D's Parent & Guardian (Ap) v Greater Glasgow Health Board

[1] This medical negligence action called for Proof on Tuesday 9 November 2010 . Liability had been admitted. An interim award had been made in 2003 [ D's Parent and Guardian v Argyll and Clyde Acute Hospitals NHS Trust 2003 SLT 511]. (The liabilities of the previous defenders have been transferred to the present defenders.) The proof, restricted to quantum, was set down for nine weeks. The sum sued for was �23,000,000.

[2] At 12.30 on the second day, 10 November, senior counsel for the pursuer made a motion, unopposed, to adjourn for two days to discuss settlement. I granted the motion. The case called again on Friday 12 November and was further adjourned until Tuesday 16 November. On Tuesday 16 November, on joint motion, the proof was discharged. The case was continued by Order and then again on two further occasions until 3 February 2011 when I pronounced decree in terms of a settlement agreed by Joint Minute.

[3] Counsel invited me to issue an Opinion about the settlement so as to record and publicise its elements. I am happy to do this because the settlement represents new thinking about the resolution of certain catastrophic injury cases in Scotland . Counsel and solicitors are to be complimented on the professionalism which they have shown in achieving this outcome.

[4] The outcome is a settlement that includes periodical payments for the claimant's lifetime. With only one exception that I was told of, in 2002, Scottish medical negligence cases of this kind have been settled on a lump sum basis. Judicial awards of course have to be made on a lump sum basis. This is notwithstanding the fact that the limitations of, not to say objections to, lump sum compensation in catastrophic injury cases have been appreciated for many years.

Catastrophic neurological injury [6] The claimant is a boy, aged ten at the date of the proof. He suffered catastrophic neurological trauma at birth. During delivery assisted by Keilland's forceps there was a compression-torsion injury of his spinal cord at the highest level, C1/C2.