MARK T*****
v
MINISTRY OF DEFENCE
SETTLEMENT REPORT
Severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder following a helicopter accident Principled negotiation by both sides
Mr Mark T***** was born in 1964 and so was 27 at the date of the accident on 18th May 1992. He was 34 at the time of settlement, in November 1999.
The Claimant was standing near a helicopter landing pad, during the course of his employment in the Army as a Lance Corporal: as a helicopter approached the pad in order to land, its downdraft blew over a fence, which fell on the Claimant, causing a fracture of the neural arch of C5, with subluxation of C5 on C6. The Claimant underwent surgery for decompression and fusion. The Claimant found the way he was handled at the time of the accident to be deeply upsetting, and he seems to have developed a very severe and puzzling reaction to the accident, the injury and its effect on him. The diagnosis by Professor Malcolm MacCulloch, a Forensic Psychiatrist (in my opinion, one of the best in the country) was originally that the Claimant suffered from a severe depressive illness reactive to the circumstances (loss of a career which he valued highly, coupled with pain). However, when Professor MacCulloch re-examined the Claimant in November 1999, he revised his opinion by diagnosing also that there had been late onset of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He emphasised that late onset of PTSD was known in the literature, and therefore a significant lapse of time between accident and onset did not disprove or weaken the diagnosis. He was helped in his diagnosis by the reports of Doctor Clive Glass a Chartered Consultant Clinical Psychologist working at the spinal injury unit in Southport, who of course has great experience of spinal pain.
The effect of the accident was that the Claimant was unable to work, and so was dismissed in October 1994.
The case was complicated by a video of the Claimant, which allegedly showed either that he was malingering or that his residual disability and handicap were nowhere near as bad as he made out. There was already a slightly dismissive report by Doctor Schady, minimising the impact of the injuries, but the Defendants also had a very much more considered report from Doctor R.W. Jones, a psychiatrist in Liverpool, although when he read the report prepared by the enquiry agents about the video (he did not see the video) he commented that it would "bring into question the veracity" of the Claimant's statements about his abilities. Despite that, Professor MacCulloch wrote that "I am absolutely convinced this is a genuine case".
On the face of it, this claim would have appeared to be impossible to settle. The video undoubtedly did show the Claimant doing more than he had apparently asserted he could do, and we could not dismiss the defence view of the video as unrealistic, even though we clearly had the support of Professor MacCulloch.
Because many major claims against the Ministry of Defence are approached in a different way to normal litigation, special relationships having developed between the MOD's Claims Manager and the various firms of solicitors involved, it was considered worthwhile to have a meeting. The Claimant's Schedule set out the claim in detail, but none of the figures were agreed. The final settlement was £400,000, and the figures set out below would be a fair approach from the Claimant's side to the way in which his claim was put.
| Past Losses: | |
| Earnings: | £ 50,000 |
| Care: | £ 20,000 |
| Interest: | £ 20,000 |
| Future Loss and Expense: | |
| Earnings in the Army: | £ 78,000 |
| Earnings in Civilian life: | £111,000 |
| Loss of Pension: | £ 30,000 |
| Care: | £ 70,000 |
| Miscellaneous: | £ 10,000 |
| Pain, suffering and loss of amenity: | £ 30,000 |
It has to be emphasised that those figures all took into account the very obvious risk that a Judge, having comparatively little opportunity to make an assessment of the Claimant, would decide that he was indeed malingering.
A particularly interesting feature of the case, from my point of view, was the suggestion by the defence Silk that, if we were unable to agree a settlement, we might consider the possibility of nominating a personal injury Silk as an arbitrator, and thus avoiding the Court system. I wrote an article in The Times a short while ago floating the possibility that personal injury practitioners might do this, because we are so often provided with non-specialist Judges, and therefore it was fascinating to see that this was a possibility in this type of litigation.
Bill Braithwaite Q.C. and Gerard Martin were instructed by Lesley Casey of Donns, Manchester.