DBH v North Lincolnshire And Goole NHS Foundation Trust

An interim payment may include conservative estimates of special damages that will accrue before trial where those losses will ultimately form part of a lump-sum award. The court should avoid both underpayment and overpayment, and may limit the projection period where future expenditure is uncertain.

Under the second stage of Eeles, funding for a property purchase requires evidence sufficient to establish that the proposed accommodation and its cost are reasonable. The court assesses a reasonable cost meeting the claimant’s needs; it does not approve a particular property. Expert evidence concerning the range, size and price of suitable properties is ordinarily important.

The claimant, a child with cerebral palsy caused by admitted negligence, sought an interim payment to meet past and projected losses and to fund the purchase of an adapted home. The claim had been stayed until 2027, with quantum trial unlikely before 2029. The parties agreed that the claimant required rehousing urgently and that purchase was preferable to renting.

The claimant sought £2.2 million. The issues were the calculation of the first stage of the Eeles test, whether losses projected to trial could be included, whether the second stage permitted funding for the proposed property, and the amount of any award.

1. Eeles 1. The court may include heads of loss which will accrue before trial where, by the time of trial, they will constitute past losses and therefore form part of a lump-sum award. The assessment must remain conservative, and only a reasonable proportion of the valuation should be awarded.
2. A five-year projection was too uncertain. The court therefore allowed projected case management, therapy, travel, Court of Protection and assistive-technology costs for the next 12 months only. It excluded further family care because the evidence and calculation were insufficient, and declined unsupported claims for past services.
3. The accommodation calculation used the defendant’s conservative figures for associated costs and adopted £950,000 as the reasonable purchase-price indicator. The court rejected an arithmetic average based on only two properties, since it produced a price at which no property was available. The court’s function was to assess a reasonable cost meeting the claimant’s needs, not to approve the chosen property.
4. The conservative valuation under Eeles 1 was £2,437,567.10. A reasonable proportion was 90%, producing an interim award of £2,193,810.39, subject to credit for £200,000 already paid.
5. Eeles 2. Although the need for immediate rehousing was established, the claimant had not provided expert evidence supporting the reasonableness of the size and cost of the chosen property. The second-stage test was therefore not satisfied. A further top-up application could be made when better evidence became available.