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Whether the costs of administering a trust of any award and Court of Protection costs were compensable and Whether the costs of adaptation/ extension to Mrs Treacey’s house were recoverable
Whether the costs of administering a trust of any award and Court of Protection costs were compensable and
Whether the costs of adaptation/ extension to Mrs Treacey’s house were recoverable.
The Tribunal was only concerned at this hearing with determining whether those heads of loss could be compensated under paragraphs 41 and 42 and not with determining the quantum of any such compensation. Paragraphs 41 and 42 read as follows:
“41. The amount of compensation payable in respect of dependency will be calculated on a basis similar to paragraphs 31-34 (loss of earnings) and paragraph 35 (d) (iii) (cost of care). The period of loss will begin from the date of the deceased’s death and continue for such period as a claims officer may determine, with no account being taken, where the qualifying claimant was formally married to or a civil partner of the deceased, of remarriage or prospects of remarriage or of a new civil partnership or the prospects of a new civil partnership. In assessing the dependency, the claims officer will take account of the qualifying claimant’s income and emoluments (being any profit or gain accruing from an office or employment), if any. Where the deceased had been living in the same household as the qualifying claimant before his death, the claims officer will, in calculating the multiplicand, make such proportional reduction as he considers appropriate to take account of the deceased’s own personal and living expenses.
42. Where a qualifying claimant was under 18 years of age at the time of the deceased’s death and was dependent on him for parental services, the following additional compensation may also be payable:
(a) A payment for loss of that parent’s services at an annual rate of Level 5 of the Tariff; and
(b) such other payments as a claims officer considers reasonable to meet other resultant losses.
Each of these payments will be multiplied by an appropriate multiplier selected by a claims officer in accordance with paragraph 32 (future loss of earnings), taking into account of the period remaining before the qualifying claimant reaches age 18 and of any other factors and contingencies which appear to the claims officer to be relevant.”
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- Heading
- Section 1
- The Tribunal’s Decision
- Costs of appointing a deputy in the Court £16,710 of Protection
- The issues
- Whether the costs of administering a trust of any award and Court of Protection costs were compensable and Whether the costs of adaptation/ extension to Mrs Treacey’s house were recoverable
- Discussion
- The Decision
- The 2001 Scheme So far as a material, the 2001 Scheme provides that
- The 2012 Scheme So far as material, and as I explain at the end of this decision, the 2012 Scheme provides that
- The Applicant’s Submissions
- adaptation to accommodation – at [39] trust and Court of Protection costs – at [40-41]
- The First Ground – The interpretation of the word ‘other’
- words in the scheme were intended to have their ordinary everyday meaning, contrary to other words which could have very specific legal meanings. The paragraph did permit discretion as to which facts
- The Second Ground - Adaptation to accommodation
- The first line of reasoning was that
- The second and third line of reasoning was that
- the Concise Oxford English Dictionary read
- The first line of reasoning at [40] was that
- The second line of reasoning at [41] was that
- The Applicant repeated his submission that the Tribunal erred in finding that “other resultant losses” meant “ resultant from”
- The First Ground: The interpretation of the word ‘other’
- the phrase “ other resultant losses ” appeared in a paragraph specifically concerning loss of parental services (both the stem of paragraph 42 and paragraph 42(a)) and it was a natural reading to link
- the payment for loss of parental services at paragraph 42(a) was a tariff award; it made sense therefore that the Scheme should provide discretion to the claims officer under paragraph 42(b) to make “
- the interpretation of paragraph 42(b) contended for by the Applicant, that it concerned payments “ distinct from parental services as previously mentioned ”, was to read words into the scheme which we
- the wider reading contended for ignored the word “ resultant ” – if the Scheme were intended to refer to any heads of loss without restriction, the word “ resultant ” would not have been used
- The Second Ground: Adaptation to accommodation
- the question was whether a loss or expense claimed was to meet “ other resultant losses ”, not whether the items were spent as part of the provision of parental services. Otherwise, the 2001 Scheme wo
- The Third Ground: Trust and Court of Protection costs
- they were described in the Applicant’s Grounds as “ administrative legal costs ”. Under that logic, any legal costs associated with the fatal injury could be captured by paragraph 42(b); that clearly
- the fact a decision maker would consider “ factors and contingencies ” when considering the appropriate multiplier to be applied to payments which fell under paragraph 42(b) was not relevant to the qu
- Analysis
- The Second Ground: Adaptation to accommodation
- The Third Ground: Trust and Court of Protection costs
- Coda: The 2012 Scheme
- Conclusions