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PERSONAL INJURY
Green v DB Group Services (UK) Ltd, High Ct, 1/8/2006
A former employee was entitled to damages for psychiatric injury and consequential loss and damage that she suffered as a result of harassment and bullying by her fellow employees. The behaviour of the fellow employees was within the scope of their employment, and closely connected to their work to give rise to vicarious liability, and in any event the employer was in breach of its duty of care to the employee in failing to take any adequate steps to protect her from such behaviour.
HEALTH & SAFETY AT WORK & EMPLOYER’S LIABILITY
Sayers v Cambridgeshire County Council, High Ct, 31/7/2006
On the evidence, the psychiatric injury suffered by an employee had not been reasonably foreseeable to the local authority employer and there had been no justification for imposing a cause of action for breach of statutory duty in respect of the Working Time Regulations 1998 reg.4.
PRP Architects v Reid, CA (Civ Div) 28/7/2006; (2006) NPC 95
An employee leaving work at the end of the day and using a lift located in the common part of a shared office building where she worked had been using it "at work" within the meaning of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 reg.3 so that her employers were liable in damages for personal injury suffered by the employee due to the lift being defective.
CLINICAL NEGLIGENCE
Garcia v East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, High Ct, 11/8/2006
On the balance of probabilities, the cause of the injuries sustained by the claimant at her birth was a stroke rather than hypoxia. The stroke had occurred before the time when the NHS trust ought to have induced delivery and therefore causation could not be established.
McHugh v Gray, High Ct, 27/7/2006
The judge had been entitled not to exercise his discretion to disapply the limitation period in a case where the claimant was suing a psychiatrist, as a result of an allegedly negligent diagnosis, seven years out of time.
HEALTH
Smith v North Eastern Derbyshire Primary Care Trust & Anr, CA (Civ Div) 23/8/2006
A primary care trust could not avoid or mitigate the performance of its statutory duty to consult patients, pursuant to the Health and Social Care Act 2001 s.11, by suggesting an approach to a patients' forum. The engagement of a patients' forum did not amount to an alternative remedy such as to deny a claimant relief in judicial review proceedings.
R v Medical Defence Union Ltd, High Ct (QBD Admin) 26/7/2006
The Medical Defence Union was not amenable to judicial review. It could neither be said to be a "public body" nor did it exercise a "public function" in a respect that affected the claimant.
DAMAGES
Newman v Laver & Anr, CA (Civ Div) 31/7/2006
In making an award of damages for personal injury following a road traffic accident the judge had been entitled to find on the evidence that the claimant's post concussional syndrome would ameliorate over time and that the claimant had failed to prove that he was suffering from a rare form of double vision.
Flora v Wakom (Heathrow) Ltd, CA (Civ Div) 28/7/2006
The power under the Damages Act 1996 s.2(9) to depart from the default position under s.2(8) of making a periodical payments order subject to the retail prices index could be exercised as the court considered appropriate and fair in all the circumstances, without the need to find exceptional circumstances.
LEGAL SERVICE & FUNDING
Gaynor v Central West London Buses Ltd, CA (Civ Div) 28/7/2006
A solicitors' retainer letter that stated that no charge would be made for pre-litigation services if the opponent disputed the claim and the client decided not to pursue it, was not a conditional fee agreement because those services were not "litigation services" within the meaning of the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 s.58(2)(a).
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