On the 27th September 1996, the S family were on holiday in Lanzarote when they were involved in a serious road traffic accident. It transpired that Mr S who was driving inadvertently turned across the path of an oncoming coach as a result of which his wife was killed, he sustained catastrophic brain injury, his daughter, S, equally catastrophic injuries which were to prove to render her in a semi vegative state and his son, D, a fractured shoulder. Apart from the serious nature of the injuries there were complex legal issues involving jurisdiction and life expectancy. The Spanish insurers of the vehicle Mr S was driving fought desperately hard to retain the case in Spain where damages are, generally speaking, lower.
Spain has its own unique legal system which involves an inquisitorial investigation by the Magistrate and the technical legal issue was the question of which jurisdiction was first seized of the case. Predictably the Spanish insurers tried to argue that the instigation of the inquisitorial process in Spain meant that the Spanish jurisdiction was seized and therefore under the convention the English Courts were excluded. The issue of jurisdiction was pursued and the expert evidence garnered for the young claimant was always thought to be strongly persuasive but the Spanish insurers refused to back down until about a week before trial. It was then possible to quantify the case in English Law. It was critical to have understood the jurisdiction issues because proceedings had to be issued in the English jurisdiction within the Spanish limitation period which is only 12 months.
The issue of life expectancy for a young person in a vegative condition are difficult and ultimately the case was settled by way of a lump sum and a structured settlement to provide for and pay for the care of the claimant for as long as she continued to live. The Defendants also tried to argue that in relation to care that the statutory authorities having paid previously for the care of the claimant would do so in the future there was therefore no claim for future care. This argument was discounted on settlement.
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