Aggravated damages meaning

Checklist This checklist sets out the matters a practitioner ought to weigh when assessing general damages. It reviews various heads of damage, such as pain, suffering and loss of amenity (PSLA), Smith v Manchester awards, loss of congenial employment, loss of use, holiday disruption, harm to relationships, reduced marriage prospects, aggravated damages, unnecessary treatment, fatal accidents, and interest. PSLA Pain and suffering reflect the claimant’s personal, subjective experience. Loss of amenity denotes a diminished capacity to carry out ordinary activities. Damages can be granted for physical and/or psychiatric injury and cover distress in the past, present, and future. There is no precise formula for valuation in these assessments of such claims...

Riley v Sivier [2022] EWHC 2891 (KB) What are the practical implications of this case? Two notable themes arise from this careful judgment on serious harm to reputation, the public interest defence in DA 2013, s 4, and the assessment of damages. First, the court considers how evidence of poor reputation bears on serious harm. Steyn J held that ‘fresh’ allegations may still inflict serious harm even when readers already regard the claimant unfavourably. Here, the piece appeared on a site that strongly backed Jeremy Corbyn. Steyn J accepted this likely meant a sizeable share of readers were politically hostile to the claimant, who had been forthright in criticising antisemitism within the Labour Party (para [114]). Nonetheless, the new assertion that the claimant endorsed online abuse of a teenage girl would have lowered readers’ opinions of her, irrespective of pre-existing disagreements with her political stance. Second, the judgment explores in detail the ‘reasonableness’ limb of the public interest defence. The defendant drafted the article quickly—within...

What was the background? The claimant, Mr Fentiman, is the chief executive of Specialist Hygiene Solutions Limited (SHS), which operates under the name Hygiene Solutions. The defendant, Mr Marsh, had previously been a customer of SHS. The libel action arose initially from four online posts authored by Mr Marsh on blogging sites, Twitter and LinkedIn. In the first of these publications, he alleged there had been an unlawful and cowardly cyber-attack on the whistleblower website deproxfraud.info and on his personal Facebook and LinkedIn pages, asserting that this had merely served to alert the NHS, Public Health England and the Health and Safety Executive to what he described as the grubby and unethical behaviour of ‘Rick’ Fentiman and his ‘minions’ at Hygiene Solutions Ltd. Mr Fentiman pleaded that the natural and ordinary meaning of that post was that he was the person responsible for executing the unlawful cyber-attack on the identified internet platforms. The second post, which included a photograph of Mr Fentiman, was, owing to the nature...

Meade v (1) Westminister City Council (2) Social Work England (ET Case No 2200179/2022, 2211483/2022) Employment Judge Richard Nicolle, in a remedy judgment released on 1 March 2024, decided that the social work regulator and Rachel Meade’s managers at the council must pay an injury to feelings sum of £40,000 together with aggravated damages. The judgment further makes the regulator liable for an additional £5,463 by way of exemplary damages. Nicolle J recorded that, in the tribunal’s view, every witness for the respondents failed to recognise that the claimant’s gender-critical beliefs were legitimate and views she was free to express, a failure which underpinned the awards made as clearly set out in the same published ruling...

This Practice Note outlines the options open to landowners faced with unlawful occupation by a trespasser or squatter, the issues that can follow from trespass, and the potential measures the owner may pursue, including physical repossession. It considers the Criminal Law Act 1977 (CLA 1977) and the exception for displaced residential occupiers, the use of police powers to arrest where suitable, the effect of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO 2012) in criminalising residential squatting, injunctions and interim injunctions, and damages, including the negotiating damages approach, mesne profits, exemplary and aggravated damages, anticipated damages, and res judicata defences. The ways a landowner can recover possession from a trespasser include: physical repossession arrest of the trespasser by the police for a criminal offence injunction possession claim (including a claim for an interim possession order) Beyond the remedies available to recover possession, a landowner may also claim damages for the trespass. Such claims may involve negotiating damages,...

This Practice Note considers how damages are assessed in a prohibited conduct claim (eg a discrimination claim) under the Equality Act 2010 (EqA 2010)... Possible types of compensation An award of compensation can cover a number of distinct heads, namely: general financial loss (eg lost earnings, benefits, and the like) injury to feelings compensation for personal injury (where injury results and is attributable to the discrimination) pension loss interest aggravated damages exemplary damages General financial loss is addressed in Practice Note: Prohibited conduct claims: general financial loss. Injury to feelings and personal injury damages are dealt with in Practice Note: Prohibited conduct claims: injury to feelings and personal injury. Pension loss is covered in Practice Note: Calculating pension loss in employment tribunal claims. The other heads are discussed below... Apportioning compensation between wrongdoers It is common for one or more individual employees to be named as respondents alongside the employer; for example, an employee...

Practice Note This Practice Note provides links to the Harvey Quantum awards and recommendations database focused on employment tribunal awards and recommendations. It includes coverage of injury to feelings awards across all discrimination grounds, personal injury, aggravated damages, exemplary damages, uplifts for non-compliance with the Acas Code, and recommendations. The database is designed to help practitioners understand the kinds of considerations and contexts that lead tribunals and courts to make particular awards and recommendations in employment discrimination matters. In turn, it offers guidance on the likely level of compensation clients might receive (or agree in settlement) in the specific circumstances of a case. Illustrative recommendations and the sums granted by employment tribunals and courts for discretionary heads of loss in discrimination claims are included. Heads of loss that typically do not involve such discretion (beyond the period of loss), for example loss of earnings, are excluded. The case notes also outline the facts and the principal reasons for the awards in each matter. The notes are relatively brief... ...

1 Definitions Contamination: Hazardous Substances present at, in, on or beneath the Premises. Aggravated Contamination: Existing Contamination worsened by the Tenant or those it controls. Environment: air, land, water, and supported ecosystems or organisms, including humans. Existing Contamination: contamination present by Lease start, and its escape, excluding Aggravated. Hazardous Substances: any substance, alone or combined, able to harm the Environment or the health of organisms it supports. Losses: all losses, liabilities, actions, proceedings, claims, judgments, penalties, damages, costs and expenses, including legal and other professional fees. New Contamination: contamination (not Existing/Aggravated) first arising or migrating after Lease start. Statutory Guidance: Defra 2012 and/or Welsh 2012 guidance, plus later regime guidance. 2 Contamination The Tenant has no responsibility or liability for Existing Contamination; the Landlord must indemnify the Tenant. The Tenant is liable for, and shall indemnify the Landlord against, Losses from New Contamination and Aggravated Contamination. 3 Agreement on liabilities...