JSB Guidelines Not Appropriate

Coxon v Flintshire County Council (CA TLR 13 March)

The trial judge had awarded the claimant £70,000 damages, including £35,000 for pain, suffering and loss of amenity in respect of physical, emotional and sexual abuse suffered in the local authority’s care in 1979 and 1980. The JSB Guidelines for the Assessment of General Damages in Personal Injury Cases, suggested £25,000 to £50,000 for severe cases of psychiatric damage and £9,000 to £25,000 for moderately severe cases. Not only were these figures no more than guidelines, the court was far from satisfied that the Board’s categorisation applied to a case of this kind at all. Physical, emotional and sexual abuse of children in care by those who were supposed to provide that care fell into a wholly different category from psychiatric damage that followed other personal injuries. The injury was of a different character. The essential element of the damage was the extent to which the injury compounded and multiplied the effect of the pre-existing condition. The guidelines did not take into account the duration of the suffering. Victims of such abuse were frequently unable to address the abuse until many years later.