Malcolm Upfold

Malcolm specialises in handling high value and complex RTA claims, including indemnity issues, on behalf of motor insurers.

He has over 20 years’ experience of traumatic and subtle brain injuries, amputation claims, chronic pain cases and those involving complex medical evidence and liability disputes requiring highly technical expert evidence, as well as fatal accidents, including Inquest representation.

He has also handled Public and Employer’s liability claims on behalf of insurers and self-insured organisations in the public sector, including local authorities and Police and claims in the private sector across retail, leisure, food and manufacturing industries.

Malcolm’s experience extends to Product liability matters, including high profile cases on behalf of a motor manufacturer.

Relevant experience also includes:

• Reducing an RTA quantum only claim, pleaded in excess of £11m, to an award of £562,000, following a six day Trial. The lifetime costs of the Court of Protection, pleaded in excess of £800k even on the awarded damages, were reduced to £125k, the Court applying the principles of chance, proportionality and reasonableness. (ABC (by her Litigation Friend DEF) v Defendant 2018 QBD LTL 24/5/2018).
• Successfully defending the claim brought by a highly paid City employee who sustained a traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic epilepsy when he ran into the carriageway and collided with a taxi. The claim, with a potential value of well over £1m was dismissed at Trial.
• Acting for the Defendant in the Court of Appeal against Claimants who had sustained serious head injuries when they jumped from a taxi to avoid paying a fare. The Court of Appeal reaffirmed the doctrine ex turpi causa preventing those engaged in a crime recovering damages, a decision of particular importance to the insurer client’s large taxi related business. (Beaumont & O’Neill v Ferrer 2016 EWCA Civ 768).
• Negotiating settlement of a pedestrian brain injury case, pleaded in excess of £6.3m, in the sum of £135k.
• Deploying arguments on liability and quantum to secure settlement of £5.25m in a pedestrian RTA claim pleaded in excess of £12.3m.