What protection is afforded to ‘without prejudice’ communications? This, and other conundrums are among the issues raised in recent personal injury caselaw. In this week’s NLJ, Vijay Ganapathy and Claire Spearpoint, both partners, Leigh Day, round up the latest important cases for practitioners
First up, assumption of responsibility is a much-debated area of tort. The authors discuss the difficult case of Dobson, where the court had to decide whether a police authority was liable for life-changing injuries sustained by a man who attempted suicide after release from custody. The man was brought in as he had threatened to kill himself, and the police arranged for a mental health assessment.
Ganapathy and Spearpoint cover assessment of capacity where the expert evidence was considered inadequate. Finally, they look at a case on the protective status of a ‘without prejudice’ letter in a motorcycle crash case where there were allegations of fundamental dishonesty—'a reminder that the without prejudice protection, while broad, is not absolute’.RELATED ARTICLES
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