Jamie Clarke

Personal Injury

Jamie Clarke is recommended as having established expertise in injury liability including employers’, occupational disease, public and occupiers’, RTA / Motor and general insurance with a particular focus on strategy, liability, quantum, coverage and compulsory insurance.

He represents claimants and defendants, as well as insurance clients direct in relation to their liability and indemnity personal injury claims. In recent years, Jamie’s practice has been predominantly defendant focused.

Jamie has experience of all types of injury, including brain and spinal injuries and psychiatric injuries, with particular expertise in limb and joint injuries, including traumatic amputations. He specialises in specific aspects of injury claims, including analysis of CRU, CRU appeals, limitation, dissolved Defendants, disclosure of insurance documents and policy details, the impact of public provision of care in utmost severity / catastrophic claims, and rare heads of loss, fraud/intelligence & surveillance, exaggerated and opportunistic claim, and more complex areas of injury practice such as defending claims for chronic pain / fibromyalgia, somatoform disorders and stress at work. He also acts for clients where, in the course of injury proceedings, reputations may be at stake and a different strategic approach is required.

Selected Cases

• Morphew v East Sussex County Council – Secured a successful outcome at 5 day “battle of experts” trial concerning an ankle injury that was either worth a 4-figure sum or a 6-figure sum depending on which experts’ view prevailed. The key to success was the insight gained from conferences with own expert and Jamie’s cross-examination of the opposing expert.
• Martin v South Tees NHS Trust & Endeavour SCH PLC – At a multi-day trial, on behalf of the NHSLA, securing a favourable ruling on the construction of the indemnity clause in an NHS trust’s 1200 page agreement with its PFI service provider for EL claims brought against the trust.
• Smallwood v Bector Secured – Favourable settlement for insurer on 1st day of multi-day trial where the Claimant relied on medico-legal evidence of a ‘celebrity’ clinician whose treatment fees formed a substantial proportion of the special damages claims, giving rise to issues of conflict set out in Jamie’s skeleton argument.
• Forbes v Partnership Health Group – Advised closely on strategy, in particular as to deployment of surveillance evidence and costs implications, leading to a Claimant accepting a historic part 36 offer days before a 5-day trial.
• Harrop v Pstores – Successfully resisting Defendant’s application to withdraw an admission of liability in an EL claim at a fully contested 3-hour hearing.
• Duncum v Churm – In a claim pleaded at over £1m, with Jamie’s close tactical input, a position was reached where the Claimant accepted a much lower historic part 36 out of time. On Jamie’s advice, Insurers issued an application that the Claimant pay the costs not only from 21 days after the part 36 offer up to acceptance but from the much earlier date when the Claimant had first served her £1m schedule on the basis that that schedule had been a ‘serious impediment to schedule’. At a fully contested hearing before HHJ Harris over the course of 1 day, at which Jamie appeared alone for insurers against a senior junior led by a senior silk, HHJ Harris made the order sought on behalf of insurers. The Court of Appeal refused permission to appeal. This imported decision is reported on Lawtel.
• Scott Martin v ROC UK Ltd – Successfully defending at a multi-day trial this EL claim against a fuel station operator arising out of alleged lifting of a sand-filled bucket, establishing in cross examination that the accident could not have happened in the manner alleged.
• Cook v Fred Olsen – Successfully defending at trial a claim against a cruise line operator that the teak deck surround of a Jacuzzi on an open deck was an inappropriate surface.
• Khan v Palagan Limited – Defending applications for summary judgment / strike out in the context of an EL claim by a worker who became ensnared in machinery where the employer had subsequently pleaded guilty in criminal proceedings brought by the HSE.
• Re Roy Whiteland – Attending 4-day inquest on behalf of a private care home, touching on the death of an elderly gentleman who suffered pressure sores following delayed diagnosis of a fracture leading to paralysis. Other interested parties included local NHS hospitals, previous private care home and GP surgery. The coroner’s narrative verdict attributed no blame to Jamie’s client.
• Re Mr Hutcheson – Attending 1-day inquest on behalf of a driver involved in a collision with a cyclist on a Transport for London highway.

News

• Jamie Clarke appointed to the London A-Panel of Junior Counsel to the Crown
• The material contribution test and indivisible injury

Qualifications

MA(Hons) Jurisprudence, Christ Church, Oxford (1994)

Memberships

• Personal Injuries Bar Association
• Professional Negligence Bar Association
• British Insurance Law Association
• FOIL

Appointments

• from 1 September 2024 London A-panel of Junior Counsel to the Crown
• Council Member (Board Director), Incorporated Council of Law Reporting for England & Wales (ICLR)
• Yarmouth Harbour Commissioner
• Panel Member, London Borough of Lambeth (Schools) Admissions and Exclusions Appeals Tribunal
• Panel Reviewer for Advocate, the pro bono charity of the Bar
• Advocacy trainer, Gray’s Inn
• Former elected member Gray’s Inn Barristers’ Committee