Personal Injury, Clinical Negligence and Industrial Disease
We can assist the claimant or defendant throughout the claim process, by acting as an adviser or expert. We can assist a speedy settlement by providing
a pragmatic assessment of a claim in an advisory capacity, we can assist in completing schedules of claim, by quantifying complex heads, such as
pension losses, and we can provide clear, robust and supportable expert reports for disclosure under the CPR.
Our work covers loss of earnings and loss of pension, business valuation, fatal accident and dependency claims as well as assessment of periodical
payment orders.
We would normally expect to be able to produce an advisory letter or report within two to three weeks of instruction and a draft expert report
within four to five weeks of instruction. This is dependent on the completeness of the information provided to us.
Examples of Cases
Single joint expert – pension loss
The claimant was forced to stop working as a result of his accident. He had worked for the same employer for many years, during which the pension
scheme of which he was a member had changed a number of times and then changed again after he left. Thus the pension losses were particularly
complex and the work involved separating the effects of the accident from the effects of the changes in the scheme rules. As both parties were
agreed as to the facts, it was dealt with on a single joint expert basis.
Advisor for claimant – calculating loss of earnings and pension in a schedule
The claimant was unable to continue work as a teaching assistant following an accident and retired early on ill health grounds.
We summarised her payslips to establish her earnings and pension contributions before and after the accident, discussed the loss with her and
her intentions, but for the accident, and prepared a schedule calculating her past and future loss of earnings and pension for inclusion
in the main schedule of loss. The timescale for disclosure of the schedule was tight but by working closely with the instructing solicitor
and claimant this timescale was duly met and a settlement agreed based on our calculations.
Adviser for defendant – initial assessment
Produced an initial assessment of a claim for a director/shareholder in a manufacturing business. From a review of accounting information
and research into the sector we were able to give a preliminary assessment of the likely range for the claim to assist the insurers in their
approach to settlement.
Advisor for claimant - periodical payment
The claimant, a young women, had suffered medical negligence at birth. Liability had been agreed at 90%. Sally
was instructed to consider the differences, to the claimant, if her award for damages was taken as a conventional lump sum or if all of her future
losses, other than those in respect of her property, its adaptation and her immediate aids and equipment needs were paid by way of periodical
payments with the balance paid as a conventional lump sum. The financial settlement figure had yet to be agreed and Sally built a degree of variance
analysis into her calculations to assist the claimant in settlement negotiations.
Expert report for claimant, a foreign national injured by MoJ
The claimant, was mistakenly shot by British peacekeeping forces in Kosovo and flown to the UK for treatment. His injuries were severe and
he was forced to remain in the UK. Sally was engaged as expert to quantify
his loss of earnings. The case was complicated because the claimant had a number of businesses in Kosovo, the records had been destroyed during the
fighting and what remained was largely photographic or witness evidence. Furthermore, as the claimant was remaining in the UK, it was necessary to
translate the level of earnings the claimant would have expected in Kosovo and the lifestyle that would have provided him with into an equivalent
level in the UK. The case settled for a total of £2.4m.
Expert report for defendant – quantification of loss of dependency following fatal accident
The deceased ran his own manufacturing business. The dependency claim was based on significant expansion of the
business. By investigating the customer base and the local market, Sally’s
report showed that the business had been dependent on three local companies for most of its work, one of which had since closed and the other two
were currently making losses. She was also able to show that a number of the deceased’s competitors had suffered in the period since his death and
some had ceased trading. As a result the claim was settled for a considerably lower sum than that put forward by the claimant.