Maria Morris
In personal injury litigation, assessing earning capacity requires more than medical evidence. This article explains why vocational expertise is critical.
2. Why Vocational Experts Are Critical in Personal Injury Litigation
In personal injury cases, the court must determine:
– Loss of earnings
– Loss of future earnings
– Loss of earning capacity
– Feasibility of returning to work
– Cost and time of retraining or resuming work in a pre-injury or post injury job or even into self-employment.
– Impact of disability and injury on employability
Medical evidence alone cannot answer these questions.
A surgeon may confirm that a claimant has a 20% reduction in grip strength in their dominant hand.
An Occupational Therapist may say they are now restricted to using mostly their non dominant hand for certain daily living tasks.
However, only a vocational expert can answer:
– Does this prevent them from returning to their job role or trade?
– What alternative roles are realistic?
– Are these roles available to them locally? Or do they need remote work?
– What adjustments or equipment might they require at work to overcome this barrier?
– What salary range is achievable?
– How long will retraining take?
– What is the long term vocational prognosis?
Without vocational evidence, courts and Tribunals are left to guess.
2.1 The Legal Principle: Courts Must Avoid Speculation
UK courts have repeatedly emphasised that decisions about earning capacity must be grounded in evidence, not assumption.
In A Local Authority v RS (Capacity) [2020] EWCOP 29, Reference (1) the court criticised assessments that relied on generic statements rather than detailed, functional analysis.
Although not specifically a vocational case, the principle is directly applicable:
Courts require robust, analytical, evidence driven assessments — not assumptions — when determining a person’s functional abilities. Vocational experts provide exactly that.
2.2 How Vocational Evidence Influences Personal Injury Outcomes
Examples from practice include:
– Demonstrating that a manual worker with chronic pain cannot sustain full-time work, even if they can perform tasks intermittently
– Showing that a claimant with PTSD cannot return to customer facing roles but can retrain into remote administrative work
– Establishing that a claimant with mild brain injury has reduced processing speed that limits progression into higher paid job roles
– Providing evidence that a claimant’s pre-injury career trajectory would likely have led to promotion and increased earnings
Here are some anonymised vocational expert client examples:
The 23 year old man with a brain injury who was struggling to study and gain qualifications which may or may not have resulted in him working as a Personal Trainer. Including the loss of income experienced by his Mother having to help support him with studies and work placements.
Or the middle aged man who was working as a bus driver with a chronic liver condition post infection leading to him being deemed unfit to resume work. He was deemed able to ad hoc voluntary work could be an option to help his wellbeing and provide some purpose and structure to his life. He had lost 2/3 of his pre incident salary.
Or the 16 year old boy who was due to start an apprenticeship within construction now dealing with partial sight. The impact this would have on his apprenticeship and need for adjustments at future work.
These insights directly influence quantum.
Maria Morris is available for instruction across the U.K. To request her C.V or discuss your Expert requirements, please email expert@circlecm.com or call 0129724145.
This article is article 2 of 4. Stay tuned for the next article in this series. This article forms part of a wider series on vocational evidence in UK law. The full reference list for this series is included in Article 4.