Bereavement damages criticised
The government has been criticised by the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) for ignoring Law Commission recommendations to increase general damages in personal injury claim cases.
The APIL said that ‘injured people will bear the brunt of the government’s failure to keep the law of damages up to date,’ in response to a Ministry of Justice meeting on the draft Civil Law Reform Bill.
Under the MoJ plans, parents will not be entitled to bereavement damages if a child is over 18. Therefore, the APIL said that the government has not gone far enough in extending the list of people eligible to claim for bereavement damages under the Fatal Accidents Act.
The organisation pointed out that “the Westminster government should learn from its Scottish counterpart, where the system for awarding bereavement damages is much fairer to relatives.”
APIL president compared English laws to Scottish practices: “In Scotland there is no difficulty recognising the closeness between parents, grandparents, siblings and other people who lived with the deceased as part of a family. The law in England and Wales should offer bereaved people no less comfort than those in Scotland.”
He added: “I am exasperated that the government has missed another opportunity to implement Law Commission recommendations from as far back as 1999, which said general damages in most cases should be increased by at least 50%. It is ironic that in her foreword to the consultation, [justice minister] Bridget Prentice says she is grateful to the Law Commission for its work in keeping the civil law up to date. Why, then, have these important recommendations yet to be implemented?
“It goes against the natural order of things for parents to lose a child. The suffering they endure is the same no matter how old that child is and, when that child is killed through negligence, that compounds the suffering. It is absolutely wrong to suggest parents should not be entitled to bereavement damages if the child is over the age of 18. It suggests that when a child reaches that age, the suffering and pain parents feel will somehow be less than it would be for a younger child,” he said.
Mother files bereavement charges
In similar news, a mother has filed a public liability case, after her son died from meningitis at an NHS trust.
The ten-year-old boy succumbed to the deadly virus after being discharged from Darlington Memorial Hospital, in 2005. Staff sent him home without a full examination and he later slipped into a coma and died.
As a result, his mother is suing County Durham and Darlington NHS Trust for medical negligence, which the trust denies.
Her solicitor, Kris Inskip, said she was seeking the compensation claim for the loss of her son, and for the distress caused by his death.
“She is struggling quite considerably. She has always been in distress since [he] died, and she has gone downhill since the inquest.
“She is entitled to bereavement damages for the loss of her child, and there is also a claim for her own psychiatric injuries. It is quite a considerable claim. She has suffered very badly,” Mr Inskip stated.
Updated on 16/02/2010