Mark Armitage

Personal Injury

Mark focuses on all aspects of personal injury litigation, principally in the Multi Track. He has been instructed in cases in the High Court and the Court of Appeal and he regularly appears up and down the country in trials involving all aspects of liability and quantum arising out of accident claims. He is particularly interested in those claims arising from the occupation of premises; employers’ liability; accidents on the highway; and claims relating to the liability of animals and their keepers. Over the years, he has been routinely instructed by a variety of local authorities in the defence of their public liability claims.

Mark is willing to fight difficult claims at trial but is also a great believer in the benefits of ADR and is often instructed to settle cases at JSM.
He is experienced in dealing with catastrophic and fatal accident claims.

Mark is particularly interested in cases involving issues of chronic pain and psychiatric injury. He has also been instructed in several matters involving complex and unusual vascular injuries.

Selected Cases

• Instructed in a case of severe brain injury and cognitive impairment following an accident at work whilst painting a ship in Falmouth docks.
• Acting for a Defendant in a case of complex vascular injury following a road traffic accident: the claim settled at a JSM for almost £1million.
• Successful defending a bus company in a ‘test claim’ resulting from an accident arising as a result of skidding on ice.
• Selwood v Durham CC & Ors [2012] EWCA Civ 979; [2012] PIQR P20 – a claim relating to the negligence of an NHS Trust in failing to warn local authority social worker of threats to her life by voluntary mental patient. Issues: whether it is necessary to show an assumption of responsibility for a victim’s safety; whether Art.2 ECHR engaged. [led by Michael Kent KC]
• Instructed in a claim for life-changing spinal injuries resulting from a fall from height in Richmond (North Yorkshire) [led by Benjamin Nolan KC]
• Settling a case at a JSM for over £1million for a claimant who suffered serious physical and mental consequences following a road traffic accident.
• Successfully defending an employer’s liability claim relating to allegations of unsuitable work equipment.
• Successfully defending a highway authority in a multi-track highway tripping claim before HHJ Robinson in Teeside.
• Successfully defending a registered zoo in relation to a parrot which had attacked a child.
• Instructed in a claim in which a horse had been ‘spooked’ by a large vehicle on the highway causing its rider to be unseated.

News

• Mark Armitage appointed as Assistant Coroner for North Yorkshire and York
• Fudge v Hawkins & Holmes Ltd & Others

Qualifications

• Downing College Cambridge
• MA (Cantab)
• LLM (Cantab)
• General Editor – Charlesworth & Percy on Negligence
• Assistant Coroner for North Yorkshire and York (October 2025)
• Visiting Lecturer at Inns of Court College of Advocacy (2025)

Memberships

Personal Injury Bar Association