Source: https://accidentsatworkandlossofearningsclaims.wordpress.com/2015/07/26/damages-assessed-on-a-loss-of-chance-basis-interesting-court-of-appeal-observations-and-a-round-up-of-the-relevant-cases/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 20:16:56+00:00

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In Lillington -v- Ministry of Defence  EWCA Civ 775 the Court of Appeal made some interesting observations in relation to damages for loss of chance of career promotion. The court was somewhat sceptical about the (joint) submissions that damages for future loss of earnings could not be considered on a “loss of chance” basis and pointed to several cases where the courts have done exactly that. Here we look at those observations and review several of the key cases relating to loss of chance.
The defendant was appealing a factual decision that the claimant was entitled to additional damages of £62,559 on the basis that he would have been promoted to Corporal. The judge found that, on the balance of probabilities, the claimant would ahve been promoted and awarded that additional sum on the basis of this finding.
Lord Justice Vos made some preliminary observations.
At the beginning of the argument, Moore-Bick LJ asked Mr Yaqub Rahman, counsel for the MoD, whether the judge ought, instead of considering the matter on an “all or nothing” basis, to have considered awarding damages for the loss of the chance that the respondent would have passed the 2009 JCC and been promoted to Corporal. Mr Rahman dismissed this suggestion with great certainty and was supported in his approach by Mr Christopher Barnes, counsel for the respondent. They relied on the House of Lords’ majority decision in Gregg v. Scott  2 AC 176, where a patient had recovered no damages for the negligent delayed diagnosis of his cancer, because the delay had only reduced his survival chances from 42% to 25%, so he had not been able to show on a balance of probability that he would have been cured but for the negligence. That was a case where liability for medical negligence was in issue and in order to establish a cause of action the claimant had to prove (on a balance of probabilities) that he had in fact suffered harm as a result of the defendant’s negligence. It was not a case relating to the assessment of financial loss flowing from that harm which depended on the court’s view of whether or not a future event would have occurred. As it seems to me, there would have been grounds for thinking, in this case, that the judge ought to have awarded damages for loss of a chance (see Lord Diplock at page 176 inMallett v. McMonagle  AC 166, Lord Reid at page 213 in Davies v. Taylor  3 All ER 836; Langford v. Hebran  EWCA Civ 361, and Brown v. MOD  EWCA Civ 546). Since neither party asked us to consider this question, we can only proceed on the agreed basis, namely that the judge asked himself the correct question when determining whether special damages should be awarded for the loss of the respondent’s promotion to Corporal. I should not, however, be taken as accepting that the parties’ agreed approach was correct in law.
The Court of Appeal’s surprise is understandable. There are numerous cases where the courts have decided issues such as this on a “loss of chance” basis.
is read. In that judgment the House of Lords approved claims for loss of chance in relation to future prospects but stated that this approach could not be taken in relation to causation in clinical negligence cases. The judgment of Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead.
It is perhaps not surprising therefore that it is principally in the field of hypothetical past events that difficulties have arisen in practice. Sometimes, whether a claimant has suffered actionable damage cannot fairly be decided on an all-or-nothing basis by reference to what, on balance of probability, would have happened but for the defendant’s negligence. Sometimes this would be too crude an approach. What would have happened in the absence of the defendant’s negligence is altogether too uncertain for the all-or-nothing approach to be satisfactory. In some cases what the claimant lost by the negligence was the opportunity or chance to achieve a desired result whose achievement was outside his control and inherently uncertain. The defendant’s wrong consisted of depriving the claimant of a chance he would otherwise have had to achieve a desired outcome.
Then, the greater the uncertainty surrounding the desired future outcome, the less attractive it becomes to define the claimant’s loss by whether or not, on balance of probability, he would have achieved the desired outcome but for the defendant’s negligence. This definition of the claimant’s loss becomes increasingly unattractive because, as the uncertainty of outcome increases, this way of defining the claimant’s loss accords ever less closely with what in practice the claimant had and what in practice he lost by the defendant’s negligence.
In order to achieve a just result in such cases the law defines the claimant’s actionable damage more narrowly by reference to the opportunity the claimant lost, rather than by reference to the loss of the desired outcome which was never within his control. In adopting this approach the law does not depart from the principle that the claimant must prove actionable damage on the balance of probability. The law adheres to this principle but defines actionable damage in different, more appropriate terms. The law treats the claimant’s loss of his opportunity or chance as itself actionable damage. The claimant must prove this loss on balance of probability. The court will then measure this loss as best it may. The chance is to be ignored if it was merely speculative, but evaluated if it was substantial: see Davies v Taylor  AC 207, 212, per Lord Reid.
Some familiar examples will suffice. A woman who was wrongly deprived of the chance of being one of the winners in a beauty competition was awarded damages for loss of a chance. The court did not attempt to decide on balance of probability the hypothetical past event of what would have happened if the claimant had been duly notified of her interview: Chaplin v Hicks  2 KB 786. When a solicitor’s failure to issue a writ in time deprived a claimant of the opportunity to pursue court proceedings damages were not assessed on an all-or-nothing basis by reference to what probably would have been the outcome if the proceedings had been commenced in time. The court assessed what would have been the claimant’s prospects of success in the proceedings which the solicitor’s negligence prevented him from pursuing: Kitchen v Royal Air Force Association  1 WLR 563. When an employer negligently supplied an inaccurate character reference, the employee did not need to prove that, but for the negligence, he would probably have been given the new job. The employee only had to prove he lost a reasonable chance of employment, which the court would evaluate: Spring v Guardian Assurance Plc  2 AC 296, 327.
In Herring v Ministry of Defence  EWCA Civ 528,  1 All ER 44 the Court of Appeal stated loss of chance claims do not replace the conventional means of assessing future loss of earnings but are more appropriate in cases where the chance to be assessed is where the chance is that the career of the claimant would take a particular course leading to significantly higher overall earnings than those which it is otherwise reasonable to take as the baseline for calculation.
For example, in Moores v Co-operative Wholesale Society Ltd (1955) Times, 9 May, CA, the plaintiff, a police officer, had been injured in a previous accident, and as a result his prospects of continuing in the police force were very slight. The second accident rendered him unfit for police duty. The Court of Appeal held that the effect of the second accident was to deprive the plaintiff of a ‘poor chance’ of continuing in the police force, and they reduced the damages substantially from £3,000 to £1,000.
In Chaplin v Hicks  2 KB 786, 80 LJKB 1292, CA – which was not a case of personal injuries – damages were given for the loss of an opportunity to be considered (on a competitive basis) for a theatrical engagement.
The loss of an opportunity is certainly a valid head of damages, and cases may be conceived where a claimant is injured on the way to an interview where he has good prospects of being selected for an important post. Loss of an opportunity of starting or continuing an apprenticeship, or a career in the armed forces, may also be caused by an accident at the critical time; or an examination may be missed. Such opportunities may be lost if not taken promptly, and the damages might be substantial, for example, Comer v Bolton  CLY 1159, CA where a girl lost the chance of attending a high-class secretarial course.
In Doyle v Wallace  30 LS Gaz R 25,  PIQR Q146, CA the claimant was a student when injured. Her case what if she had not been injured she would have qualified as a teacher. The Court of Appeal upheld the judge’s decision to base damages on the basis that she had a 50% chance of qualifying as a teacher.
lived, and that he may not have realised any of the hypothetical scenarios suggested.
In Appleton –v- Medhat Mohammed El Safty  EWHC 631 (QB) the court considered the loss of chance of a professional footballer on the basis that he had 75 chance of playing at championship level and 25% chance of playing in division one.
In Clarke-v- Malty  EWHC 1201 (QB) the claimant was a solicitor in private practice whose injuries meant she had a reduced earning capacity. She had lost the chance of partnership in large practices. Damages were assessed on the basis that she had a 100% chance of a fixed share equity in a regional law firm; an 85% chance of she would be a partner in a middle sized City firm and 30% chance of joining a city or central London firm as a partner.
In XYZ –v- Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust  EWHC 243 (QB) damages were awarded on the basis that the claimant would have set up and run a substantial business, there was a 50% chance that the business would reach £5 million and a 20% chance that his business would achieve a turnover of more than £10 million. The total award of damages was £6,740.646.
The courts have also considered the issue of the “chance” of a soldier remaining in the army in order to properly assess the claim for loss of pension,see Brown –v- Ministry of Defence  EWCA Civ 546.

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