The place of damage & presumption

• On service out of the jurisdiction, this decision is likely to be welcomed by claimants as reflecting a sensible distinction between the place of an accident and its enduring consequences.

Across 75 pages (to add to the 30 pages in its 2017 decision) the Supreme Court has given a major judgment on the meaning of where damage is ‘sustained’ for the purpose of service of a claim out of the jurisdiction on a foreign domiciled defendant and additionally addressed the place and operation of the presumption that foreign law is the same as English law save insofar as proven otherwise (FS Cairo (Nile Plaza) LLC v Brownlie [2021] UKSC 45).

In the words of Lord Reed: ‘This is a sad case with an unfortunate history’. In January 2010 a road traffic accident in Egypt caused serious injury to the Claimant, Lady