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ENGLISH CURRENT LAW DIGEST
In reading these cases note should be taken of
the differences in English and Irish Statute
Law.
All dates relate to dates reported in the "Times" newspaper.
Costs
Before Lord Justice Edmund Davies, Lord Justice Megaw
and Sir Seymour Karminski. (Judgments delivered April 10.)
A plaintiff in an action for damages for personal injuries
was refused the costs attributable to calling an economist to
give evidence, subsequently held by the trial judge and the
Court of Appeal to be inadmissible, as to the prospects of
future inflation. He was allowed a third only of the costs
attributable to calling an actuary and a chartered accountant
to put forward actuarial calculations in relation to the assess-
ment of damages.
The plaintiff, Mr. Herbert Mitchell (suing by his wife,
Mrs. Hazel Mitchell, as next friend), was severely injured in
1965 in a car accident caused by the admitted negligence of
the defendants, Mrs. Patricia Mulholland and her husband,
Mr. Anthony Mulholland. At the trial he contended that
damages in respect of future loss of earnings and for nursing
and medical expenses should be assessed by actuarial calcula-
tions supported by other expert evidence and that prospects of
inflation should be taken into account. Mr. Justice Nield
adopted the conventional method of assessing damages by
reference to a multiplier and a multiplicand and awarded the
plaintiff £47,757, including post-trial loss of earnings of
£17,570 on a multiplicand of £1,255 and a multiplier of 14
years and nursing and medical expenses of £10,496 on a
multiplicand of £1,312 and a multiplier of eight years. He
ruled that the evidence of, inter alia, the economist, which
he had admitted de bene esse, was inadmissible.
The plaintiff appealed to the Court of Appeal, contending,
inter alia, that the award was inadequate and that the judge
had wrongly excluded or failed to take into account the
expert actuarial evidence and the prospect of inflation.
The Court of Appeal (Lord Justice Edmund Davies, Lord
Justice Widgery and Sir Gordon Willmer) ([1972] 1 QB 65)
held that any element of certainty obtained by use of actuarial
evidence, when applied to future contingencies, resulted in
such an imprecise mode of assessing damages for loss of future
earnings as to present no advantages over the conventional
method, which was the best primary basis for assessment, and
Lord Justice Edmund Davies and Sir Gordon Willmer held
that, while it would be unrealistic to refuse to take into
account at all prospects of future inflation, evidence directed
to prospects of inflation in relation to earning capacity was in
general inadmissible, though in a rare case (of which the
instant case was not one) sound and precise evidence might be
admitted.
Lord Justice Widgery said that an award of damages for
personal injuries should not reflect the possibility of continuing
inflation: prudent investment supplied the antidote to cost
inflation. Where the plaintiff's prospects were said to be ad-
vanced by an anticipated increase in national prosperity the
inquiry became too speculative; expert evidence on such
matters should be excluded on the ground that the cost
involved was out of all proportion to the advantage obtained.
The court on other grounds increased the award to
£62,183. The plaintiff was awarded costs. By an oversight,
however, the fact that the costs of the three expert witnesses
had been specially reserved to the trial judge by Queen's
Bench masters was not brought to the attention either of
Mr Justice Nield or of the Court of Appeal.
By motion, the plaintiff now asked for those costs.
Mitchell v. Mulholland and Another; Court of Appeal;
12/4/1973.
Crime
Before Lord Widgery, the Lord Chief Justice, Mr. Justice
MacKenna and Mr. Justice Bean.
A man whose hookah pipe revealed traces of cannabis resin
only discernible by chemical analysis was held to have been
rightly convicted of being in possession of cannabis lesin
contrary to regulation 3 of the Dangerous Drugs (No. 2)
Regulations, 1968, and section 13 of the Dangerous Drugs
Act, 1965.
Their Lordships, Mr. Justice MacKenna dissenting, dis-
missed an appeal by Clive Edmund Bocking against his con-
viction by Beacontree justices of being in possession of at least
20 mxrograms of cannabis resin.
Bocking v. Roberts; Queen's Bench Division; 23/5/1973.
The Court of Appeal (Lord Justice Cairns, Lord Justice
Stephenson, and Mr. Justice Thesiger) granted an application
by Eric Fazackerley that the dismissal of his appeal against
convictin for obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception
in evading payment of debts by worthless cheques
(
The
Times,
March 21) involved a point of low of general public impor-
tance under section 33 of the Criminal Appeal Act, 1968.
The point certified was "whether the dishonest offering of
a worthless cheque purporting to satisfy a debt for which
the drawer is then liable, there being no deception made to
the creditor other than the implied representation that the
cheque is a good and valid order, and which thereby induces
the creditor to believe that he has been paid, constitutes an
offence of obtaining a pecun
:
ary advantage by deception in
that a debt for which the drawer is then liable is evaded
within section 16(1) of the Theft Act 1968."
Leave to appeal was refused for the Appeal Committee of
the House of Lords to consider whether leave should be
granted for the appeal to be argued in view of leave to appeal
having been granted in
R. v. Turner (The Times,
March 30)
and
Ray v. Sempers (The Times,
December 20).
Regina v. Fazackerley; Qeuen's Bench Division; 22/5/1973.
Before Lord Justice Cairns, Mr. Justice Thompson and Mr.
Justice Shaw.
Three youths who agreed to hide under a pile of paving
stones the body of a girl who had died as the result of horse-
play with them were held to have been rightly convicted of a
conspiracy to prevent the burial of a corpse.
The court dismissed appeals by Leslie Hunter, Clive
Atkinson and Anthony MacKinder against their convictions at
Newcastle on Tyne Crown Court (Mr. Justice Willis) for
conspiracy to prevent the burial of a corpse. Their Lordships
allowed their appeals against conviction for manslaughter and
also the appeals of Mr. Hunter and Mr. Atkinson against their
conviction of theft of the dead girl's money and trinkets.
Regina v. Hunter, Atkinson, MacKinder; Court of Appeal;
18/5/1973.
Damages
The Court of Appeal decided that a child injured in a road
accident whose mother gave up work to look after him was
entitled to recover her loss of wages as damages against the
driver responsible for the accident. Their Lordships dismissed
an appeal by the defendant driver, Mr. Henry Joyce, of
Dagenham, against an award of £4,689 damages to Chris-
topher Donnelly, of West Ham, by Deputy Judge Eastham.
Lord Justice Megaw (who sat with Lord Justice Davies and
Mr. Justice Walton) said, in the reserved judgment of the
court, that the award included £147 in respect of six months'
loss of wages by the mother. She had given up her part-time
job, for which she was paid £5.66 a week, to look after her
son and given him the nursing attention which he required.
Part of the loss sustained by the child was the existence of the
need for the nursing services rendered by his mother the value
of which for the purposes of damages was the proper and
reasonable cost of supplying those needs. Accordingly, the child
was entitled to recover the £147.
The court's decision on that issue was the same as that in
Cunningham
v. Harrison (The Times,
May 18).
The defendant's contention that the infant plaintiff could
not recover the loss because it was not his loss but the
mother's, could not be accepted. Nor could their Lordships
accept that only if the infant was undec an obligation, legal
or moral, to reimburse his mother could he recover damages.
Donnelly v. Joyce; Court of Appeal; 19/5/1973.
Before Lord Denning, the Master of the Rolls, Lord Justice
Orr and Lord Justice Lawton.
Damages for personal injuries should not be reduced by
reason of ex gratia payments made by the injured person's em-
ployer. When a husband is grievously injured and is entitled
to damages, it is only right that, if his wife renders services
to h
;
m instead of a nurse, he should receive compensation for
the value of the services that his wife has rendered and he
should pay the amount received over to her. There should be
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