Government Proposes Changes to Law on Damages  

The Department for Constitutional Affairs has issued a consultation document on the civil law relating to claims for damages. The paper considers making it possible for a wider range of people to bring claims for damages where someone has been killed as a result of the negligence of another. It is proposed to extend the categories of persons considered to be dependants and of those eligible to claim damages for bereavement.

The main proposals are:

• to extend the statutory list of those able to make a claim as a dependant so that it includes ‘any person who was being wholly or partly maintained by the deceased immediately before the death’;
• to include any person who had been living with the deceased as husband and wife (or in an equivalent same sex relationship) for at least two years immediately prior to the accident;
• to extend the list of claimants able to claim bereavement damages to include children of the deceased who were under 18 at the time of the death; and
• to provide for a fixed sum of £5,000 in bereavement damages for each eligible child of the deceased under the age of 18.

Another idea under consideration is the possibility that in the case of injury, the injured person could claim the cost of private medical treatment where appropriate. 

 See the consultation paper .

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