Court of Appeal provides early notice of April 2013 change
The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, has confirmed that general damages will increase by 10% in most civil cases from 1 April 2013.
The rise will apply to cases involving pain, suffering and loss of amenity in respect of personal injury; nuisance; defamation; and all other torts which cause suffering, inconvenience or distress to individuals.
Ruling in Simmons v Castle [2012] EWCA Civ 1039, Lord Judge, sitting alongside the Master of the Rolls and the vice-president of the Court of Appeal, explained he was giving early notice of the change to enable parties engaged in or contemplating litigation to prepare ahead of the implementation of the Jackson reforms next year.
Lord Judge said: “This court has not merely the power, but a positive duty, to monitor, and where appropriate to alter, the guideline rates for general damages.”
The 10% increase was part of the measures recommended by Lord Justice Jackson in his review of civil litigation costs. Many of these measures will be brought into force next April in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012.
However, the Act does not provide for a rise in damages. According to the Judicial Office, this is because, as Lord Diplock observed in a judgment in a personal injury appeal in 1983, the Court of Appeal is “generally speaking the tribunal best qualified to set guidelines for judges trying such actions”.
NLJ consultant editor, David Greene, a senior partner at Edwin Coe LLP, says: “Practitioners have been pressing for some time on this issue because it has been unclear how the increase in general damages was to be effected.
“It is therefore welcome to see a very strong court determining the issue. It is notable that the increase includes nuisance and defamation but only for individuals.
“The only concern with the decision is that it appears to apply to torts only and not to personal injuries that arise from a breach of contract. Presumably the court will return to that subject when it has in front of it an appropriate claim in contract.”
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