Damages

Damages

STOP PRESS: The Lord Chancellor has announced that the discount rate will increase from minus 0.25% to positive 0.5% on 11 January 2025. This Overview will be updated with the new rate of positive 0.5% on 11 January 2025.

When assessing damages, it will not always be as straightforward as attributing all of the claimant’s ongoing medical problems to the alleged negligence. You must ascertain the actual damage caused by the defendant’s negligence. Assessment will be simpler if the claimant suffered no relevant pre-existing problems and the treatment should have fixed the injury, eg timely treatment of a wrist fracture in a young healthy patient. However, assessment can be significantly more complex if there were pre-existing problems that were likely to impact on the claimant in any event eg osteoarthritis or mental health issues, or if the incident exacerbated or expedited the onset of other conditions.

For further guidance, see Practice Note: Damages in clinical negligence claims.

Loss of a chance and foreseeability

Standard of care and duty of care are tied up with causation and injury. Causation and remoteness are the principles that the courts use to determine what should be recoverable in damages as a result

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