Disregarded Income Other Than Earnings

It seems to me that the Court of Appeal took this paragraph to have its most natural and probable meaning.

Compensation for a personal injury claim is not necessarily paid in a single lump sum. Modern structured settlements often involve the compensator purchasing an annuity which will then pay a regular income to the person injured. These are the ones you see in the press where people are said to have been “awarded” say £1.5m. In fact the amount paid out is much less than that, but over a period of say 40 years it may amount to quite a lot (the annuity provider gambles on how long the injured person is likely to live).

The Court of Appeal is saying that para 15(5e) is about this sort of thing, where the Court has ordered a structured settlement, or the case has been compromised by agreement without actually going to court on terms equivalent to a structured settlement. If that is what has happened in your client’s case then you can rely on this case to support the argument.

The court actually decided as a matter of law what the meaning of para 15(5e) is, and then found on the facts that the appellant didn’t qualify. It is thus good authority to support people who DO fit the definition and a very good illustration of the difference between findings of law - which create precedents - and findings of fact, which don’t.

so you need more information as to why the client is receiving this continuing payment ....

Thanks Ariadne, my client does fall under the legislation so although the case wasn’t successful for Malekout I think it should be a good precedent to rely on for my client.

It doesn’t look like any cases have been decided since Malekout - not suprising seen as it was only decided in February, but thought I would check still.