Udmåling af erstatning ved personskade og tab af forsørger - Krim

3.8 United Kingdom
296
In the United Kingdom, the lump sum is at present the only
form of tort compensation. Annuities, whether fixed or
index-linked, cannot be awarded by courts.*
According to British legal theory and practice, a distinc-
tion is made between various recognised heads of damages
as follows:
a) Special damages have to make full compensation for
actual losses and expenses incurred between the date of
the accident and that of the trial;
b) General damages include loss of future earnings, cost
of future care and other future expenses, as well as
non-pecuniary damage (pain and suffering, loss of
amenity).
Future loss of income will be computed on the basis of the
plaintiff's annual earnings, net of tax and social secu-
rity contributions, at the date of the judgement. The
starting point for determining loss of dependency is the
part of the deceased's annual earnings which he would have
spent for the benefit of his dependents. When assessing
* According to the report of the Royal Commission on Civil Liability
and Compensation for Personal Injury (Pearson Co-mission
), published in 1978, the courts should award damages for
future pecuniary loss caused by death or serious and lasting
injury in the form of periodic payments, although the parties
should still be at liberty to settle the claim by an agreed
lump sum. Such periodic payments would be linked to the evolution
of the wage index. In cases where damages continue to be
awarded in the form of a lump sum, the multiplier should, according
to the majority of the Commission, be severely
raised. No doubt, the introduction of indexed annuities as the
usual form of damages for serious injury or lost dependency
would have the most far-reaching consequences for the insurance
industry. The difficult problem of financing could not be
solved by the insurance industry alone. At this stage, it
seems most unlikely that these recommer.dat ions of the Commission
will be adopted by Parliament in the near future.