Source: https://www.doughtystreet.co.uk/barristers/theo-huckle-qc
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 03:55:35+00:00

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Theo Huckle QC is Head of our Clinical Negligence and Personal Injury Team at Doughty Street, which includes the team's Product Liability and Industrial Disease work.
Theo Huckle QC is Head of our Clinical Negligence and Personal Injury Team at Doughty Street, which includes the team's Product Liability and Industrial Disease work. As head of team, Theo is very much driving the team's current development as work grows rapidly across its practice areas.
Theo has almost unparalleled broad experience as a common law barrister specialising latterly in the injury claim fields. He was a member of the Welsh Government as the Counsel General for Wales during 2011-2016, Wales's devolved Law Officer with a broad remit advising across public law fields. He is a longstanding Exec member of the Personal Injury Bar Association (PIBA). In 2012 Theo was elected a Bencher of Lincoln's Inn, and in 2016 he was appointed a Visiting Professor of Law at King's College London.
His time as a Law Officer has given Theo a highly strategic approach to complex dispute resolution and team leadership.
The last couple of years have proved a busy time for Theo. Having joined Doughty Street, with the move out of government, he took over as General Editor of the Butterworths' Personal Injury Litigation Service , co-wrote Apil’s Guide to Noise Claims (Jordans), took over as Head of Team at Doughty Street and took up the Visiting Professorship. He has also been a regular contributor to Munkman on Employer's Liability (LexisNexis Butterworths) and Occupational Illness Litigation (Thomson Sweet & Maxwell) and with articles for the New Law Journal, JPIL, PILJ and Apil's PI Focus. He co-wrote Butterworths' original practice manual on the new system for Periodical Payments and has now been asked to lead an update to review the system 10 years on. He was Times Lawyer of the Week at the end of 2016, and Claimant PI Lawyer of the Year 2017 runner-up at the national PI Awards in Manchester.
leading advice teams on quantum aspects of the group metal-on-metal hip prosthesis product liability claims conducted by Leigh Day.
Whilst always at home finding and making innovative lines of argument upon liability issues, Theo is particularly well-known for his expertise on quantum issues, and has a particular expertise in complex spreadsheet quantum analysis and presentation. He believes that in complex cases attention to detail in arguing the many variables makes a huge difference to outcomes for the client, and that it is his job fully to understand how those variables affect the final computations, when making and responding to offers, for negotiations at JSM or other ADR, or at trial.
Theo particularly likes to work digitally and his clerks will be pleased to help you provide instructions/briefs under our fully GDPR compliant arrangements.
Theo believes that seriously injured clients should always be visited by counsel in their homes if possible, and that experts should always be firmly tested in consultation before finalising their reports. If expected to present and argue a schedule of loss in high value cases, he wants to know it inside out and preferably have drafted it himself, or advised in detail upon it before service in its final version.
Theo is happy to help with detailed anticipated fee breakdowns in spreadsheet form to assist with budgeting of complex cases.
“He has excellent client skills, leaves no stone unturned and is an absolute pleasure to work with."
"His attention to detail and client skills are great."
Apart from his Supreme Court appearances, he was recently brought in post trial to conduct an appeal in a Package Travel Regulations case concerning evidence as to “local standards” of health and safety in hotels in Spain: Lougheed v On The Beach Ltd  EWCA Civ 1538. During 2013 Theo successfully mounted a second case management appeal to the Court of Appeal concerning technical issues as to the basis of grant of Pre Action Disclosure: Smith v Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change  EWCA Civ 1585;  1 W.L.R. 2283.
Ward v Allies & Morrison  EWCA Civ 1287;  P.I.Q.R. Q1 Review of the Blamire basis of damages for loss of earning capacity compared with the Ogden computational approach, and the requirements for relevant disability within Ogden.
Teague v Mersey Docks & Harbour Board  EWCA Civ 1601  All ER (D) 249 (Wall, Kay, Moses LJJ) Limitation in industrial deafness claims. Also McNally & Dagnall v MDHC [2009-10], further test limitation cases arising from similar issues concerning dock workers in the period leading to the Dock Strike in 1994-5.
Field v British Coal  EWCA Civ 912 (May, Moore-Bick, Lawrence Collins LJJ) Limitation in disease claims post Hoare/Catholic Care (HL). Subjective aspect of date of knowledge ss14(1) and (2) and constructive knowledge s14(3).
Furniss v Firth Brown Tools Limited  EWCA Civ 182 (Buxton, Laws, Smith LJJ) Limitation in disease claims post Hoare (HL). Knowledge of the Claimant and trigger events for S14(3) constructive knowledge.
PRP Architects v Reid  EWCA Civ 1119  ICR 78  PIQR P4 (Pill LJ, Smith LJ, Neuberger LJ) Meaning of "work equipment", "for use at work" and "used at work" within the Provision and Use of Workplace Equipment Regulations 1998 and hence applicability of those regulations, and of the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992, to a defective lift in the common parts of an office building and used by all the tenants and their employees.
Competing duties of employer and site controller when employee carrying out manual handling operation using unsafe walkway. Liability of employer for failure to train employee as to manual handling risks of using unsafe walkways despite being "largely a matter of common sense".
Proper ambit of the Loss of Chance principle (Doyle v Wallace) in personal injury cases.
Damages assessment in tortious deceit.
Misrepresentation: inducement, reliance and loss issues.
R v Lloyd, McCarthy, Warren  RTR 374 CA (Otton LJ, Sachs J, HHJ Rivlin) Admissibility of DVLA records and computerised business records.
Consumer Credit Act: Meaning of "Total Amount Payable" and related expressions.
Theo is also regularly instructed to conduct test litigation and has particular experience of leading large scale and group litigation, especially through his work on the Parkes v Meridian and Baker v Quantum litigation during 2003-2011; most recently he led in test trials against British Telecoms Plc in Cardiff (Noise Induced Hearing Loss claims re test tone sets including issues of application of Ogden computation to deafness disability cases) and Boots Plc in Nottingham (Work Related Upper Limb Disorder; carpal tunnel syndrome). Theo recently conducted a further test case management appeal in the BT tone set cases concerning the Sheffield County Court’s practice of using Fast Track allocation and restriction of expert evidence in low value Noise Induced Hearing Loss cases: Offermanns & Aspinall v BT . Further appeal is being pursued with the prospect of detailed guidance being given by the Court of Appeal on critical practice issues for solicitors in group low to mid-value disease claims.
Re ASR Hip Implants [2016-] Complex product liability group litigation. Spreadsheet scheduling of complex quantums and advising on settlement handling schemes.
Hickey v Wright Minimix & Ors [2016-] £2m+ EL claim for specialist construction worker injured by head injury from high pressure concrete delivery pipe.
Franklin v HR Wallingford & Ors  Test litigation in NIHL cases as to obligations of claimant solicitors to provide particular forms of evidence in order to trigger Protocol obligations of Defendants.
Lacey v University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust [2016-] Complex clinical negligence claim for failures in cardiac management of lady sufferer of Churg-Strauss Syndrome.
McFadyen v Tredget [2016-] Road traffic claim for elderly lady driver who lost her right leg after being crushed in the secondary collision when she stopped on the motorway because of a collision with the following car. Complex care management issues and blight of life.
Rust v Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust [2015-16] £1.5m settlement post JSM in a clinical negligence claim for a young man who lost his leg above the knee as a result of post operative compartment syndrome. Detailed reworking and analysis of complex schedule.
Eaglesham v MOD [2015-] Theo leads in this multi-£m clinical negligence claim for a marine who contracted Q Fever just as he was about to be returned home from service in Afghanistan and has since developed an extremely disabling chronic fatigue syndrome, a well recognised sequela of this form of “Helmand Fever”.
Re Ayannuga [2015-] Complex and high value product liability for family injured physically and psychologically by gas emission when a plumber used a proprietory sulphuric acid drain cleaner at their home. The father of the family was rendered in a permanent vegetative state.
Goldscheider v Royal Opera House [2015-] Test claim for Hyperacusis and NIHL for senior member of UK’s principal operatic orchestra.
Theo is a dual qualified mediator (ADR and LSOM) and PIcARBS qualified arbitrator and is a member of the www.PIcARBS.co.uk panel of arbitrators.
He has particular experience of ADR in personal injury and family property claims and disputes, and given his broad experience of common law (crime, family, tort, contract) and public law, and his strategic role as a Law Officer at ministerial level in the Welsh Government during 2001-16, is happy to assist with disputes across a broad range of specialisms and also those engaging several legal fields.
Theo Huckle QC was during 2011-16 the Counsel General for Wales, a statutory member of the Welsh Government and its senior legal advisor and Law Officer. He joined Doughty Street in 2015 and is a Bencher of Lincoln's Inn and General Editor of the Butterworths' Personal Injury Litigation Service.
He began practice at the Bar with a broad based common law practice conducting 12 murder defences before specialising in complex disease cases and latterly also public/constitutional cases, and has great experience of advocacy at every UK level including 5 recent Supreme Court appearances, and in many different tribunals from public inquiry to coroner's court to magistrates, county and crown court, to employment tribunal and EAT, to CICA, to committees of both Commons and Lords, and, of course, to the National Assembly for Wales. He has conducted death-in-custody and child-clinical-negligence inquests, as well as Professor Pennington's 2008 E. coli O157 Public Inquiry.
He is currently advising for an inquest into the death of a handyman, killed when sulphuric acid sink/drain cleaner caused emission of fatal H2S gas, as a precursor to a high value product liability claim for seriously injured family members. Theo has a particular interest in complex medico-legal issues in civil and criminal or quasi-criminal contexts and especially enjoys cross-examining expert witnesses. He is also highly thought of for his empathy with victims of serious/fatal personal injury and their families.
Is the CFA system broken, at least for proper use of counsel?

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