Last year, we passed a significant milestone when ARAG’s after-the-event policies had been used to help recover more than £2 billion in compensation, in more than 150,000 cases.
While such huge numbers serve to illustrate the commitment ARAG has shown to the ATE sector and the experience we have built up over some 15 years, they can sometimes take the focus away from the many long and challenging individual cases that our solicitor partners pursue, often over several years.
Sadly, too many of the largest settlements are birth injury cases that have left children needing life-long care that is inevitably expensive but also difficult to forecast.
One of the law firms we work with, Moore Barlow, has recently achieved a substantial settlement for a young client who developed cerebral palsy after her unnecessarily traumatic birth, in 2014. The settlement was structured by way of periodical payments and a lump sum, and the capitalised value was just over £9 million.
This case involved issues of consent about modes of delivery. Despite the fact that the claimant’s mother had required an emergency caesarean section to deliver an older sibling at the same hospital, 3 years earlier, her options were not properly discussed. Had the risks been explained to the mother, her evidence was that she would have chosen to deliver her third child by elective caesarean which would have avoided the damaging period of lack of oxygen which caused the harm.
Such cases are inevitably drawn out. While the family instructed Moore Barlow in 2017, it was not until 2020 that there was a liability agreement between the parties, enabling a substantial interim payment that would allow the family to move to temporary accommodation better suited to their daughter’s needs.
It then took a further 2 years to quantify and settle the claim, which required expert advice from witnesses across a range of disciplines, including care needs, occupational therapy and accommodation. Sarah Stanton, a medical negligence partner at Moore Barlow, handled the case and was assisted by solicitor Bronwyn Rae-Le Bourn.
Commenting on the outcome, Sarah Stanton said, “We are so pleased that we were able to bring this case to a successful conclusion for our client and her family. While no amount of damages can change the situation, it will enable this family to have a much better quality of life in the future.”
Like so many of the birth injury cases that ARAG insures, the family has had to wait several years to finally achieve any certainty over how they will be able to rebuild their lives around their severely injured child.
It takes a team of professionals, working together, to achieve success in a case like this, and we are very proud to play our part in ensuring that access to justice is provided and that, ultimately, justice is served.
