Overview

Written and presented by expert practitioners, professional presenters, APIL Senior Fellows, and JPIL case digest editors Brett Dixon and John McQuater, this session will help you stay ahead of the curve with APIL’s Personal Injury Update.

The APIL Personal Injury Update is a comprehensive full-day course designed to deliver the most current insights into personal injury law, covering key developments in practice, procedure, and case law.

Led by leading expert practitioners, this session provides practical guidance and early awareness of sector trends, empowering your team and strengthening your firm’s capabilities in a rapidly evolving legal landscape. With limited places available, we urge you to book onto the event as soon as possible to ensure you don’t miss out.

The content

By the end of the training, participants will walk away with valuable, up-to-date knowledge, enabling them to deliver improved client service and maintain a competitive edge. 

Keeping pace with evolving regulations, legal standards, and procedural updates is not only crucial for success, but also vital for ensuring ongoing compliance and reducing legal risk.

This event will cover:

Road Traffic Collisions

• MIB: The Untraced Drivers Agreement and its equivalence to court approval for minors.
• Vehicle Product Liability: Product liability claims against vehicle manufacturers under the Consumer Protection Act 1987 regarding seat belt design and vehicle safety features.
• Contributory Negligence : Children, school crossings and visibility.
• ANPR Evidence: Utility, deployment and court inferences.

Employers’ Liability

• Workplace Machinery & Contributory Negligence: Assessing relative blameworthiness and causative potency in contributory negligence findings where work is undertaken near running machinery in light of written risk assessments.
• EU Work Equipment Directive & State Emanations: Direct enforceability of EU Work Equipment Directive obligations against state emanations for pre-Brexit workplace injuries and acoustic shock.
• Occupational Stress & Disciplinary Investigations: Employer duty of care and liability for occupational stress and psychiatric relapse caused by unadapted misconduct investigations despite explicit medical notice.
• Vicarious Liability:
• Workplace Pranks: The limits of vicarious liability for workplace pranks, horseplay, and independent personal excursions using industrial equipment.
• Office Holders: What this means for the relationship akin to employment test
• Workplace Accident Investigations & Dishonesty: Managing employers' liability claims, accident scene investigations, and responding to allegations of fundamental dishonesty.
• Workplace Stress & Occupational Workload: Breach of duty in workplace stress claims concerning excessive occupational workload and quantum assessment.
• Cross-Border Transport & Jurisdiction: Employers' liability and jurisdictional challenges in claims brought by cross-border transport workers.
• Schools: Liability for provision of misleading information to parents.
• Illegality: The Supreme Court on the interaction with the criminal insanity defence.

Negligence, Public and Occupier’s Liability & Clinical Negligence

• Occupiers' Liability & Self-Inflicted Risk: Occupiers' liability and obvious self-inflicted risks arising from a claimant's own recreational activity on premises.
• Control Room Errors & Officer Safety: Vicarious liability for police control room errors in recording suspect status, and assessing contributory negligence when officers enter premises without prior communication.
• Off-Duty Barracks Incidents & Occupiers' Liability: Employers' and occupiers' duty of care under OLA 1957 to off-duty service personnel engaging in intoxicated horseplay on barracks premises.

Damages & Quantum

• Fatal Accidents & Family Businesses: Fatal Accidents Act 1976 dependency claims for loss-making family agricultural businesses based on replacement management costs.
• Fatal Accidents Dependency Valuation: Fatal Accidents Act 1976 dependency claims, valuation of financial dependency, and loss of financial support calculations.
• Lost Years Damages: Landmark Supreme Court ruling overturning Croke v Wiseman on "lost years" damages for children.
• CICA: Reopening awards and the need for a "material change" in medical condition.
• Mesothelioma: The Supreme Court on the impact of the Damages (Scotland) Act 2011 and prior settlements.