Treatment of causation of non-whiplash injuries in MedCo reports

Published: 26 May 2023

MedCo has received a number of queries and reports from users in relation to the treatment of causation of non-whiplash injuries in MedCo reports.  

These injuries are coming under more scrutiny since the whiplash reforms, and the Court of Appeal has recently considered the question of how to value claims where the claimant suffered a non-whiplash injury together with a whiplash injury as defined in the Civil Liability Act 2018 (CLA).  

MedCo has prepared a new training module, to be released in June 2023 CPD progamme, which includes an explanation of the Court of Appeal’s judgment and some guidance as to how MedCo expects experts to deal with these injuries in their reports, and we thought it might be helpful to let MedCo Users know how we are suggesting experts deal in their reports with non-whiplash injuries.  

We are asking that the expert states clearly whether a particular injury, in their expert opinion, does or does not form part of the whiplash injury as defined in the CLA, and where it does not, the expert should be very clear as to how the claimant states that the injury was caused or where applicable why the expert does not consider the injury to be a whiplash injury (as defined in the CLA).  

It is not sufficient to use phrases such as “due to direct trauma”; the report should state how the claimant says the injury was caused and whether the expert considers that the injury is consistent with the claimant’s description and the nature of the accident.  It is not necessary for the expert to refer to the CLA definition in their report.  

If you have any questions please contact [email protected]