September 2024 Contents
 Welcome to the September 2024 issue of PI Brief Update Law Journal. Click the relevant links below to read the articles. CPD Note that there are no new monthly CPD quizzes since the SRA and the BSB have both updated their CPD schemes to eliminate this requirement. Reading PIBULJ articles can still help to meet your CPD needs. For further details see our CPD Information page.
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| Personal Injury Articles | |
 Novel points about group representative actions - Andrew Ratomski, Temple Garden Chambers Case: Claire Smyth v British Airways plc and Easyjet Airline Company Limited [2024] EWHC 2173 (KB). This is a notable recent example of a group representative action being struck out and raises novel points about such claims. There is much in this judgment to consider for practitioners bringing or defending representative actions on both the application of the 'same interest' principle and the judge's discretionary finding that the dominant motive for the action was a financial one... |
 New Clinical Negligence Agreement Launched - Philip Matthews, Temple Garden Chambers The updated 'Clinical Negligence Claims Agreement 2024' has been launched, replacing the 'Covid-19 Clinical Negligence Protocol' established in 2020. This updated agreement was developed through collaboration between NHS Resolution, the Society of Clinical Injury Lawyers (SCIL) and Action against Medical Accidents (AvMA), a patient safety charity. The purported aim is to 'further improve claims management practices'... |
 MoJ Quarterly Civil Justice Statics Published - Philip Matthews, Temple Garden Chambers The Ministry of Justice ('MoJ') has published its latest quarterly civil justice statics for April - June 2024. These include a number of interesting points for personal injury practitioners: - Despite a slight dip in the overall number of county court claims being lodged during this quarter, there has been an increase in personal injury cases (up 18% compared to the same quarter in 2023). On this point, the... |
 Managing the costs of costs management brought into sharp focus - Andrew Ratomski, Temple Garden Chambers Case: Peter Jenkins v Thurrock Council [2024] EWHC 2248 (KB). Managing the costs of costs management is brought into sharp focus by the recent decision of Master Thornett in Peter Jenkins v Thurrock Council [2024] EWHC 2248 (KB). The Claimant was seeking damages arising from a significant right foot and ankle injury suffered whilst at work as a refuse collector and for alleged consequential psychological sequalae. The Claim Form certified that damages would exceed £200,000. Liability was admitted and the Provisional Schedule of Loss was said to be... |
| Clinical Negligence Medicine by Dr Mark Burgin | |
 Expert: Failure to Engage - Dr Mark Burgin Dr Mark Burgin describes the common techniques that experts use to avoid engaging with the issues in a legal case. All experts have cases that they find difficult and regret agreeing to accept instructions for. Sometimes this is due to the behaviour of the lawyers, others it is that they doubt the veracity of what they have been told and sometimes they are out of their depth. The expert may decide to disengage form the process in the hope that it will go away... |
 How Does Mental Health Affect Reliability in PI? - Dr Mark Burgin Dr Mark Burgin discusses how the disability model provides an understanding of mental health as an issue when issues of reliability arise in PI legal cases. To understand reliability the expert must consider the murderer who during a psychotic episode commits crimes. There is an inconsistency between capacity to make intent and the M'Naghten Rules. Whereas is it often clear that the person with psychosis has made complex plans and therefore the capacity to make intent, the M'Naghten Rules ask the following... |
![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)
