No award of costs

Alli v Luton & Dunstable NHS Trust CA SJ 6 May

The claimant was injured falling at the bottom of a stairwell which she alleged in her pleading had been ‘almost in complete darkness’. In her oral evidence the claimant accepted that there had been some light at the top of the stairwell but that it ‘became progressively darker’. Although the judge found that the bottom of the stairwell had been in darkness and that the defendant was both in breach of its statutory obligations and negligent, he made no order as to costs on the basis that the claimant had materially changed the case that the Trust had to meet.