Costs—Order for costs—Conditional fee agreement

Queen’s Bench Division, Males J (Sitting with Assessors), 12 Oct 2012

The High Court has given guidance on the inter-relationship between CPR 45, ss IV and V and on the meanings of “disease” and “bodily injury”.

Benjamin Williams and Ivan Bowley (instructed by Thompsons) for the claimant. Mark James (instructed by A&M Bacon Limited) for the defendant.

The claimant enlisted in the British Army in December 2002. In February 2006 he was deployed to Norway for cold weather survival training, where he sustained a non-freezing cold injury (NFCI). As a result, he was discharged from the Army in 2007. He brought a negligence or breach of statutory duty claim against the Ministry of Defence. The claim was settled by a damages payment of £75,000. The costs payable by the defendant were agreed subject to the issue of the appropriate success fee.

The success fee included in the agreed figure was 25%, which the