Significant Success for David Platt KC and Peter Houghton in the Military Deafness Litigation
24th Apr 2026
The High Court (Mr Justice Garnham) has today delivered a lengthy landmark judgment providing long-awaited clarity on the approach to be taken to causation and quantum in military deafness claims. There were significant successes for the Ministry of Defence, who were represented by a counsel team including David Platt KC and Peter Houghton from Crown Office Chambers.
Garnham J gave his decision on numerous generic issues in military deafness, some of which will also have relevance to industrial noise claims.
Headline points from the judgment are as follows:
- Military screening audiograms should not be dismissed out of hand. Most are conducted properly and in good faith. They should be used as part of the evidence when considering medicolegal claims, for both diagnosis and quantification, unless it is clear that they cannot be relied upon because they show significant and unexplained variation.
- Prof. Moore’s 2022 revised method for diagnosis of military NIHL, known as rM-NIHL, was generally to be preferred to the CLB method (designed for industrial deafness cases) for diagnosis, but important qualifications were made to its application (with respect to the AAHL data to be used, and the potential for an adjustment to the measured HTLs at 6 kHz to reflect the artefact caused when TDH-39P headphones are used). The judgment does not affect the applicability of the CLB method in non-military cases. Prof. Moore’s 2020 M-NIHL method and his 2023 MLP(18) method were roundly rejected.
- Prof. Moore’s approach to quantification of military NIHL was generally to be preferred to the LCB method (again designed for industrial NIHL cases), but significant qualifications were made to its application with respect to: the AAHL data to be used; the percentile to be chosen; the frequencies to serve as a baseline descriptor of NIHL (1/2/3 rather than 1/2/4 kHz); the use of a binaural calculation. The judgment does not affect the applicability of the CLB method in non-military cases.
- In general, binaural NIHL of less than 4 dB should be taken as de minimis in the absence of other consequences of noise exposure that left a claimant appreciably worse off.
- The Claimants failed to prove that exposure to intense military noise accelerated future AAHL or that military NIHL progressed after the cessation of exposure. And even if the general position were accepted, there was no way to identify or quantify such acceleration/latency in an individual claim so as to make it a secure foundation for any award of damages.
- Noise-induced cochlear synaptopathy could not be definitively diagnosed in living claimants. Still less could it be quantified, and the effects of ageing stripped out. There was no way for the Claimants to establish that noise-induced cochlear synaptopathy had made any identifiable difference to their hearing ability, whether or not they had an audiometric loss. In short, cochlear synaptopathy was a dead end that did not avail the Claimants.
- The longer the time between noise exposure and onset of tinnitus, the greater the scrutiny of claims for damages for tinnitus was required. The courts should be circumspect about such claims for delayed-onset tinnitus.
- The decision in Billett v. MOD was a powerful one, reaffirming the utility and appropriateness of Smith v. Manchester awards, declining to delimit the class of cases in which an ‘Ogden disabled’ calculation was not appropriate, and containing astute observations on the difficulties associated with the ‘one size fits all’ statistics in Ogden Tables A-D. They might provide an accurate group average but were not likely to be accurate for any individual. They were not a substitute for consideration of detailed evidence in the particular case, though they might provide a useful starting point or cross-check. On the facts of one of the lead cases, Christopher Lambie, the Claimants’ claim for £370,000 for loss of future earnings and pension, which was an arithmetical creation through application of the Ogden Table B disabled RF, was unconscionable. It did not reflect the relevant evidence. A 12-month Smith award was made instead.
David and Peter have prepared a longer summary article, available here.
A copy of the judgment can be found here.
David and Peter, along with Kate Longson of Ropewalk Chambers, were instructed by Eleanor Fox, Ryan Bird and Katie Rose of Keoghs on behalf of the MOD.
