The claimant suffered a neck injury. The GP records recorded “no trauma”. The claimant’s treating neurologist recorded nine months later that the claimant felt the onset of her symptoms when sitting down. The symptoms stemmed from the neck and varied from the left to the right side of the body at different times.
Our expert, Mr Nath, believed the claimant‘s account of the accident and credited a neck strain with acceleration of degenerative symptoms of six to seven years. The defendant’s expert, Mr Nargolwala, said the claimant was attempting to mislead him; her symptoms were not possible, and in correspondence invited us to discontinue the claim.
We tracked down four witnesses who could recall the claimant mentioning her symptoms at work and recalling her leaving work that day to report to her GP.
The defendants produced video evidence which did nothing to damage the claimant’s case. Mr Nath robustly defended his medical opinion with full explanations of his findings. Mr Nargolwala confirmed that he had been retired for more than 10 years and had only operated on a couple of necks as far back as the early 1970s. He also called the claimant a liar in court.
The Judge found in favour of the claimant stating that, in his experience, GPs and consultants wrote what they felt and not necessarily what the patient told them. He preferred Mr Nath’s evidence and thanked him for his evidence, and questioned the reliability of Mr Nargolwala’s evidence saying that he sought too much to play the advocate.
Andrews -v- Ayresome Millennium Partnership. Middlesbrough County Court, 19-22 February 2007.