PI Brief Update

Large and Small Apples, not Apples and Pears: Hassam v Rabot [2024] UKSC 1 - Amy Lanham Coles, Temple Garden Chambers

23/04/24. The long awaited Supreme Court decision in Hassam v Rabot is here. The Court of Appeal’s approach to “mixed” injuries (comprising both non-whiplash and whiplash injuries) has been endorsed.

BACKGROUND

This case confirms the approach to take in personal injury cases which are subject to the relatively new statutory regime laid down in the Whiplash Injury Regulations 2021. This regime limits the amount of compensation one can recover for whiplash injuries by reference to tariffs. A question arose as to how to value injuries where the Claimant sustains both whiplash and non-whiplash injuries.

The Defendant argued that the Claimants should be confined to the tariff sums unless the Claimant could prove that their non-whiplash injury had caused distinctive, i.e. “non-concurrent” PSLA (para 7).

The Claimant’s primary case was that the whiplash and non-whiplash injuries should be compensated without the need to make deductions in line with the well established principle in Sadler v Filipiak (para 8).

The Claimant’s secondary case, and the approach adopted by the majority in the Court of Appeal was to value the whiplash and non-whiplash injuries separately, add them together and then make the customary Sadler adjustment where necessary (para 9).

JUDGMENT

The Claimant’s secondary case was endorsed and the correct approach summarised at paragraph 52. The Supreme Court noted the mischief the statutory regime is designed to remedy (para 41) and the notion that any departure from the common law should be presumed to be as limited as possible (para 40). The tariff regime is designed to limit the amounts recoverable for whiplash injuries - not non whiplash injuries (para 37). It would be...

Image ©iStockphoto.com/gojak

Read more (PIBULJ subscribers only)...