Landmark Legal Case Changes The Law For People With Serious Injuries Requiring Special Accommodation

• Published date: 26 November 2020
• Subject Matter: Litigation, Mediation & Arbitration, Trials & Appeals & Compensation, Personal Injury
• Law Firm: Leigh Day
• Author: Leigh Day

In a landmark judgment the Court of Appeal have today ruled, in the case of Swift v Carpenter, that people who require special accommodation as a result of an injury will receive fair and reasonable compensation to purchase that property, following nearly half-a-century of Claimants receiving inadequate damages in such cases.

According to lawyers Leigh Day who represented Charlotte Swift in her seven-year legal battle, today's decision is a victory not only for Ms Swift, but also countless future Claimants who require special accommodation following serious injury.

In August 2018 Ms Swift was awarded more than '4m damages by the High Court but was told she would not receive the '900,000 the Court found, as a fact, she needed to fund the capital costs of larger accommodation due to her injuries. Ms Swift will now recover over '800,000 of the '900,000 she needs, where previously it had been zero as a result of guidance by the Court of Appeal in 1989 and a negative personal injury discount rate to be applied to future losses. As property is generally still considered an appreciating asset unlike other losses, Claimants will still have to give credit for the value of the increase at the time of death, but the decision will vastly improve a situation which was widely recognised as being unfair to seriously injured people.

Welcoming today's judgment Grant Incles, the personal injury partner at law firm Leigh Day who represented Charlotte Swift after she suffered serious leg injuries in a road traffic collision in 2013, said:

"This was an overwhelming triumph for somebody who deserved nothing less after everything she has been through. Charlotte's tenacity and ability to trust her legal team in the face of overbearing pressure from a truly David v Goliath situation, and the threat of crushing legal costs consequences, was astonishing. "The decision itself is the best and most thorough examination of a problem that has vexed legal practitioners for decades, and so enormous credit must go to the Judges in the Court of Appeal for taking it by the horns in the way that they did and to Derek Sweeting QC and James Arney of Counsel, and the expert witnesses, for enabling them to do so. "I am so pleased with the result; I only wish it wasn't at such a personal cost to Charlotte, who has had to bear the process for over seven years of her life. She can now get on with the rest of her life in an environment that provides her with the means to live the best life that she...