Farrington v Menzies-Haines

Where substantial issues of causation remain unresolved, the court should not determine an interim payment application by assuming that those issues will be decided in the claimant’s favour. An interim payment must be no more than a reasonable proportion of the likely final judgment and must avoid any risk of overpayment. CPR 25.7 is not intended to facilitate an early mini-trial of disputed causation. The court must assess the likely judgment conservatively and should exclude future losses which may be dealt with by periodical payments unless the relevant conditions are satisfied.

The claimant sought a further interim payment following a road traffic accident in which the defendant’s primary liability had been admitted. Judgment had been entered for the claimant, but contributory negligence and the extent and causation of the claimant’s injuries remained for trial.

The claimant sustained an accepted brain injury. The parties disputed whether his continuing difficulties and substantial claimed rehabilitation, care, deputyship and other losses were attributable to the accident. A previous interim payment had been ordered, but the present application was to be considered afresh on materially different evidence. The central issue was whether the further sum sought fell within the statutory and common-law limits governing interim payments.

1. Application dismissed. The claimant had not established that the further interim payment sought was a reasonable proportion of the likely final judgment.
2. The governing objective, identified in Eeles v Cobham and summarised in Smith v Bailey, is to ensure that a claimant is not kept out of money to which he is entitled while avoiding any risk of overpayment. The likely final judgment must be assessed conservatively.
3. Where there are genuine and substantive disputes about causation, the court cannot assume that causation will be resolved in the claimant’s favour. To do so would risk turning the interim payment application into a mini-trial without the evidence required for final determination.
4. CPR 25.7 generally assumes that liability and causation have been sufficiently resolved, leaving quantification of loss. It does not extend to a case in which significant causation issues remain at large and the defendant contends that the eventual recovery may not be substantial.
5. The substantial gap between the claimant’s valuation and the defendant’s admissions created a real, and in the circumstances impermissible, risk of overpayment. The prior interim order did not bind the judge, who was required to reconsider the application on the evidence then available.