Loss of earnings and pension

 Our team helped a bereaved family to recover loss of profits following the death of a business owner.
 

A claim had been made on behalf of the estate of a deceased man, a partner in a profitable café/restaurant. The man had committed suicide following an act of clinical negligence and the claim was made on the premise that his death was as a direct consequence of that clinical negligence. Fault had already been accepted by the health authority involved.
 

It was claimed that the man’s death had caused the business to lose profit, with a resulting loss of income to the bereaved family.
 

Our expert report addressed two key areas:
 

• Quantification of the lost profit to the business since the death
• Quantification of the lost profit caused by cessation of daily involvement in the business by the deceased.
 

Based on a detailed examination of the financial records our team were able to identify the specific elements of loss and report to the legal team looking after the family’s affairs, and, through calculating the past and future loss, to identify the loss on future sale of the business.
 

A compensatory amount was agreed to the satisfaction of the family. The insurers settled at a figure close to the amount we had calculated. 

Our experts were instructed by the Claimant’s solicitors to calculate the loss of pension suffered by the Claimant, a medical practitioner, injured in a road traffic accident. The Claimant was a skilled surgeon who had recently been offered a more lucrative contract with another surgery, where his specialist skills would be utilised on a more regular basis.
 

The Claimant’s injuries prevented him from taking up the offer, resulting in a loss of personal income and pension.
 

Our report therefore involved the calculation of the potential loss of pension. Pension calculations followed the complex rules of the NHS superannuation scheme, as applicable to medical practitioners. A number of scenarios were calculated, to allow for the potential variances in the number of sessions and operations.
 

Our report facilitated a settlement.

In this matter Graham Garbett was appointed as single joint expert in a case where the Claimant’s accident at a major steelworks caused his industrial cleaning business to fail.
 

The Claimant’s business was a cleaning contractor for the steelworks. 

Birchfields were able to establish that the time spent by the Claimant's business on site was linked to production tonnage and production units. Our loss calculations therefore included detailed compilation and review of production statistics.
 

Because of the complexity of the calculations Graham was required to attend conferences at Court in order to liaise with both instructing solicitors and Counsel.