A Judgment for What? The Effect of Default Judgments - Paul Stagg, 1 Chancery Lane
23/09/14. Where a defendant admits breach of duty but wishes to contest causation, injury and quantum, it has in the past been common practice for it to allow judgment to be entered in default of Acknowledgment of Service or of Defence and to proceed to contest the remaining issues at an assessment of damages hearing. An alternative course of action, which in the short term is more expensive, is to file a Defence making appropriate admissions and then for the claimant to seek entry of a judgment for damages to be assessed.
In Symes v St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust [2014] EWHC 2505 (QB), the claimant was referred to hospital in October 2008 by his GP with a lump on his face which turned out to be a malignant tumour. In January 2009, a consultant decided that he should have an urgent superficial parotidectomy, but that was not carried out prior to May 2009, when it was found that the tumour had invaded the facial nerve and there had been metastasis to the lungs, leading to the need for a total parotidectomy and the loss of the left facial nerve and inoperable lung cancer. In 2011, an open admission was made that there had been a breach of duty in failing to...
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