Personal Injury/Clinical Negligence

A circuit judge was entitled to make a wasted costs order against a firm of solicitors that failed to translate their client’s statement and pleadings for use at trial, the High Court has ruled.

The Court of Appeal has overturned a significant ruling last year that the costs of a fee-earner’s attendance at rehabilitation case management meetings are irrecoverable.

National firm Simpson Millar has rescued personal injury firm Novum Law out of administration, with the funder that owns the former also a creditor of the latter.

A High Court judge has refused to overturn a non-party costs order against a credit hire company, saying the firm “voluntarily assumed the risk” of the claimants turning out to be dishonest.

Medical negligence law firm Hudgell Solicitors is supporting calls for a parliamentary inquiry to be held into the ‘inadequate and dangerous’ state of bowel care for patients with spinal cord injuries in healthcare settings.

The fixed tariff for whiplash claims should be extended to other injuries to help reduce motor insurance premiums, the Association of British Insurers argued yesterday.

The legal services market will continue to grow in 2024, hitting a turnover of £50bn with a “resilient” corporate law sector boosted by “stronger economic conditions” later in the year.

Whiplash claimants, insurers and their lawyers will be watching the Supreme Court closely tomorrow when it hears the appeal on how to value so-called mixed injury claims.

The Department of Health and Social Care has not yet ruled out the introduction of fixed recoverable costs for low-value clinical negligence claims in April – despite no rules being published.

The Ministry of Justice has launched a call for evidence on the whiplash tariff to inform the statutory review of the figures that it is required to carry out.

Shares in AIM-listed legal services business NAHL jumped 11% yesterday on the back of a positive trading update showing a faster reduction in debt than expected.

Fletchers Group, the serious injury law firm owned by private equity, has continued its expansion by taking on the once-core motorbike work of Macclesfield firm Thorneycroft.

An insurer was not entitled to hold back evidence that a claimant was a friend of the owner of the vehicle he collided with, hoping the claimant would lie about it in his witness statement.

A solicitor who submitted a claim form for far less than the case was worth, in order to avoid paying a large court fee, and later fabricated it to show a higher value, has been struck off.

An increasing number of law firms are ditching low-value RTA claims as a result of the whiplash reforms, having tried and failed to make them profitable under the new regime.