Blogs Archive

On 16 December 2020, HM Assistant Coroner for Inner South London, Philip Barlow, concluded that “air pollution exposure” was a contributory cause of nine-year-old Ella Adoo Kissi-Debrah’s death in 2013. This is the first time that a coroner has recorded air pollution exposure as a cause of death, and is thought to be the first time that…

Since the pandemic, the issue of covert recordings of medical examinations has risen to the fore following the drastic increase in use of technology to deliver patient care (telephone consultations, video consultations), making covert recording easier than ever before. It is therefore relevant to revisit the most recent authority on the admissibility of covert recordings…

The Industrial Injuries Advisory Council (IIAC) has announced its intention to conduct a review of selected malignant and non-malignant respiratory diseases and their relationships with occupational exposures. The IIAC is the advisory body responsible for reviewing the Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit (IIDB) scheme, which supports employees who are disabled as a result of an accident…

Followers of our Disease Blog may have noticed a slight trend in some of our posts which have focused on the potential for future claims for damages in respect of early onset dementia and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (“CTE”) for ex-sportsmen and sportswomen. In October, Alex Denton wrote about the decision of HM Senior Coroner John Gittens’…

The area of fatal accident claims is wide and occasionally very complicated. An understanding of the principles and the cases that historically have shaped the Court’s approach is necessary. It is an area in which once the statutory provision is understood, a ‘feel’ for what the Court will think appropriate in each fact-specific case is…

In R (on the application of (1) Aviva Insurance Ltd (2) Swiss Reinsurance Company Ltd) v The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2020] EWHC 3118 (Admin), the Claimants challenged the unintended and onerous consequences of the Compensation Recovery Unit scheme, particularly in respect of the Claimants’ liabilities for long-tail asbestos-related diseases. The High…

The seminal case of Bolton v Stone [1951] AC 850 concerned a Claimant on a residential side road who was hit by a ball struck by a batsman on an adjacent cricket ground. The claim ultimately failed. Some 67 years later, the Claimant in Lewis v Wandsworth London Borough Council was walking along the boundary path of a cricket…

The coronavirus pandemic has transformed the way many of us work. This blog post primarily considers the potential implications of home working on occupational stress claims by looking closely at the key case law in this area. Some observations are also offered as to the impact of the pandemic on occupational stress claims where an…

It may be recalled that we previously blogged on asbestos in schools in June 2020. In that feature, we reported that the Department for Education’s survey, launched in 2018, had revealed that some 87% of the schools that responded  confirmed that they had asbestos in at least one location on their sites. As such, lobbying of…

The Court of Appeal has refused the Claimant permission to appeal the decision of Martin Spencer J in Holmes v S&B Concrete Ltd [2020] EWHC 2277 (QB). Philip Godfrey analysed that decision in an earlier blog post, which can be viewed here.  Permission to appeal was refused on the papers on 17 November 2020 by Floyd…

Jack McCracken and Sarah Hopkinson revisit the question of liability for COVID-19 infections, this time from an American perspective. In May 2020, we published a series of five articles exploring the potential liability of employers arising from exposure of employees to COVID-19. Whilst it is unlikely that any claims arising out of exposure to COVID-19 have yet been…

To view our on-demand webinar on Hierarchy of Defendants in Road Traffic Accident Claims, click here. This is a brief guide to identifying the correct Defendant(s) in RTA claims. We will consider the position of the Defendant tortfeasor, the hierarchy of claims that can be brought against the tortfeasor’s insurer and when claims are correctly…