Personal injury solicitors are calling for fixed success fees to be rolled out after the Court of Appeal admitted it had caused more confusion in recent judgments concerning conditional fee agreements.


Ruling last month in two road traffic accident (RTA) appeals, Atack v Lee and Ellerton v Harris - where the court upheld the reduction of success fee from 100% to 50% in a case won at trial, and 30% to 20% in a simple multi-track case that settled - Lord Justice Brooke stressed that RTA cases started before 5 October 2003 should not be governed by the Civil Justice Council's (CJC) fixed success fee of 12.5% for claims worth less than £15,000 that settle before trial.



He also ruled that two-stage success fees - with 100% uplift in appropriate cases, rounding down to 5% in the simplest claims - should be encouraged for cases falling under 'the old regime'.



The judge admitted that his 2002 ruling in Halloran v Delaney, which surprised practitioners by including comments on success fees in simple cases, was 'very widely misunderstood'.



The cases were the latest courtroom clashes between Manchester claimant firm Amelans and defendant insurance practice Beachcroft Wansbroughs.


Amelans partner Martin Cockx said the decision was 'surprising' given efforts to end rows over success fees, adding that it could cause additional problems for firms dealing with RTA cases worth more than £15,000, or where defendants had denied liability.


'The danger is that some claimant lawyers may feel they are no longer entitled to success fees which are appropriate for high risk but deserving cases,' he warned. 'This could lead to solicitors only taking on sure-fire cases.'


Currently in personal injury cases, fixed success fees only apply to employer's liability cases and RTA cases worth less than £15,000 that occurred after 5 October 2003.



Mr Cockx argued: 'Sooner or later, this kind of [uncertainty]should be a thing of the past if fixed fees are introduced for all types of personal injury cases. That would enable firms to make better business decisions - otherwise, nobody knows where they are.'



Andrew Parker, head of strategic litigation at Beachcroft Wansbroughs, said 5% should now be the standard success fee for the simplest RTA cases that started after Callery v Gray. 'This judgment should give insurers clarity, certainty and a fair result on RTA cases.'



Success fee expert David Marshall, immediate past president of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, said the ruling proved that firms were under a heavy onus to justify large uplifts.



He urged firms to look to the criteria laid out by the CJC to see whether they could justify their success fees (see: www.civiljusticecouncil.gov.uk).