Judgment was handed down in Haggerty-Garton & Ors v Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd [2021] EWHC 2924 (QB) yesterday following a two-day assessment of damages hearing before Ritchie J.
This was an unusual fatal mesothelioma claim where the applicable law was Scots law. Judgment for the First Claimant, Charmaine Haggerty-Garton (the widow), was given in the sum of £614,040.
Dushal Mehta of Fieldfisher and John Paul Swoboda of 12 KBW represented the First Claimant and her three children.
An article providing more information on the facts of the case can be found here.
This claim was unusual as Scots law was the applicable law despite the claim being tried in England. This gives practitioners north and south of the border a chance to consider what is the same and what is different in personal injury actions. There are two huge differences: awards of general damages for ‘loss of society’ for relatives and interest.
Loss of society is a head of loss completely unknown to English law which allows for a general damages award for close relatives who can establish a sufficient relationship with the deceased.
In this case there were nine relatives who made such a claim. Five relatives (two daughter from a first marriage, two sisters, and a granddaughter) were joined into the action two days prior to trial and settled their claims one day prior to trial. The other four relatives were the widow Charmaine Haggerty-Garton and her three sons.
Their loss of society awards for (a) distress and anxiety endured in contemplation of the deceased’s suffering, (b) grief and sorrow caused by the deceased’s death and (c) the loss of such non-pecuniary benefit as they may have derived from the deceased’s “society and guidance” fell to be determined by Ritchie J.
He made an award of £115,000 for the widow Charmaine and awarded between £40,000 to £35,000 for each son. By contrast no general damages award would have been made under English law and there would have been a statutory entitlement to £12,980 for bereavement for the widow only.
Ought the Scots law approach to be adopted in English law? There is certainly a case to be made but it is ultimately a question of policy as to whether English law should follow Scots law in allowing general damages claims for relatives when a loved one has died as a result of a tort.
It is however undeniably the case that Scots law is more generous in the assessment of general damages for relatives in fatal cases and it is not wholly satisfactory that there should be such divergence between Scots and English law on this issue.
The other huge difference between the approach under Scots law and English law is in respect of interest rates. Whilst English law interest rates languish at 0.1% in respect of special damages and 2% for general damages, Scots law is much more generous with interest being claimable at 8% and 4% depending on the head of loss. Interest in this case amounted to over £40,000. It is inconceivable that anything like this amount would have been recovered under English law.