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Tort Law Death

Hi everyone, could you please briefly explain me the following points?

In personal injury cases, there are lots of remedies that the injured can claim, but I'm struggling to understand death.

1) What are the purposes of Law Reform Miscellaneous Provisions Act 1934 and the Fatal Accidents Act 1976?

2) Does it matter whether the injured dies immediately or after a certain amount of time (obviously before the trial).

3) In personal injury case, the general principle is to put the injured in an as good position as he would have been had the tort not been commited. Is there any such general principle in here? Is there something like - any dependant may claim for an amount to be in the same position as he would have been had the deceased lived? And, if so, how far does this extend, could you say if the deceased lived, he would have for example paid his mortgage, by the time he died he would probably have left £500,000 estate which would be inherited to me etc?.

4) this is irrelevant to death, but - what if because of a tort, you have 25% chance of dying after 10 years? Could you claim for stress? And could you claim any financial awards? And what could you claim?

Thanks guys!
Reply 1
Avatar for vahik92
vahik92
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anyonee??
Original post by vahik92
Hi everyone, could you please briefly explain me the following points?

In personal injury cases, there are lots of remedies that the injured can claim, but I'm struggling to understand death.

1) What are the purposes of Law Reform Miscellaneous Provisions Act 1934 and the Fatal Accidents Act 1976?

2) Does it matter whether the injured dies immediately or after a certain amount of time (obviously before the trial).

3) In personal injury case, the general principle is to put the injured in an as good position as he would have been had the tort not been commited. Is there any such general principle in here? Is there something like - any dependant may claim for an amount to be in the same position as he would have been had the deceased lived? And, if so, how far does this extend, could you say if the deceased lived, he would have for example paid his mortgage, by the time he died he would probably have left £500,000 estate which would be inherited to me etc?.

4) this is irrelevant to death, but - what if because of a tort, you have 25% chance of dying after 10 years? Could you claim for stress? And could you claim any financial awards? And what could you claim?

Thanks guys!


From what I recall:

1) LRMPA is about who can take on an existing claim
Fatal Accidents Act brings a separate action for the tort causing death - bereavement damages and dependency damages, I think.

2) As long as it was the tort which caused it, I don't think so.

3) I really don't remember but I suspect that's far, far too remote. S.3 of the FAA 1976 details this.

4) Isn't there a pleural plaques case like that? Damned if I remember it. I'd guess if the tort itself causes a medical condition which is forseeable then yes. But mere stress doesn't count anyway.
Original post by gethsemane342


4) Isn't there a pleural plaques case like that? Damned if I remember it. I'd guess if the tort itself causes a medical condition which is forseeable then yes. But mere stress doesn't count anyway.


Grieves v FT everard, and the answer's yes, but only if psychiatric harm was caused and was itself foreseeable. Page v Smith doesn't apply in this situation. The claim failed in Grieves because only physical harm was foreseeable.
(edited 12 years ago)
Mahahaha, I thought that said 'death by tort law' ... I know the feeling o_0
Reply 5
Avatar for hazelnote
hazelnote
Original post by vahik92
Hi everyone, could you please briefly explain me the following points?

In personal injury cases, there are lots of remedies that the injured can claim, but I'm struggling to understand death.

1) What are the purposes of Law Reform Miscellaneous Provisions Act 1934 and the Fatal Accidents Act 1976?

2) Does it matter whether the injured dies immediately or after a certain amount of time (obviously before the trial).

3) In personal injury case, the general principle is to put the injured in an as good position as he would have been had the tort not been commited. Is there any such general principle in here? Is there something like - any dependant may claim for an amount to be in the same position as he would have been had the deceased lived? And, if so, how far does this extend, could you say if the deceased lived, he would have for example paid his mortgage, by the time he died he would probably have left £500,000 estate which would be inherited to me etc?.

4) this is irrelevant to death, but - what if because of a tort, you have 25% chance of dying after 10 years? Could you claim for stress? And could you claim any financial awards? And what could you claim?

Thanks guys!

1) If you read them you'll know... too lazy to set them all out. Basically guidelines.
2) It does. The PSLA (Pain, suffering, loss of amenities) under general damages could be more if the person died in a slow, painful manner. If the death was almost instantaneous and the claimant could present little evidence as to how extremely painful that was, the court would not award as much for PSLA. See Hicks v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police 【1992】.
3）The principle applies so that the deceased's estate or dependents could sue for the loss of earnings etc. As for the estate thing---I guess that is not an action involving the deceased. Should be a separate action, not in tort.
4) I don't think stress is very relevant. I think what is more relevant in such a case would be damages in case of future serious diseases--i.e. provisional awards. I am actually from Hong Kong :tongue: but there should be an equivalent piece of legislation in UK too (coz HK law was from UK as you may have known), the one in Hong Kong is the "Supreme Court Ordinance"(Cap4) which says in s 56A that "...injured person will, as a resulte of the act or omission which gave rise to the cause of action, develop some serious disease or suffer some serious deterioration in his physical or mental condition...may award...damages assessed on the assumption that the injured person will not develop the disease or the deterioration in his condition...and further damages at a future date if he develops the disease or suffers the deterioration."

Hope that helps, but just read your book, I'm from the U of Hong Kong :tongue:
(edited 12 years ago)
Reply 6
Avatar for hazelnote
hazelnote
Original post by sophie_snail
Mahahaha, I thought that said 'death by tort law' ... I know the feeling o_0


That'd be a nice topic, too! :biggrin:

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