The determination of life expectation in cerebral palsy litigation must always be driven by the expert evidence in the particular case.
What is set out below is an approach driven by the evidence received from experts in reported decisions, but – be warned – great care must always be taken to ensure that in each case the court has available to it up to date (i) literature and (ii) experienced clinical expert views specific to the particular claimant.
The key High Court cases which have considered life expectancy in cerebral palsy cases are Whiten v St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust [2011] EWHC 2066 (QB) and Robshaw v United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust [2015] EWHC 923 (QB). At the invitation of both sides’ experts in those cases the courts relied on Strauss data. (The latest version of this data – and its analysis – can be found in Brooks JC, Strauss DJ, Shavelle RM, Tran LM, Rosenbloom L, Wu YW “Recent trends in cerebral palsy survival. Part II: Individual survival prognosis.” Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology, (2014) 56:1065-1071 [“Brooks (2014)”] which can be found along with a plethora of useful articles and commentary on the excellent Life Expectancy Project website.
Having assessed the expert evidence, the first instance judges in both Whiten and Robshaw adopted the following three stage approach (please note – a worked example is included at the end of this article). I should stress that not all experts will agree with this three stage approach or methodology.