Heil v Rankin

No increase in damages for injury to feelings

The 5-man Court of Appeal (presided over by Woolf MR) handed down its decision this morning in Heil v Rankin (+ associated appeals).

There is to be no increase in general damages (contrary to the recent recommendations of the Law Commission) in claims where general damages are up to £10,000. Claims where general damages exceed £10,000 will be increased by a series of tapered increases, up to a maxmimum of one-third for claims of the utmost severity (i.e. paraplegics etc.)

There was a widespread anticipation that all general damage claims over £3,000 would be increased by up to 100%. However, the Court of Appeal has rejected the Law Commission's recommendations.

This has an impact on claims under the discrimination statutes for damages for injury to feelings, which (probably) would have risen in line with similar claims for psychiatric injury in the county courts. No increase in 'customary' figures can now be expected.

The transcript can be downloaded from http://www.courtservice.gov.uk/civil_personal.htm