Periodical payments have come of age, says
Nicholas Bevan
Three recent High Court decisions have advanced the cause of the periodical payments compensatory mechanism under the Damages Act 1996 (DA 1996), as amended. After a faltering start, their use in personal injury claims involving future loss now seems assured.
First came Flora v Wakom (Heathrow) Ltd [2005] EWHC 2822 (QB), [2005] All ER (D) 117 (Dec), on a preliminary strike-out issue. Sir Michael Turner ruled that a statement of claim which sought periodical payments linked to an alternative index to the retail prices index (RPI) was not bound to fail unless the claimant could show exceptional circumstances. This was subsequently upheld by the Court of Appeal (see Flora v Wakom (Heathrow) Ltd [2006] EWCA Civ 1103, [2006] 4 All ER 982), which also gave guidance on the interpretation of DA 1996, s 2(8) and s 2(9).
The importance of the indexation issue to the success or failure of this measure was flagged up by Judge Turner and endorsed by Lord Justice Brooke on appeal: the periodical payments mechanism risked becoming a rarely used, esoteric oddity—which had been
