APIL has welcomed the clear and final Supreme Court judgment in Hassam v Rabot on the issue of claiming compensation when whiplash is combined with other injuries.
People with ‘mixed injury’ claims can claim full common law compensation for their non-tariff injuries at the same time as the statutory tariff payment for the whiplash.
“The erosion of damages for personal injuries has been contained to whiplash, for now. The Civil Liability Act was only ever about whiplash,” said APIL secretary Brett Dixon.
“The Supreme Court is clear that the principle of full compensation is maintained for the other, non-tariff injuries. This is the final word on the issue, giving injured people and their representatives some much-needed clarity,” he went on.
“A play by insurers to reduce injured people’s compensation to just the whiplash tariff payment would have been a huge affront to the principle of full and fair compensation had it succeeded. It would have allowed insurers to circumvent their responsibilities to victims of negligence beyond what had already been decided by the Government when it introduced the whiplash tariff.”
The Supreme Court agreed with a previous ruling by the Court of Appeal last year that people with mixed injuries should receive the whiplash tariff payment plus any additional payment for the non-whiplash injury, but that the court should then take a ‘step back’ and make a deduction for any overlap to avoid overcompensation.
“While today’s result is positive, we maintain that the whiplash tariff itself is grossly unfair. The language used by the Supreme Court highlighted that the tariff amount was not full compensation and was, in fact, undercompensating,” said Mr Dixon.
“It is now over to the OIC to clear the backlog of cases which have stalled while this ruling was pending. Claims can progress and injured people can finally receive their compensation,” he added.