In 2008 Rodney Nelson-Jones of Field Fisher Waterhouse argued
for and obtained a payment of £12,500 to a hospice in respect of
care which it had provided to a mesothelioma sufferer in the weeks
before his death. This was the first time that damages had been
recovered for a hospice in this way.
It had already been established that damages could be awarded
for the value of care supplied to a sufferer by relatives. Rodney’s
innovation was to extend this principle to the charitable care
provided by hospices. Subsequently we have succeeded in recovering
similar payments for hospices in other cases.
This principle has now been endorsed by His Honour Judge Anthony
Thornton, Q.C. in the High Court case of Drake v Foster Wheeler
Ltd. The mesothelioma victim, James Wilson, had been cared for
at St Joseph’s Hospice in Hackney before his death. The judge
awarded over £10,000 plus interest in respect of the hospice’s
care.
Rodney Nelson-Jones says “I am delighted that the principle
which my firm has pioneered is now enshrined in a High Court
judgment. Most hospices are almost entirely funded by charitable
donations. Damages of this nature provide invaluable extra funding
for them.”