6.4 Computations in damages claims.

In larger personal injury cases a considerable amount of the judge's time is likely to be taken up with investigations of complex figures for loss of earnings, cost of future care etc. The same will apply in some kinds of commercial actions where, for example, a party is claiming loss of profits over a considerable period. In order to cut down the amount of the judge's time at trial taken up with investigating difficult arithmetical matters, the parties will inevitably have been given directions about how to prepare either at the case management conference or later.

In such cases the usual form of direction will be that the claimant prepare a computa­tion of the amounts for which he contends, explaining, with reasons, the justification for each figure in some convenient format. The order will not simply permit the defendant to turn up at trial and dispute each item. The defendant in turn will be required at some appropriate stage to serve a counter schedule, setting out his opposing contentions for each item and the reasons for them. Sometimes it will be convenient to order that these are set out on the same page in a document which used to be known as a 'Scott schedule' whereby disputed items are listed usually in five or more columns, showing:

(a) the figure for which the claimant contends for a particular item or rate of loss;

(b) his brief arguments in support of it;

(c) the figure which the defendant contends for and his arguments in support of it;

(d) possibly a further column for the claimant's reply to the defendant's contentions; and

(e) a blank column for completion by the trial judge in the course of hearing the evidence.

This form of schedule is particularly useful in clarifying the issues in building and construction disputes where there may be many hundreds of items, the nature and value of which are each disputed. It is probably not appropriate in personal injury claims where, although the disputes may be very substantial, there are only a few items in dispute, e.g., the rate of pay which the claimant would have had had he been able to return to work and achieved certain promotions, or the rates of pay the claim­ant can now earn in some job that pays less well than his former occupation, or the period for which it was appropriate for the claimant to have remained off work.

These documents should be prepared in a user-friendly form for the trial judge so that he can clearly see the issues in arithmetical terms.

6.5 Listing of cases.

We have already considered the primary rules in relation to listing of cases which provide that on both fast track and multi-track a fixed date of trial or a trial window will be given very substantially in advance. A listing questionnaire will be completed in both kinds of case—on the fast track no later than eight weeks before trial and on the multi-track about 10 weeks before the intended trial. When these are returned containing up-to-date information they will, amongst other things:

(a) show what issues are agreed and what remain outstanding;

(b) give the numbers of witnesses to be called; and

(c) give each party's estimate of the length of trial.

Usually on the multi-track the parties will be ordered to file an agreed case summary to assist. At this stage the case will be listed by the combined efforts of the listing officer of the relevant court and possibly the judge who is likely to hear the case. In multi-track cases a trial may last days or weeks and in those cases further listing arrangements will have been put in place at a much earlier stage to ensure availability of both judge and court.