Evans v Pontypridd Roofing Limited

Damages for gratuitous care should provide proper recompense for the family carer’s services. Quantification is a broad, fact-sensitive assessment rather than a prescribed calculation. The court may use commercial care rates as a starting point and scale them down, but no conventional discount applies.

Compensable care is not invariably confined to medically prescribed physical assistance measured by the hour. A claimant’s condition may require a carer’s continuous presence, although the carer does not perform physical tasks throughout the day. Judges must distinguish genuine full-time care from ordinary family presence and domestic activity.

A roofer sustained grave and permanent injuries at work. Liability was compromised at 85%. The county court awarded damages for future earnings, past and future care, and adapted accommodation.

The employer appealed against the multiplier for future earnings, the assessment of the claimant’s wife as a full-time gratuitous carer, the 25% reduction from commercial care rates, provision for respite care, and aspects of the accommodation award. The central care issue was whether compensation had to be confined to separately timed physical services or could reflect the wife’s continuous care and emotional support.

1. Appeal dismissed unanimously. Lord Justice May delivered the judgment. Lord Justice Rix and Lord Justice Ward agreed.
2. The future-earnings multiplier of 16 was within the range justified by the evidence. The judge had already assumed retirement at 60 and reduced the actuarial multiplier. In the absence of specific evidence quantifying the additional risks from smoking or roofing accidents, the assessment disclosed no appealable error.
3. Following Hunt v Severs [1994] 2 AC 350, damages for gratuitous care are quantified to enable the voluntary carer to receive proper recompense. The guidance in Housecroft v Burnett [1986] 1 All ER 332 remained helpful despite its partial reliance on the approach in Donnelly v Joyce [1974] QB 454, which had been disapproved.
4. First instance judges should retain latitude to select the method appropriate to the individual case. Lost earnings may be relevant where a carer gives up employment. Commercial care rates may otherwise provide a starting point, subject to adjustment because the services are supplied gratuitously. The assessment remains a single, broad valuation of proper recompense.
5. Compensable care must result from the claimant’s injuries, but it need not always be confined to medically prescribed physical tasks or calculated by stopwatch. A severely disabled person may genuinely require a full-time carer’s presence so that unpredictable needs can be met. The court must nevertheless ensure that ordinary family presence and domestic activity are not mischaracterised as continuous care.
6. The evidence justified treating the wife’s services as full-time care. Her constant assistance, night-time vigilance, management of suicide risk, and emotional support went beyond ordinary companionship. The judge could therefore use full-time commercial rates as the basis of assessment.
7. No conventional percentage governs the reduction from commercial rates. Tax, National Insurance and case-specific considerations may affect the broad assessment. The 25% reduction was within the judge’s permissible latitude.
8. The evidence also justified respite provision despite the wife’s stated intention to remain the sole carer. Expert evidence and common sense supported the conclusion that uninterrupted care could not continue throughout the assessment period without relief.
9. The challenges to the accommodation award did not produce any net reduction, particularly because an accepted sum of £15,422 had mistakenly been omitted from the judgment.

1. Court of Appeal (Civil Division): The employer’s appeal was dismissed unanimously by the court in [2001] EWCA Civ 1657.
2. Pontypridd County Court: His Honour Judge Prosser QC assessed damages after liability had been compromised at 85%. Judgment was delivered on 19 October 2000. No citation is stated.