Joint Settlement success for Robert Smith

Robert Smith, being led by Raymond Machell QC, successfully concluded a claim at Joint Settlement Meeting, in a Fatal Accident case. The case involved a Claimant whose father had been killed in a road traffic accident. The traditional loss of dependency grounds were pursued. The novel point in the case was whether the Claimant was entitled to recover damages for that loss of dependency arising out of an alleged loss of inheritance. There is no previous Judicial decision on this point.

The Claimant’s case was that but for her father’s untimely death, he would have inherited significant assets, which in turn would have been passed on to the Claimant at the time of her father’s predicted date of natural death. It was contended that as a consequence of her father’s untimely death, those assets were passed down an alternative family line, such that the Claimant suffered a loss of inheritance. There were significant issues between the parties as to whether the claim was recoverable in law and thereafter as to how it was appropriate to go about valuing those assets at a point in time 40 years hence. At JSM, the claim concluded at a gross figure in the region of £1.2 million.’