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These cases are from the lawindexpro database. They are now being transferred to the swarb.co.uk website in a better form. As a case is published there, an entry here will link to it. The swarb.co.uk site includes many later cases.  














Personal Injury - From: 1996 To: 1996

This page lists 48 cases, and was prepared on 02 April 2018.


 
 Liddell v Middleton; CA 1996 - [1996] PIQR P36
 
Appleton and others v Garrett [1996] PIQR P1
1996


Personal Injury, Damages
The plaintiffs were patients of the defendant dentist who had carried out unnecessary treatment on them; they claimed damages for trespass and sought aggravated damages. Held: There was no reason in principle why awards of aggravated damages should not be made for feelings of anger or indignation in cases of trespass to the person where injury to the feelings were an important part of the damage for which compensation was awarded: "To say that the law permits recovery of aggravated damages where the relevant conduct has caused injury to feelings, insult indignity, humiliation and a heightened sense of injury or grievance, but not where it has caused anger or indignation, is very difficult to justify in terms of principle or common sense". The plaintiffs were entitled to aggravated but moderate damages: "If substantial awards are made to reflect the court’s disapproval of the defendant’s conduct, they would become punitive. It is important to keep in mind that aggravated damages are compensatory."
1 Cites

1 Citers


 
Graham v David A Hall Ltd 1996 SLT 596
1996


Scotland, Personal Injury
The pursuer's symptoms, other than some initial bruising to her back resulting from her fall, were caused not by the accident but by the defenders' treatment of her afterwards including their refusal to acknowledge liability for it and to give her light work.
1 Citers


 
Parry v Clwyd Health Authority [1996] PIQR P1
1996
QBD
Colman J
Personal Injury, Professional Negligence
The court preferred the more objective approach as to looking at when a plaintiff was to be fixed with knowledge of his injury: "If the purpose of section 14(3) is to create deemed or constructive knowledge in circumstances where there is no actual knowledge, it is highly improbable that Parliament intended that the application of that subsection should be qualified by taking into account the very characteristic of the plaintiff by reason of which he failed to appreciate the subsection (1) facts known to him and therefore to acquire actual knowledge. For these reasons it would seem that, as a matter of principle, the criteria relevant for the purpose of applying the reasonableness test under subsection (3) should be exclusively objective."
Limitation Act 1980 14(3)
1 Citers


 
Kirton v Augustus Ltd [1996] PIQR 388
1996


Personal Injury

1 Citers


 
Dureau v Evans [1996] PIQR Q18
1996
CA
Kennedy LJ
Personal Injury, Damages
The court considered the difficulty of quantifying damages in cases involving multiple injuries.
Kennedy LJ said: "Help is to be obtained from any source where it happens to be available. To a limited extent, in a case where there are multiple injuries, the figures in the Judicial Studies Board table can help but I accept Mr Murphy's criticism of them that, where one has a multiplicity of injuries, it is necessary to take an overall view. The off setting process may mean it is not possible to derive a great deal of benefit from that particular source. One then looks to see if anything can be gained from looking at a comparable award, if one is to be found, in another case. Even that may not prove to be a particularly fruitful source of enquiry. It may be necessary, if it be possible, to select what may be the most serious head of injury to see if a comparable award can be found in relation to that and, if so, build on it to allow for the other heads of injury which have been sustained by the plaintiff in the instant case."
1 Citers


 
Anthony Royal Parish v Roche Products Limted [1996] EWCA Civ 500
31 Jan 1996
CA
Brooke LJ, Neill Sir Brian
Personal Injury
Application for leave to appeal against strike out of claim for personal injury.
[ Bailii ]
 
Higham v Stena Sealink Ltd Times, 26 February 1996
26 Feb 1996
CA

Personal Injury
The Convention limitation period of two years overrode the national period where it was applied.
Athens Convention Relating to the Carriage of Passengers at Sea

 
Vernon v Bosley (2) Times, 04 April 1996; [1998] 1 FLR 304; [1997] 1 All ER 577; [1996] EWCA Civ 1310
29 Mar 1996
CA
Lord Justice Stuart-Smith, Lord Justice Evans and Lord Justice Thorpe
Personal Injury, Damages
The defendant had been driving the plaintiff's daughters, but negligently caused an accident from which they died. The plaintiff was called to the accident, and claimed to have suffered post traumatic stress. The defendant said that the effect was explainable simply as grief. The defendant appealed against the quantum of damages. Held: Damages for nervous shock are not to be reduced for irrecoverable normal grief symptoms. Nervous shock, as distinct from grief and other emotional sufferings resulting from bereavement, was a kind of injury which was recognised by the law. Therefore, damages were recoverable for nervous shock caused, or at least contributed to, by actionable negligence of the defendant, even though the illness might also be a pathological consequence of the bereavement which the plaintiff would have inevitably have suffered. Thorpe LJ: Grief constituting pathological grief disorder is a recognizable psychiatric illness and is recoverable.
1 Cites

1 Citers

[ Bailii ]
 
Smoldon v Whitworth and Another Times, 23 April 1996
23 Apr 1996
QBD

Negligence, Personal Injury
A rugby referee at a colts game has a duty of care to players as regards scrimmaging.
1 Cites

1 Citers



 
 Coad v Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Health Authority; CA 17-Jul-1996 - Times, 30 July 1996; Gazette, 17 July 1996; [1997] 8 Med LR 154; [1997] 1 WLR 189

 
 Phipps v Brooks Dry Cleaning Services Ltd; CA 18-Jul-1996 - Gazette, 02 August 1996; Times, 18 July 1996
 
Regina v Criminal Injuries Compensation Board Ex Parte Dickson Times, 19 July 1996
19 Jul 1996
CA

Personal Injury
Criminal Injuries Compensation Board need not allow applicant to give evidence in person where there was a character issue.
1 Cites



 
 Stovin v Wise, Norfolk County Council (Third Party); HL 24-Jul-1996 - Gazette, 25 September 1996; Times, 26 July 1996; [1996] AC 923; [1996] UKHL 15; [1996] 3 All ER 801; [1996] 3 WLR 389
 
Underwood v Forman and British Midland Airways Ltd [1996] EWCA Civ 544
29 Jul 1996
CA

Personal Injury

[ Bailii ]
 
Cashmore v Blue Circle Plumbing Fixtures Ltd Unreported, CAT 30th July 1996
30 Jul 1996
CA
Waller LJ
Litigation Practice, Personal Injury
Time did not run for the purposes of CCR Order 9 Rule 10 during a period when the action was stayed pursuant to an order for a stay made under CCR Order 6 Rule 1(6) pending the filing of a medical report in support of a claim for damages for personal injuries. Held: In an action where automatic directions have never been triggered at the time a stay is ordered, and where the lifting of the stay leads to the delivery of defences by all the defendants (or an order is made to the effect that invalid defences may stand as valid defences without redelivery), automatic directions will then run from the appropriate trigger date in the usual way.
County Court Rules 1981 6.1(6) 9.10
1 Citers


 
Teresa Joy Watkins v Julie Toms [1996] EWCA Civ 565
31 Jul 1996
CA

Litigation Practice, Personal Injury

[ Bailii ]
 
Anne Margaret Pickford v ICI Gazette, 02 August 1996; Gazette, 23 October 1996
2 Aug 1996
CA

Personal Injury, Health and Safety
A failure to provide guidance to employee resulting in repetitive strain injury. A prescribed disease PDA4 of RSI type was found. The issue was causation not forseeability.
1 Cites

1 Citers


 
Woodall v Hughes [1996] EWCA Civ 585
19 Aug 1996
CA

Personal Injury, Damages

[ Bailii ]
 
Smith v Vauxhall Motors Limited [1996] EWCA Civ 669
7 Oct 1996
CA

Health and Safety, Negligence, Personal Injury

[ Bailii ]
 
Mehmet Coban v Aynur Allen F Barnes and Son (a Firm) [1997] 8 Med LR 316; [1996] EWCA Civ 680
8 Oct 1996
CA

Personal Injury, Limitation
The defendant resisted the plaintiff's claim for personal injuries as out of time. His explanation for not pursuing inquiries with his solicitor was that he was an over-stayer who feared deportation. Held: Having good reason to make such inquiries, it was reasonable for him to do so despite his immigration status.
Limitation Act 1980 14A(10)
1 Cites

1 Citers

[ Bailii ]
 
Thorn v Powergen Plc [1996] EWCA Civ 700
11 Oct 1996
CA

Personal Injury, Damages

[ Bailii ]
 
White v Clifton and Another [1996] EWCA Civ 775
18 Oct 1996
CA

Personal Injury

[ Bailii ]
 
Frost and Others v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire and Others Times, 06 November 1996; [1996] EWHC CA 173
31 Oct 1996
CA

Personal Injury, Damages
The distinction normally made between primary and secondary victims claiming damages for shock in witnessing a terrible event does not apply to employees who were obliged by their contract to be present.
1 Cites

1 Citers

[ Bailii ]
 
Willis and others v Royal Doulton (Uk) Limited [1996] EWCA Civ 879
4 Nov 1996
CA

Personal Injury

[ Bailii ]
 
Regina v Criminal Injuries Compensation Board ex parte Catterall [1996] EWHC Admin 202
6 Nov 1996
Admn

Personal Injury

[ Bailii ]
 
McFarlane v Tayside Health Board Times, 11 November 1996
11 Nov 1996
OHCS

Personal Injury, Damages, Scotland
No damages are awardable for the birth of child following the failure of a vasectomy. It is against public policy to treat the birth of a child as a loss.
1 Citers


 
A B and others v Tameside and Glossop Health Authority and Trafford Health Authority Gazette, 04 December 1996; Times, 27 November 1996; [1996] EWCA Civ 938; [1996] 35 BMRLR 39
13 Nov 1996
CA
Brooke LJ
Negligence, Professional Negligence, Personal Injury
The choice of the telephone as a means of alerting and re-assuring people, who had received treatment from a health worker later found to be HIV+, was proper. The was no breach of a duty care, even though some people called had suffered distress. ". . . once the defendants had decided to inform their patients at all, they were under a duty to take such steps to inform them as were reasonable, having regard both to the foreseeable risk that some of them might suffer psychiatric injury (or any existing psychiatric injury might be materially aggravated) upon receipt of the information " and "the judge has to perform the familiar role of considering the factual evidence carefully, listening to the expert evidence, and forming a view as to whether in all the circumstances these public health authorities fell below the standards reasonably to be expected of them when they selected their preferred method of communicating the information to the patients."
1 Citers

[ Bailii ]
 
McCaffery v Datta; Datta and St Anne's Nursing Home Limited [1996] EWCA Civ 961
14 Nov 1996
CA

Personal Injury
The plaintiff nurse injured her back lifting a patient. She appealed against a finding that she was one third contributorily negligent. Held. The appeal failed. The judge had correctly applied the law in finding contributory negligence, and as to the amount that was a matter for him.
[ Bailii ]
 
Young v Salford Health Authority [1996] EWCA Civ 962
14 Nov 1996
CA

Personal Injury

[ Bailii ]
 
Gerard Patrick Potter v Marjorie Ann Youngson [1996] EWCA Civ 971
15 Nov 1996
CA

Personal Injury, Litigation Practice

[ Bailii ]
 
Berryman v Hounslow London Borough Council Times, 18 December 1996; [1996] EWCA Civ 1001
20 Nov 1996
CA

Landlord and Tenant, Land, Housing, Personal Injury
No damages were to be awarded for a tenant's injury suffered whilst climbing the stairs when the lift had not been repaired.
[ Bailii ]
 
Brown v Ministry of Defence [1996] EWCA Civ 1013
21 Nov 1996
CA

Personal Injury

[ Bailii ]
 
Lewis v Hillsyde Foundry (Staffordshire) Limited [1996] EWCA Civ 1017
21 Nov 1996
CA

Personal Injury, Negligence

[ Bailii ]
 
Gillon v Chief Constable of Strachclyde Police and Another Times, 22 November 1996
22 Nov 1996
OHCS

Personal Injury
A Football club was not liable in damages for an injury caused to a police constable from a player on the pitch side.

 
Butchard v Kwik Save Group Plc [1996] EWCA Civ 1036
26 Nov 1996
CA

Personal Injury

[ Bailii ]
 
Armstrong and others v British Coal Corporation Times, 06 December 1996; [1996] EWCA Civ 1049
28 Nov 1996
CA

Personal Injury, Limitation, Health and Safety
Liability for vibration white finger damage was foreseeable from 1973, but liability began in 1975 when precautions became available against the consequences and so the employer was able to protect his employees.
1 Citers

[ Bailii ]
 
Edson Ezekiel Garrick v Brown and Tawse Limited [1996] EWCA Civ 1097
4 Dec 1996
CA

Personal Injury

[ Bailii ]
 
Stephen James White v David Ames [1996] EWCA Civ 1125
5 Dec 1996
CA

Personal Injury

[ Bailii ]
 
Forward v Hendricks [1996] EWCA Civ 1132; [1997] 2 All ER 395
6 Dec 1996
CA

Personal Injury, Limitation

1 Cites

1 Citers

[ Bailii ]
 
Stephen James White v David Ames [1996] EWCA Civ 1164
10 Dec 1996
CA

Personal Injury

[ Bailii ]
 
Vincent v Musterphantom Limited [1996] EWCA Civ 1157
10 Dec 1996
CA

Personal Injury, Road Traffic

[ Bailii ]
 
McCaffery v Datta; Datta and St Anne's Nursing Home Limited Gazette, 22 January 1997; Times, 09 January 1997; [1996] EWCA Civ 1179
11 Dec 1996
CA

Personal Injury, Costs
Costs payable to the plaintiff after an award which was greater than the payment in even though it might be less than the sum of benefits which might be recouped.
Social Security Administration Act 1992
[ Bailii ]
 
Boldack (Suing By the Official Solicitor) v East Lindsey District Council [1996] EWCA Civ 1168
11 Dec 1996
CA

Personal Injury, Land

Defective Premises Act 1972 4
[ Bailii ]

 
 Sidhu and Others v British Airways Plc; Abnett (Known as Sykes) v Same; HL 13-Dec-1996 - Gazette, 15 January 1997; Times, 13 December 1996; [1996] UKHL 5; [1997] AC 431; [1997] All ER 193; [1997] 2 WLR 26,
 
Benjamin Roger Smoldon v Thomas Whitworth and Michael Nolan Times, 18 December 1996; [1996] EWCA Civ 1225; (1997) ELR 249; [1997] PIQR 133
17 Dec 1996
CA
Lord Bingham CJ
Personal Injury
The claimant sued another player and the referee at a rugby match in which he was badly injured when the scrum collapsed. The claim against the player was dismissed, but the referee was found liable and he now appealed. Held: The liability of a referee for a sports injury incurred during the course of a match of which he was in charge had to be seen in the light of all circumstances of that case, including the relative inexperience of the players. The threshold of liability must be high. Of the floodgates argument: "We do not accept this fear as well-founded. The level of care required is that which is appropriate in all the circumstances, and the circumstances are of crucial importance. Full account must be taken of the factual context in which a referee exercises his functions, and he could not be properly held liable for errors of judgement, oversights or lapses of which any referee might be guilty in the context of a fast-moving and vigorous contest. The threshold of liability is a high one. It will not easily be crossed. There is in our judgment no inconsistency between this conclusion and that reached by the Court of Appeal in Wooldridge v Sumner and Wilks v Cheltenham Homeguard Motor Cycle Co and Light Car Cycle Club. In these cases it was recognised that a sporting competitor, properly intent on winning the contest, was (and was entitled to be) all but oblivious of spectators. It therefore followed that he would have to be shown to have very blatantly disregarded the safety of spectators before he could be held to have failed to exercise such care as was reasonable in all the circumstances."
1 Cites

1 Citers

[ Bailii ]
 
Vernon v Bosley (3) Times, 19 December 1996; Gazette, 29 January 1997; [1996] EWCA Civ 1217
19 Dec 1996
CA
Stuart-Smith LJ, Thorpe LJ, Evans LJ dissenting
Personal Injury, Litigation Practice
The plaintiff claimed damages for acute stress after failing to rescue his two daughters in an accident caused by the defendant. After the accident, he became involved in family proceedings concerning custody of other children. Medical reports used in the children proceedings suggesting an improvement in his condition had not been disclosed to the court awarding the damages. This had been on counsel's advice. Held: The judge must be told of a change in the Plaintiff's prognosis which had occurred after the medical evidence had been given. The court had a remaining discretion to admit such evidence. Counsel had a professional duty to make further disclosure where there was a risk that the court might be misled.
"where the case has been conducted on the basis of certain material facts which are an essential part of the party's case, in this case the plaintiff's condition at trial and the prognosis, which were discovered before judgment to be significantly different, the court is not being misled by the failure of the defendant to put before it material of which she could or should have been aware, but by the failure of the plaintiff and his advisers to correct an incorrect appreciation which the court will otherwise have as a result of their conduct of this case hitherto." and "Where there is a danger that the court will be misled, it is the duty of counsel to advise his client that disclosure should be made. There is no reason to suppose that if Mr Vernon had been so advised in this case, he would not have accepted that advice. If the client refuses to accept the advice, then it is not as a rule for counsel to make the disclosure himself; but he can no longer continue to act."
1 Cites

[ Bailii ]
 
Helen Turnbull v South West Surrey Health Authority [1996] EWCA Civ 1274
20 Dec 1996
CA

Professional Negligence, Personal Injury

[ Bailii ]
 
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