DBH v North Lincolnshire And Goole NHS Foundation Trust
[2024] EWHC 2652 (KB)
XS1 (A Child Proceeding by her Mother and Litigation Friend XS2) v West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust
12 August 2024
[2024] EWHC 1865 (KB)
High Court
A severely disabled child needed a new home and asked the court for money upfront. The court needed more details about how much the new house should cost and how much the family already had, so it postponed the decision.
Key Facts
- •Claimant (10-year-old with severe dystonic cerebral palsy) seeks an urgent interim payment for alternative accommodation (£1.65M offer accepted).
- •Current accommodation is unsuitable (3-story, 6-bedroom rented house; unsafe for transfers).
- •Liability is compromised at 70% in Claimant's favor; previous interim payments total £825,000.
- •Claim totals £19,288,549.63 before liability split, interest, and CRU deductions.
- •Defendant denies the appropriateness of the interim payment and lacked comprehensive expert evidence at the hearing.
- •Claimant's evidence was largely based on expert reports (paediatric neurology, care, occupational therapy, physiotherapy).
Legal Principles
Interim payments should be a reasonable proportion of the likely final judgment (CPR 25.7(4)).
CPR 25.7(4)
Eeles two-stage test for interim payments: Stage 1 – conservative valuation of certain heads of loss; Stage 2 – consideration of additional future losses if high confidence in capital award and real need.
Cobham Hire Services v Eeles [2009] EWCA Civ 204
Factors for determining interim payments (from Smith v Bailey and AC v St Georges Healthcare NHS Trust): conservative assessment, avoiding overpayment, consideration of PPOs, avoiding fettering trial judge's discretion, and potential for creating an 'unlevel playing field'.
Smith v Bailey [2014] EWHC 2569; AC (a minor suing by his litigation friend MC) v St Georges Healthcare NHS Trust [2015] EWHC 3644(QB)
In assessing interim payments, the court may include future losses if there's a high degree of confidence the trial judge will award them as a capital sum and a real need exists.
Eeles
Accommodation costs are usually included in the Eeles stage 1 assessment as lump sums, even including future running costs.
Eeles
The court should not withhold damages if the threshold tests for interim payments are met, but must guard against overpayment.
Sellar-Elliott v Howling [2016] EWHC 443(QB)
Outcomes
Application for interim payment partially refused.
Insufficient information to confidently assess past losses and the reasonableness of the accommodation claim. The court was not satisfied that the 'real need' test under Eeles stage 2 was met for an additional payment beyond what could be assessed conservatively under Eeles stage 1.
Case adjourned.
Further information needed regarding past losses, accommodation costs, and expert opinions. A joint schedule comparing the parties' positions on each head of loss is requested.