News & Events
News & Events
Robert Dickason, led by Ben Collins QC, has successfully defended the Ministry of Defence in the High Court appeal brought by former serviceman Pte Wayne Bass, following dismissal of his claim for damages in early 2019. Private Bass contracted Q Fever, leading to Q Fever Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, during his deployment in Afghanistan in 2012. He was medically discharged from the Army and brought a claim for damages against the MOD on the basis that it ought to have provided him with an alternative form of antimalarial which would have protected him against both malaria and Q Fever. He also asserted that the Management of Health and Safety in the Workplace Regulations 1999 applied during his deployment in Afghanistan because…
News 13 Jan, 2020
Tom Gibson represented the successful claimant recently in an unusual ‘misinformation’ psychiatric injury claim. The claimant, a man in his 40s, saw a consultant respiratory physician in clinic at his local hospital, following an x-ray and a CT scan of his chest. The claimant was told, wrongly, that he had “incurable” lung cancer and that he was likely to die within a year. However – as the lung multidisciplinary team meeting had concluded the day before the consultation – the claimant actually needed further investigations in order “to gain a diagnosis”. After the further investigations were done, 2-3 weeks later the claimant was actually diagnosed with a low grade lymphoma – a much less aggressive form of cancer, which carried…
News 4 Dec, 2019
Robert Dickason, led by Ben Collins QC, represent the MOD seeking to uphold the trial judge’s findings below – see our news coverage from March 2019 for details. The appeal will be heard by Martin Spencer J over two days (5-6th December) and its outcome is likely to have a significant bearing on the remainder of the Q Fever litigation cohort, in which soldiers deployed to Afghanistan seek substantial damages for Q Fever Chronic Fatigue Syndrome which they contracted during deployment and allege could have been avoided with better care and treatment by MOD. To find out more or to instruct Robert, contact Graham Woods or Chris Rowe on +44 (0)20 7353 6381.
News 4 Dec, 2019
Ben Bradley (instructed by Anna Higham, Stewarts) has successfully established at trial that his client, Tahir Younas, would have avoided spinal cord injury, absent of the negligence of his GP. Mr Younas suffered a spinal cord injury after he collapsed in a car park on 24 January 2014. His collapse was caused by a cardiological condition, known as intermittent AV block. He had been suffering related symptoms in the run up to his collapse. It was agreed that had Mr Younas been fitted with a pacemaker before his collapse, his fall, and consequential spinal cord injury would have been avoided. His GP conceded that he had acted in breach of duty by failing to refer the Claimant to a cardiologist,…
News 31 Oct, 2019
Jonathan Hand QC successfully represented Joan Kember in the High Court in Joan Kember (as Personal Representative of the Estate of Leonard Kember, Deceased, and on behalf of herself and all other dependants) v (1) Croydon Health Services NHS Trust (2) King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust [2019] EWHC 2297. The case was an appeal against the decision not to grant an extension of time or relief from sanctions following late service of the Defendants’ Defence to a clinical negligence claim bought by Joan Kember. The clinical negligence claim arose following the death of her husband after a series of alleged failures in the care provided by the Defendants leading to a fatal delay in coronary artery bypass surgery. It…
News 12 Sep, 2019
James Counsell QC has successfully defended Yeovil District Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in a complex spinal injury case, involving a young woman who suffered a serious spinal injury in a road traffic accident in October 2011, after which she was taken to the Trust’s hospital. She subsequently brought successful proceedings against the negligent driver of the car which collided with the car in which she was a back seat passenger, wearing a lap seat belt, and claimed damages for her injuries which included paraplegia. That claim was settled by the motorist’s insurers in March 2015 for a lump sum payment of £3 million, together with a very substantial periodical payment, making a total claim, capitalised at current rates, given her…
News 10 Jul, 2019
Ben Collins QC and Robert Dickason have successfully defended the Ministry of Defence in the first contested trial in the Q Fever litigation, which was widely reported in January 2019. Private Wayne Bass contracted Q Fever, leading to Q Fever Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, during his deployment to Helmand Province in Afghanistan in 2012. He was medically discharged from the Army and brought a claim for damages against the MOD on the basis that it ought to have provided him with an alternative form of antimalarial which would have protected him against both malaria and Q Fever. He also asserted that the Management of Health and Safety in the Workplace Regulations 1999 applied during his deployment in Afghanistan because decisions relating…
News 27 Mar, 2019
Rachel Vickers recently represented a Claimant who suffered a spinal injury in February 2013. Upon admission to Hospital the Claimant was correctly suspected as suffering a spinal abscess. The need for an urgent MRI scan was recognised. The Hospital did not have 24 hour MRI scanning available and a decision was made to undertake the scan the following day, which the Defendant Trust asserted was reasonable. By the time the Claimant was transferred to a tertiary unit she had sustained irreversible neurological injury. The case, contested through to a full liability trial, was listed for six days on January 28th 2019. On day two of the trial, in the middle of Rachel cross-examining one of the Defendant’s clinicians, the Defendant…
News 21 Feb, 2019
Eliot Woolf QC ran an engaging webinar on the difficult issues of wrongful birth in conjunction with MBL Seminars and Ian Christian at Irwin Mitchell Solicitors. The webinar, which aims to help and support any claimant or defendant solicitor who has a wrongful birth claim, is available to download here. Wrongful birth claims are still a highly contentious and emotive area of clinical negligence litigation with many fundamental issues still unresolved by the courts. Key issues for careful consideration are whether a distinction should be drawn in principle between ‘wrongful conception’ cases and cases of ‘wrongful antenatal diagnosis/wrongful birth’; whether these claims should be categorised as claims for personal injury or economic loss; the duration of the claims; who should be parties…
News 30 Jan, 2019
We are delighted that Gerard McDermott QC is shortlisted by the Legal 500 in the Personal Injury / Clinical Negligence Silk of the Year category. Currently ranked as a Leading Silk in Tier 1, Gerard is described by Legal 500 as: “First class, superb on his feet, great at analysing problems” and “Renowned for personal injury work.” Gerard McDermott QC practises from Outer Temple Chambers in London and Manchester, with associated offices in Abu Dhabi and New York. His main areas of practice are Personal Injury, Medical Malpractice and Employment Law at all levels, acting for both Claimants and Defendants. The majority of his caseload involves catastrophic personal injury such as spinal cord injury and brain injury, and he has over thirty years’…
News 4 Dec, 2018
The Global Arbitration Review (GAR) and the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (CIArb) held an event in London this month to mark the launch of the new GAR-CIArb Seat Index – which is now live and ready to access. The launch, held at Reed Smith in London on 15 November, featured a panel discussion by CIArb’s Doug Jones, Lord Goldsmith QC and Professor Janet Walker of Outer Temple Chambers, who led work on the project, following an introduction by GAR’s publisher David Samuels. The index aims to provide one-page summaries of the favourableness of individual arbitral seats assessed against a range of standard criteria. In its first version, it covers six frequently used and well-established jurisdictions for arbitration: Hong Kong, London, New York,…
News 28 Nov, 2018
Tom Gibson appeared recently in a successful (and complicated) amputation claim, brought by a patient against her local hospital and her GPs. In 2008, the claimant (then in her 50s) required surgery at her local hospital to fix a fractured femur. The operation failed, with revision surgery being required just 20 days later. This led to a very long and unfortunate chain of events: four years later, in 2012, the claimant required her sixth knee operation, to attempt to reconstruct her extensor mechanism. After that operation she developed a wound infection. As her GPs failed to refer her back to hospital, she later required five further operations to attempt to eradicate the infection from her knee joint. The infection could…
News 28 Nov, 2018
