Lord Justice Jackson told the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers conference there were ‘considerable difficulties’ in applying a fixed costs regime to multi-track claims valued more than £25,000.
Jackson LJ’s latest position on the proposed extension of fixed costs is surprising, given the fact that it scarcely seems that long since his initial suggestion that fixed costs should be extended across the broad spectrum of Multi-Track claims.In the writer’s humble opinion, Jackson LJ’s latest pronouncement misses the point. Clinical negligence cases under the proposed £25,000 threshold will almost always attract costs that are a significant proportion of the damages, or (as is often the case), many times greater than the level of damages recovered. The level of costs in low value clinical negligence cases is due to a myriad of factors, not least of which is NHS Resolution’s (formerly the NHSLA) handling of claims.
