Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2003 19:44:26 -0400

From: Jason Neyers

Subject: New PC decision

Dear Colleagues,

The Privy Council has just released a new decision dealing with causation which seemingly indicates that Fairchild is to be the exception not the new rule (see http://www.privy-council.org.uk/files/other/channel%20islands-adv-rtf.rtf). Per Lord Hoffmann:

39. ...Whatever may have been the obscure cause of her lamentable condition, her sufferings and her needs have been and are the same. But in Jersey as in England it is an essential condition for obtaining the relatively generous compensation awarded by the law of negligence that, save in the most unusual case, the plaintiff should satisfy the court on a balance of probability that but for the defendant's negligent conduct she would not have suffered her injuries. This, on the evidence, Miss Hotchkiss failed to do.

--
Jason Neyers
Assistant Professor of Law
Faculty of Law
University of Western Ontario
N6A 3K7
(519) 661-2111 x. 88435

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