Report comment

Somewhat swimming against the tide I fear, but I have some sympathy with Thompsons.

There are certain elements beyond their control. The main example is the ATE (presumably not LEI as referred to in the article). That premium is excessive on any view but not being an Insurance underwriter, how is a Costs Master supposed to assess it correctly ? Ok it is on the face of it objectively disproportionate but allowing £2120.00 suggests that a premium is proportionate if it is 2/3rds the damages figure. That isn't always right.

The Court of Appeal in Rogers V Merthyr Tydfil CBC 2006 acknowledged that the Court is not best placed to adjust an ATE premium unless guided by experts. Perhaps Master Simons did have that expert knowledge or guidance - I don't have that information. One assumes he did have to be able to adjust the figure so substantially and so ostensibly accurately.

I anticipate that there are plenty of good reasons to explain why costs escalated to the £72k level and if those reasons were known we could see the full picture and debate the case properly. However, the details are not provided and therefore it is all too easy to say "Ridiculous conduct...bring on the reforms....ambulance chasing fat cats..."etc, etc.

Hopefully someone from Thompsons can shed some light on the conduct of those representing the NHS in this case so that we have both sides of the story before jumping on the bandwagon.

One thing we can learn without the detail of the case is that the "Proportionality principle" remains a pointless, meaningless, ambiguous and unquantifiable concept created by someone who lacks any fundamental human decency.