Helen Wright V. Stoddard International Plc+novartis Grimsby Limited
| Jurisdiction | Scotland |
| Judge | Lord Uist |
| Neutral Citation | [2007] CSOH 173 |
| Date | 23 October 2007 |
| Docket Number | A4804/01 |
| Court | Court of Session |
| Published date | 23 October 2007 |
| OUTER HOUSE, COURT OF SESSION [2007] CSOH 173 | |
| A4804/01 | SUPPLEMENTARY OPINION OF LORD UIST in the cause HELEN WRIGHT Pursuer against (FIRST) STODDARD INTERNATIONAL PLC and (SECOND) NOVARTIS GRIMSBY LIMITED Defenders ________________ |
Pursuer: Marshall, Solicitor; Thompsons
First Defenders: R A Smith, QC, Comiskey, Dunlop; Simpson & Marwick WS
23 October 2007
[159] I refer to paras 156 and 157 of my opinion dated 2 August 2007. In para 156 I identified the following three separate aspects to the question of damages for pleural plaques. First, do pleural plaques sound in damages at all? Secondly, if they do, in what circumstances? Thirdly, if an award for pleural plaques is competent in this case, what is the appropriate award of damages? In para 157 I stated that, in view of the fact that the appeal to the House of Lords from the decision of the Court of Appeal in Rothwell v Chemical & Insulating Co Ltd [2006] 4 All ER 1161 had been heard in June 2007 and that the decision of the House of Lords was expected to be issued in October 2007, I was reserving my opinion on the question of damages for pleural plaques and proposed to issue a supplementary opinion dealing with it once the decision of their Lordships' House had been issued. As the decision of the House of Lords was given on 17 October 2007 ([2007] UKHL 39) I now issue this supplementary opinion.
[160] Although all five of their Lordships delivered separate speeches, and Lord Hope of Craighead appeared to take a slightly different approach from the others, the decision was a unanimous one and I think that the full decision is well summarised by Lord Hoffman, who gave the leading speech, at para 2 as follows:
"Proof of damage is an essential element in a claim in negligence and in my opinion the symptomless plaques are not compensatable damage. Neither do the risk of future illness or anxiety about the possibility of that risk materialising amount to damage for the purpose of creating a cause of action, although the law allows both to be taken into account in computing the loss suffered by someone who has actually suffered some compensatable physical injury and therefore has a cause of action. In the absence of such compensatable injury, however, there is no cause of action under which damages may be claimed and therefore no computation of loss in which the risk and anxiety may be taken into account. It follows that in my opinion the development of pleural plaques, whether or not associated with the risk of future disease and anxiety about the future, is not actionable injury. The same is true even if the anxiety causes a recognised psychiatric injury such as clinical depression. The right to protection against...
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