Description
A child was entitled to have costs arising from a settled claim for damages under the fixed costs regime as the claim had not been plainly less that £1,000 when submitted.
It was held that paragraph 2.1 of the Pre-action Protocol for Low-Value Personal Injury Claims in Road Traffic Accidents made it clear that there was an expectation of the protocol being used as the best practice in cases to which it applied as defined in para.4.1. That provision contemplated a class of case where it was evident from the outset that the value was obviously less than £1000 and that such a claim was unsuitable for the protocol; on the evidence, it could not be said that at the stage at which the claim was submitted its value was plainly less than £1000. The child could have suffered psychological consequences as a result of the accident; anyone practising in that area was aware that, particularly in the case of children, psychological consequences following accident trauma were common and attracted damages. The information provided to the Defendant had not prompted him to exercise his right to remove it from the protocol on the basis that the claim was worth less than £1000. It followed that the Claimant was entitled to his costs in accordance with CPR r45.33.
