presented their cases to me with care and restraint”. It is all the more notable, therefore, that the Judge decided to include in his judgment a powerful obiter section addressing the impact of litigants in person on the administration of justice.
Mole was a defamation case but the comments made by the Judge apply equally to personal injury. He said this:
Litigation between two litigants in person places great demands upon the court. ... [T]he papers in this case were presented to me in four separate bundles in no chronological order. In addition I had to search the court file for documents which the parties had not themselves produced or included in the bundles prepared for the hearing, but which were obviously relevant. This is work which is normally done by lawyers representing the parties, and it is usually done by junior lawyers.
But if the work is not done by or for the parties, it still has to be done by someone in order for the case is to be tried justly. Masters and judges have no legally qualified assistants, and so...
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More Articles...
- Risk Management: Avoiding Professional Negligence Claims in the New Litigation Landscape - Peter Causton, Member of Law Society Civil Justice Committee, Mediator and Deputy District Judge
- Removing the Shackles? - Bill Braithwaite QC, Head of Exchange Chambers
- Chartwell Estate Agents and the Mitchell decision - Lisa Dobie, 1 Chancery Lane
- Causation, Reliance... and Loft Hatches - Andrew Spencer, 1 Chanery Lane
![Appeal judge rules that credit hire company has no costs liability following a finding of fundamental dishonesty in personal injury case: RSA v. Fastrack Solutions Limited [2023] 4 WLUK 92 - David Bowden, Erimus Chambers](/content/images/resized/images/stories/carkeys_72_72.jpg)
