News Category 3
Autumn Statement for PI Lawyers - Ella Davis, 1 Chancery Lane
03/01/16. The government has released a summary of the Autumn Statement with 20 Key Announcements, the last of which will be of great interest to personal injury lawyers. It reads as follows:
“20. People will no longer be able to get cash compensation for minor whiplash claims
To make it harder for people to claim compensation for exaggerated or fraudulent whiplash claims, the government is ending the right to cash compensation.
More injuries will also be able to go to the small claims court as the upper limit for these claims will be increased from £1,000 to £5,000.
This means that annual insurance costs for drivers could fall by between £40 to £50 a year.”
George Osbourne anticipates these changes “will remove over £1bn from the cost of providing motor insurance” and expects insurers to pass on that saving to consumers.
There had already been speculation that the government was going to introduce its previously shelved plan to increase the small claims limit for personal injury claims when the insurance fraud taskforce reported next month.
What is surprising though is the reference to “ending the right to cash compensation”. It is as yet unclear what it meant by this. Footnote 55 to the Autumn Statement gives some clarification by explaining that “Claimants will still be entitled to claim for ‘special damages’ (including treatment for any injury if required and any loss of earnings) but entitlements for general damages will be removed.”
It will be interesting to see though how it will be decided that a case falls into the category in which there is no entitlement to general damages. Elsewhere in the Autumn Statement is a statement that the government will reduce the excessive costs to insurers of whiplash claims by “removing the right to general damages for minor soft tissue injuries”. This would seem to cover more than just whiplash injuries. There may also be interesting arguments where multiple injuries are involved. These problems are unlikely to be straightforward and may result in substantial argument, inevitably using court time.
Ella Davis
1 Chancery Lane
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Editorial: Autumn Statement - Aidan Ellis, Temple Garden Chambers
16/12/15. Two potentially dramatic announcements were buried within the Chancellor’s recent Autumn statement. Under the heading ‘lower household bills’, the Chancellor announced an end to the right to cash compensation for minor whiplash injuries. Moreover, he also announced that the small claims limit for personal injury claims would rise to £5,000 from the current level of £1,000. It is clear that these initiatives are driven by the desire to eliminate fraudulent claims and to cut the cost of motor insurance. Both are laudable objectives but both measures are problematic.
Eliminating cash compensation for minor whiplash injuries is too blunt an instrument to achieve the stated objectives. First, although the aim is said to be to root out dishonest claims, the measures proposed will root out both honest and dishonest claims indiscriminately. The result would be that a significant number of honest claimants would not be compensated for their injuries. Second, the...
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QOCS and Strike Out - Rebecca Jones, Hardwicke
15/12/15. There are many areas of the QOCS regime where the approach of the courts remains uncertain in the absence of detailed guidance in the CPR. We have seen reported cases regarding the fundamental dishonesty exception to QOCS but guidance regarding the strike out exception remains thin on the ground. This article covers some of the more recent developments in the realm of QOCS and strike out.
The CPR
The qualified one-way costs shifting regime provides that a successful Defendant may only enforce an order for costs to the extent that the Claimant has been awarded a sum for damages. Thus CPR 44.14 provides as follows:
44.14 Effect of qualified one-way costs shifting
(1) Subject to rules 44.15 and 44.16, orders for costs made against a claimant may be enforced without the permission of the court but only to the extent that the aggregate amount in money terms of such orders does not exceed the aggregate amount in money terms of any orders for damages and interest made in favour of the claimant.
(2) Orders for costs made against a claimant may only be enforced after the proceedings have been concluded and the costs have been assessed or agreed.
(3) An order for costs which is enforced only to the extent permitted by paragraph (1) shall not be treated as an unsatisfied or outstanding judgment for the purposes of any court record.
There are however certain exceptions to the normal application of QOCS, in relation to those cases where the Claimant is found to have been fundamentally dishonest and where a claim has been...
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Summary of Recent Cases, December 2015
15/12/15. Here is a summary of the recent notable court cases over the past month. You can also receive these for free by registering for our PI Brief Update newsletter. Just select "Free Newsletter" from the menu at the top of this page and fill in your email address.
Summary of Recent Cases - Substantive Law
Maria Sabir (By her Litigation Friend, the Official Solicitor) v Nana Osei-Kwabena [2015] EWCA Civ 1213
The Court of Appeal considered the correct balance to be struck between causative potency and blameworthiness when apportioning liability for a collision between a motorist and a pedestrian. Motorists would generally be found to have high levels of both because of the...
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The 2015 Rehabilitation Code: Case Managers now required to adhere to NICE Guidelines - Daniel Clegg, DWF
12/12/15. At the end of September the IUA/ABI working party completed its review of the 2007 Rehabilitation Code of Best Practice by publishing the updated Code. In this article Daniel Clegg looks at the changes made to the part of the Code governing moderate, severe and catastrophic injuries and the newly introduced Guide for Case Managers
What’s new?
The updated version of the Code heralds a new obligation upon Case Managers to prepare Immediate Needs Assessments (in medium, severe and catastrophic cases) in compliance with NICE guidelines. The INA should also, where possible, be aligned to the NHS rehabilitation prescription, and where recommendations deviate from NHS recommendations, the Case Manager is expected to provide justification. The updated code places greater focus upon...
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More Articles...
- No Assignment of CFAs, Says the County Court - Geoffrey Weddell, 1 Chancery Lane
- Edwards v Kumarasamy: Landlords Tripped Up - Andrew Brookes, Anthony Gold
- The English Claimant and the French Uninsured Tortfeasor: Claims Against the MIB - Matthew Chapman, 1 Chancery Lane
- CPR 35.1: When Is Expert Evidence ‘Reasonably Required’? Part 1 - Tom Collins, 1 Chancery 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)
