No double jeopardy

Ann Brazier v Wolverhampton City Council [2007] EWCA Civ 1479

The claimant had worked for the defendant authority as a carer at a care home. In January 2003, she sustained personal injury by aggravating a pre-existing condition in her lumbar spine when handling a resident, and was on sick leave for three months. The authority then provided her with a temporary sedentary job as a seamstress until April 2004, but in January 2005 she was retired by the authority because of her ill-health. Between the accident and her retirement, the authority paid the claimant over £19,000 by way of sick pay and remuneration for her temporary job. In November 2004, after she was given notice of retirement, the claimant suffered further injury in a road traffic accident and issued proceedings against the authority seeking damages for personal injury. But for the second accident, the claimant would have obtained alternative employment commensurate with her reduced physical ability and earned no less than she had as a carer. She gave credit in her schedule of damages for the £19,000 paid by the authority, but claimed it back on the ground that, if the accident had not occurred, she would have received sick pay and pay for the temporary post until July 2007. The claimant submitted that she should still be entitled to a year’s sick pay because, but for the first accident, she would have been contractually entitled to that benefit after the second accident. However, her entitlement to that sick pay had been exhausted by the first accident.