This site uses cookies.

November 2021 Contents

Welcome to the November 2021 issue of PI Brief Update Law Journal. Click the relevant links below to read the articles.

CPD

Note that there are no new monthly CPD quizzes since the SRA and the BSB have both updated their CPD schemes to eliminate this requirement. Reading PIBULJ articles can still help to meet your CPD needs. For further details see our CPD Information page.

 

Personal Injury Articles
Exceptional Circumstances and recovering costs above fixed recoverable costs - Sean Linley, Carter Burnett
Fixed recoverable costs were first introduced in 2010. It was said to be a procedure that would make costs in lower value claims simpler and easier to deal with. Back then the scheme only applied to road traffic accident claims with a value with damages of up to £10,000.00. Fast forward 11 years and we have seen the upper limit increased and fixed costs extended into other areas including...
Do not Destroy! Ayannuga & Ors v One Shot Products Ltd [2021] EWHC 2930 (QB) - Rochelle Powell, Temple Garden Chambers
This was an application made on behalf of the claimants for orders in relation principally to disclosure against the defendant. The claim was brought against the manufacturer of a drain cleaner on the basis that the drain cleaning product was the cause of death and injury to the claimants. On 23 November 2015 the claimants' solicitors, Leigh Day, wrote to the defendant putting them on notice of these claims. The manager of the defendant company...
QOCS and Set Off: Supreme Court ruling in Ho - v- Adelekun [2021] UKSC 43 - Rochelle Powell, Temple Garden Chambers
This appeal considered whether Qualified One Way Costs Shifting ('QOCS') could in any way constrain a defendant's liberty to seek, or the court's discretionary power to permit, a set-off between opposing costs orders. Overturning the Court of Appeal decision, the Court held that the setting off of costs against costs is a form of enforcement covered by the QOCS provisions. It was therefore precluded where a defendant's costs exceeded the total of any order for damages and interest in favour of the Claimant...
Golizardeh v Sarfraz [2021] EWHC 2814 (Ch): Interpreters, Remote Trials, Fairness & Identifying Language Issues Early - Nicholas Dobbs, Temple Garden Chambers
In Golizardeh v Sarfraz, the defendant appealed against an order giving judgment for the claimant in the sum of £200,000, plus interest. The appeal was brought under CPR 52.21(3)(b) on the grounds that the decision of the Judge was unjust because of a serious procedural irregularity, namely that the Judge wrongly refused to allow the use of an interpreter for one of the defendant's witnesses (who requested an interpreter) and, more generally, did not...
Elgamal v Westminster City Council [2021] EWHC 2510 (QB): When Exaggeration Does Not Amount To Fundamental Dishonesty - Nicholas Dobbs, Temple Garden Chambers
In Elgamal v Westminster City Council, the Defendant appealed a judgment following trial to pay the Claimant £125,321.33 in damages for personal injury. The central issue on appeal concerned the judge's decision that the Claimant had not been fundamentally dishonest in relation to his claim, and accordingly whether the provisions of s 57 of the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015 applied. A further issue arose as to the way in which the trial judge had dealt with the costs of the proceedings (the subject of a previous PIBU article published last month)...
'Failure to Remove' Claims in the High Court: the Appeals in HXA v Surrey County Council and YXA v Wolverhampton City Council - Paul Stagg, 1 Chancery Lane
The trickle of court decisions seeking to apply the decision of the Supreme Court in N v Poole BC [2019] UKSC 25, [2020] AC 780 continues. On November 8th 2021, Stacey J handed down her long-awaited decision [2021] EWHC 2974 (QB) on the appeals from the decisions of Deputy Master Bagot QC in HXA v Surrey CC [2021] EWHC 250 (QB) and Master Dagnall in YXA v Wolverhampton CC [2021] EWHC 1444 (QB). She dismissed the...
Clinical Negligence Medicine by Dr Mark Burgin
Understanding the Range of Opinion (RoO) - Dr Mark Burgin
Dr. Mark Burgin BM BCh (oxon) MRCGP describes some of the difficulties that experts encounter when trying to describe a range of opinion...
What do Litigants in Person (LiPs) want to know from their expert? - Dr Mark Burgin
Dr. Mark Burgin BM BCh (oxon) MRCGP describes how an expert spending several hours talking to a Litigant in Person about a case can maintain independence...

All information on this site was believed to be correct by the relevant authors at the time of writing. All content is for information purposes only and is not intended as legal advice. No liability is accepted by either the publisher or the author(s) for any errors or omissions (whether negligent or not) that it may contain. 

The opinions expressed in the articles are the authors' own, not those of Law Brief Publishing Ltd, and are not necessarily commensurate with general legal or medico-legal expert consensus of opinion and/or literature. Any medical content is not exhaustive but at a level for the non-medical reader to understand. 

Professional advice should always be obtained before applying any information to particular circumstances.

Excerpts from judgments and statutes are Crown copyright. Any Crown Copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of OPSI and the Queen’s Printer for Scotland under the Open Government Licence.