A plaintiff in a claim for personal injuries may be deemed to have failed to mitigate his losses by an unreasonable refusal to undergo free surgical treatment after a bodily injury, and the damages he may recover from the tortfeasor are to be measured by reference to what he would have recovered had he mitigated the loss properly.
Jenkins LJ asked: ‘The question must be one of fact, as I see it, in each particular case: Was the advice, and were the prospects of success of the proposed operation or treatment, clearly put to the Plaintiff, so that he, as a reasonable man, would appreciate that he was being advised that this treatment or operation would put him right. If the evidence shows that, then it seems to me that the plaintiff, as a reasonable person, ought either to accept that advice, or else go to his own doctor and say: ‘Doctor, this is what I have been advised by Mr. So-and-So, the surgeon at Such-and-Such a hospital; what do you think about it?’ Of course, the plaintiff here never did any such thing as that.’
Jenkins LJ
[1957] 2 Lloyds Rep 500
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Lagden v O’Connor HL 4-Dec-2003
The parties had been involved in a road traffic accident. The defendant drove into the claimant’s parked car. The claimant was unable to afford to hire a car pending repairs being completed, and arranged to hire a car on credit. He now sought . .
These lists may be incomplete.
Updated: 19 July 2021; Ref: scu.188659
