<2>Clinical Negligence: Injured Children Can Claim Lost Earnings for Full Healthy Working Life, Judges Rule
<3>The UK Supreme Court has made a landmark ruling that could significantly increase damages for children negligently brain damaged at birth. This decision has far-reaching implications for families affected by clinical negligence and will enable injured children to claim lost earnings for the full period they would have worked and received a pension, had they not been injured.
<3>The ruling overturns a previous Appeal Court decision in 1981, which limited the period of lost earnings to the years a child was expected to live. This decision was made due to the fact that many children with brain injuries have a shortened life expectancy. However, the Supreme Court judges have now ruled that this limitation is no longer applicable.
<3>The case at the centre of the ruling involves a 10-year-old girl who cannot be named. She was born at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield in 2015 with severe spastic cerebral palsy as a result of a brain injury. She experiences pain and spasms, has profound learning difficulties, severe visual impairment, respiratory impairment, and epilepsy, and has a life expectancy of 29 years.
<3>The girl’s family has been fighting for