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16 January 2020 / Stephen Gold
Issue: 7870 / Categories: Procedure & practice , Civil way
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Civil Way: 17 January 2020

Pain & suffering from judicial college

It’s out. The 15th edition (orange covered) of the Judicial College Guidelines for the assessment of general damages in personal injury cases was published on 26 November 2019 by Oxford University Press. This should send you off to revise CPR Pt 36 offers and kick yourself (before the clients kick you) for the settlements you have advised on since last November. It’s a moot point as to the stage at which failure to heed the uplifted ranges of damages might be evidence of professional negligence. Of course, the guidelines do not settle the ranges but reflect the awards which have been made by the courts since the previous edition. This in itself is an almost impossible task given the introduction’s admission that there have been ‘remarkably few’ awards in the two years which have elapsed since the 14th edition. What is inescapable is that the RPI has seen a 7% increase over those two years and this has been factored into the guideline’s newest figures. In

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NEWS
Talk of a reserved ‘Welsh seat’ on the Supreme Court is misplaced. In NLJ this week, Professor Graham Zellick KC explains that the Constitutional Reform Act treats ‘England and Wales’ as one jurisdiction, with no statutory Welsh slot
The government’s plan to curb jury trials has sparked ‘jury furore’. Writing in NLJ this week, David Locke, partner at Hill Dickinson, says the rationale is ‘grossly inadequate’
A year after the $1.5bn Bybit heist, crypto fraud is booming—but so is recovery. Writing in NLJ this week, Neil Holloway, founder and CEO of M2 Recovery, warns that scams hit at least $14bn in 2025, fuelled by ‘pig butchering’ cons and AI deepfakes
After Woodcock confirmed no general duty to warn, debate turns to the criminal law. Writing in NLJ this week, Charles Davey of The Barrister Group urges revival of misprision or a modern equivalent
Family courts are tightening control of expert evidence. Writing in NLJ this week, Dr Chris Pamplin says there is ‘no automatic right’ to call experts; attendance must be ‘necessary in the interests of justice’ under FPR Pt 25
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