Over 400 attendees joined a live broadcast of our HFTV roundtable event focused on the Court of Appeal mixed injury decision. The panel explained how general damages are to be assessed when a claimant suffers whiplash and other injuries. They looked at how insurers could protect their position, from FNOL, through to witness statements and intel, as well as challenging medical experts in a regulatory setting and establishing fraud. If you missed the event, you can access a recording of the session here. This session and many more are stored on our Netflix-style platform HFTV which is available for free for our clients.

Following on from our article, Mixed Injury Claims: The Practical Impacts of Rabot and Briggs, we covered how the judgment doesn’t leave a lot of room to negotiate the adjustment to a non-tariff injury valuation. To illustrate how this works in practice we have produced a visual guide which we hope will be helpful.

Our view, as already discussed, is that even if successful, an appeal to the Supreme Court is unlikely to make much practical difference to the damages awarded in mixed injury claims. We believe that significant change to the damages awarded in these claims can only now be achieved through amendments to the legislation.

Whether our prediction is right may now be known in due course because the insurers have applied for permission to appeal to the Supreme Court. The application for permission to appeal is expected to take up to 6 months to be determined and, if successful, up to a further 18 months for the Supreme Court to decide upon the appeal. Until then, the method of assessing damages as set out by the Court of Appeal remains the way to do it.

Further, the Government has now issued a call for evidence on the ‘Whiplash Reform and the Official Injury Claim service’.

The call for evidence covers the broad scope of issues that will arise from the reforms but particularly worth noting is the specific point:

  • How effective is the OIC portal in settling claims for mixed injury claims, which cannot be settled using the fixed tariff awards?

It seems the Government is open to looking at the issue again and there will be further developments.

Click the image below to check out our handy guide for assessing mixed injuries:

 

Mixed Injuries