A young self-employed carpenter was killed in a fatal accident, resulting in a claim for loss of dependency that was put at just under £2million for earnings and pension.
We were instructed by the defendant, and put the loss at about one-half the sum claimed. There was a lot of common ground between our calculations and those of the claimant’s forensic accountant. However, there remained two key areas on which we could not agree – the claimant’s expert assumed substantial growth in “but for” earnings, and a capital value at the end of his working life, but we identified evidence of a significant decline in fortunes before the accident, and that there was no prospect of a capital value.
Despite our differences, in a joint statement we were able to agree a number of alternative calculations, enabling the parties to settle the claim.