Marie’s (whose name has been changed) claim was for the loss of her unborn baby 36 weeks into her pregnancy. The defendant admitted liability, but didn’t offer any settlement for the claim, which was for Marie’s pain, suffering and the psychiatric injury she suffered in both losing her child and having to go through the delivery of a stillborn child.
Unfortunately, during her pregnancy Marie had sought medical attention, only to have her concerns dismissed, making it even more traumatic than it otherwise might have been.
The starting point in calculating how much compensation Marie should be given was the statutory bereavement award. As far as the law is concerned, an unborn baby isn’t considered to have “lived”, which meant Marie wasn’t entitled to a statutory bereavement award by default, but we felt it was the natural place to start negotiations.
Court proceedings were issued as the defendant wasn’t offering an acceptable settlement. We obtained psychiatric evidence demonstrating a range of psychiatric disorders that Marie was suffering from, and so the defendant offered a settlement of £15,000, which was accepted by Marie.