MEDICO LEGAL M A G A Z I N E
EXPERTS AND FIXED COSTS EXTENSION By Kerry Underwood, Senior Partner and Solicitor, Underwoods Solicitors
Kerry is an acknowledged expert on funding and the legal system generally. He is a former Judge, current author, lecturer, broadcaster and a former Councillor and Parliamentary Candidate. He deals extensively with Fixed Costs medical reports, MedCo and these matters are in his recent book – Personal Injury Small Claims, Portals and Fixed Costs, running to three volumes and 1,300 pages and available from his website www.underwoods-solicitors.co.uk/book-kerry-underwood.htm Lord Justice Jackson’s report – Review of Civil Litigation Costs: Supplemental Report: Fixed Recoverable Costs – was published on 31 July 2017. It proposes that all cases of all kinds valued at up to £25,000 be subject to Fixed Recoverable Costs (FRC) and thus those personal injury matters currently outside the scheme will now be brought in. The government has already announced that holiday sickness claims will be brought into the scheme early in 2018 and that it is now working with stakeholders in the clinical negligence sector with a view to making all clinical negligence claims of £25,000 or less subject to FRC sooner rather than later. Noise-Induced Hearing Loss claims, currently generally outside the scheme, are to be brought in as soon as possible and the figures and procedure have now been agreed.
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Thus, it is likely that all personal injury work up to £25,000 will be subject to FRC from October 2018. Lord Justice Jackson’s report also proposes a new Intermediate Track which will capture all personal injury claims valued at between £25,000 and £100,000, except clinical negligence claims which will be subject to a separate regime. All cases in the Intermediate Track will be subject to FRC and there will be a streamlined procedure to ensure that those fixed costs adequately compensate lawyers for the work done. The good news for experts is that at present the existing system of fixed costs for medical reports, largely in the existing Fixed Costs Scheme, will not be extended and nor will the MedCo system of supposedly randomly allocating experts.
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