The long awaited updated Book of Quantum was released on 5 October 2016. The updated Book introduces some new injuries as well as including additional classifications of severity of injury.
Previously the categories of injury were "substantially recovered", "significant ongoing" and "serious and permanent conditions".
The updated Book of Quantum provides the following categories: "minor", "moderate", "moderately severe" and "severe and permanent" as the classifications.
Whilst our analysis of the changes to the awards is ongoing, it would seem that the awards for many of the serious and permanent injuries have remained at a similar value as before or have sometimes decreased however, frequently the less serious injuries have increased in value. As the vast majority of claims fall into the lesser categories of severity, it is believed that the updated Book of Quantum will continue the inflationary pressures on settlements and awards.
We anticipate that we will frequently be arguing with Plaintiff's lawyers whether a Plaintiff's condition is either "moderate" or "moderately severe". Experts will need to consider these classifications when preparing reports citing reasons for their view. The addition of the "moderate" and "moderately severe" categories complicates the direct comparison of numerous injuries between the old Book of Quantum and the updated Book. Injuries where these sub-categories have been included in the updated Book have not been included in the comparison below. It is necessary to consider the updated Book in order to assess the impact of these new categories. Below is a list of the like for like injuries in the two versions. The relevant changes of value will be noted.
Click here to view the list.
