Verity's Story: Family Tragedy Caused Hypoxic Brain Injury

We acted on behalf of Verity, a child who was 20 months old when she was trapped underneath a reversing car, which was being driven by her father while on a family camping holiday. The case is the most tragic that anyone involved in Verity’s care and treatment had ever come across and was an emotionally very complex case.

The situation

As a result of what we believe to be the largest annual interim payment on record (£600,000), we were able to implement a privately-funded rehabilitation package for Verity. A large multi-disciplinary team was established connecting statutory services with private services to ensure clinical input was goal-focused and achieved the best outcomes for Verity.

Timeline of events

As a result of the incident, Verity suffered a cardiorespiratory arrest and subsequent hypoxic brain injury, as well as sustaining multiple fractures. Given her age, she was classed as having cerebral palsy. She also has spastic dyskinetic quadriplegia with increased tone in all four limbs, severe learning difficulties and communication problems, suffers from scoliosis, and is socially unresponsive. In addition, she has multiple drug-resistant epilepsy, is fed by a jejunostomy tube, which will continue for life, and has regular suctioning.

The case is subject to an anonymity order both in terms of our client and although very uncommon, this has been extended to the Defendant given the sensitive and distressing nature of the case.

How Lime helped Verity maximise her quality life

The case was complex in terms of the support Verity’s family required given the tragic circumstances of the accident. The emotionally complexities of the case impacted Verity’s care team, who received psychological support.

Verity’s life expectancy was a significant area of dispute between the parties and there were real challenges in ensuring a consistent 2:1 care package, which included an employed full-time nurse. Despite the expert evidence not supporting a care package that directly employed a nurse beyond the settlement, we successfully argued for one as part of the overall settlement.

As part of the settlement negotiations, Verity’s family wanted to ensure the involvement of the Clinical Commissioning Group in terms of the continuity of training it provides to the care team. Whilst unusual in a case of this nature, the family were keen to ensure this continued as it was working well in practice and provided a linchpin between statutory support and the private rehab package. A number of options were explored – a Peters undertaking, a reverse indemnity and withdrawing Verity from statutory funded support.

The case settled for approximately £20 million, which included a periodical payments order (PPO) of £600,000 per annum. We have been advised that this is within the top five PPOs on record. The settlement was approved by The Honourable Mr Justice Ritchie.

The court also approved a reverse indemnity that terminates upon Verity’s life expectancy (negotiated: aged 25) to ensure continuation of care. We believe this is the first of its kind. Reverse indemnities are extremely uncommon as they are incredibly complex both in terms of drafting and practical application. However, we fought for this to ensure Verity’s family does not end up ”topping up” funding for the 24-hour care package if their child outlives the expert evidence’s predicted life expectancy.

Negotiations took place over five weeks and the reverse indemnity was agreed, subject to court approval, due to a continued collaborative approach with the defendant.

A note from Vicky Blodwell

“This loving, caring family were struck by tragedy and their lives altered beyond all recognition. They have fought tirelessly to ensure that their daughter receives the best possible care and clinical input to be able to attend school and enjoy time at home with her family. Verity loves music, water and bouncing and we were so pleased that those costs were recognised within the settlement as being so fundamental to her quality of life.”