Lawford Kidd's Blog

The Court of Appeal in England this week amended a ruling that would have led to an increase in general damages in most civil cases from 1st April 2013.

The general background to the case is the balanced package of measures recommended in the final report of the Review of Civil Litigation Costs produced by Lord Justice Jackson in January 2010, and due to be implemented in large part in April 2013.

Many of the Review’s recommendations have been enacted by Parliament in the Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012.

New official statistics have shown that the number of workers fatally injured in Britain last year remains largely unchanged.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has released provisional data for April 2011 to March 2012, which shows 173 workers were killed - down two from the previous year.

The rate of fatal injury remains the same at 0.6 per 100,000 workers.

A farm company in Northern Ireland (NI) has been fined a record £187,500, plus £13,000 costs for health and safety failings that led to the death of 45-year-old employee Robert Wilson.

The company is the first in Northern Ireland to be convicted under new Corporate Manslaughter legislation. Under this legislation, companies and organisations can be found guilty as a result of serious management failures resulting in a gross breach of a duty of care.

Mr Wilson, who was working at the meal-mixing plant on the farm, was killed after being struck by a metal bin which fell off a forklift. The forklift was being driven by one of the company directors. The investigation revealed that the bin had not been attached or integrated with the forklift. It was also revealed that it was not possible to insert the lifting forks into the sleeves of the bin as the forks were too large and incorrectly spaced.