Matthew Riley v Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust

In assessing substantial future personal injury losses, the multiplicand/multiplier method should normally be used. Uncertainty about future earnings does not, by itself, justify a lump-sum approach. The claimant must establish the likely uninjured earnings pattern and the likely earnings after injury.

Where disability reasonably requires more expensive accommodation, damages may reflect the additional capital cost, subject to the value of the reversionary interest and appropriate credits. A claimant does not ordinarily fail to mitigate merely by declining to seek rent or a capital contribution from a partner where the arrangement is reasonable.

The claimant suffered a below-knee amputation following admitted clinical negligence at Salford Royal Hospital. Liability was admitted, including that appropriate treatment would have avoided the amputation, but quantum remained disputed, including the claimant’s counterfactual condition, life expectancy, earnings, care, prosthetics, transport, accommodation and other future needs.

The central issues included whether life expectancy should be reduced, whether future earnings should be assessed conventionally or by a Smith v Manchester/Blamire award, and how the additional cost of adapted accommodation should be calculated.

1. Quantum and life expectancy. Total damages were awarded in the sum of £4,676,442. The claimant was treated as having average life expectancy. There was no reliable epidemiological evidence that below-knee amputation reduced life expectancy, and no suitably qualified expert had assessed the relevant positive and negative factors in the individual case (paras [29]–[33]).
2. Future earnings. The court applied the conventional multiplicand/multiplier method. Under Ward v Allies and Morrison Architects [2012] EWCA Civ 1287, that method and the Ogden guidance should normally be used unless the judge has no real alternative. Mere uncertainty about future earnings is insufficient. The claimant must establish both the likely uninjured earnings pattern and the likely post-injury earnings (paras [61]–[64]).
3. The Ogden guidance was treated as guidance rather than prescription. Table A was used for the counterfactual career because the residual disability would not substantially affect ordinary activities or the proposed IT work. Table B was used for the claimant’s actual future earnings because the amputation materially restricted ordinary activities and employment (paras [64]–[71]).
4. Accommodation and mitigation. Following Swift v Carpenter [2020] EWCA Civ 1295, the accommodation award was calculated by reference to the additional capital cost of the required property, less the value of the reversionary interest and the agreed credit for the counterfactual property. The claimant’s decision not to seek rent or a capital contribution from his partner was not an unreasonable failure to mitigate (paras [118]–[125]).
5. Reasonable costs of adapting the property and putting it into a reasonable state of repair were recoverable where attributable to the disability; ordinary property costs likely to have been incurred in any event were excluded (paras [54]–[57], [121]–[124]).