!!Экзамен зачет 2023 год / Pert Lae second edition Part 2 Pages 1-28

general introduction 41

defendants including public authorities and providers of recreational services: see Civil Liability Act 2002 (NSW), ss. 5M, 5L, 42, 45). However, the extent to which these reforms were needed, or have themselves been responsible for any reduction in insurance costs, has been questioned (Wright, ‘National trends in personal injury litigation: Before and a<er “Ipp”’ (2006) 14 TLJ 233). Indeed, Ipp JA—the Chair of the expert panel mentioned above— has himself questioned the breadth of the reforms and commented: ‘It is di9cult to accept that public sentiment will allow all these changes to remain long-term features of the law’ (‘ emes in the Law of Tort’ (2007) 81 ALJ 609) For discussion of the reforms, see Keeler, ‘Personal responsibility and the reforms recommended by the Ipp Report: “Time future contained in time past”’ (2006) 14 TLJ 48, and McDonald, ‘ e impact of the civil liability legislation on fundamental policies and principles on the common law of negligence’ (2006) 14 TLJ 268.

More recently, and closer to home, Ireland presents us with another model for possible reform. Since 2004, a new statutory body, the Personal Injuries Assessment Board (PIAB), has had the task of assessing compensation in most cases of personal injury where liability is not contested. Claimants must submit to the procedure and cannot initiate a claim in court without the PIAB’s authorisation. Proceedings are conducted entirely on paper, with no oral hearing. Claimants can get assistance from the PIAB’s own telephone advice line, but if they want to be represented by a solicitor they must make arrangements at their own expense; they usually also have to bear a signi?cant part of the cost of any medical report. e PIAB assesses the level of damages for non-pecuniary loss (‘pain and su=ering’) by reference to the World Health Organization’s International Classi?cation of Diseases, with guideline ?gures for particular injuries set out in a Book of Quantum. Damages for loss of earnings, medical expenses, etc. are also recoverable. e parties can choose whether to accept or reject the assessment, but, if both accept, it has the same legal e=ect as a court judgment. If either party rejects the assessment, the case has to be pursued through the courts. e reform aims to allow the resolution of personal injury claims quickly (an average of nine months, as opposed to three years for personal injury claims in the courts) and without the legal expenses and experts fees associated with traditional tort litigation. Some observers in the United Kingdom, especially in the insurance sector, are beginning to advocate a similar reform on this side of the Irish Sea. But the Irish reforms have been criticised for making claimants bear their own legal and expert witness costs, for allowing defendants to put liability in issue aMer the PIAB’s assessment of damages, and so pressure claimants into acceptance, and for failing to meet its own objectives because only about a quarter of personal injury claims result in a PIAB assessment (Flynn, April PI Focus, 2006, vol. 16 issue 3(33) and 2007, vol. 17 issue 2(10)). See generally Gilhoody, ‘PI Changes in Ireland—Implications for England and Wales’ [2006] JPIL 104; Quill, in European Tort Law 2004, pp. 363–6.

It can be seen that, in the United States, Australia and Ireland, ‘tort reform’ inevitably refers to restrictions on the scope of liability in tort. at is not (yet) true in the United Kingdom. In fact, many of the most recent tort reforms here have increased the cost of compensation, or at least e=ected a signi?cant transfer of the cost from the public to the private sector (see Lewis, ‘ e Politics of Tort Reform’ (2006) 69 MLR 418). ese issues are considered in more detail in Chapters 16 and 18.