Matthew Best, Director of ATE Partnerships and Head of Personal Injury & Clinical Negligence at Temple Legal Protection
By Legal Futures Associate Temple Legal Protection [1]
The Supreme Court has ruled that young children can recover ‘lost years’ damages where negligence has reduced their life expectancy, overturning more than four decades of authority.
In CCC v Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust [2026] UKSC 5, the Court held by a majority of four to one that there is no principled basis for denying a child claimant recovery of earnings lost during the years of life they will not now live. The decision overrules Croke v Wiseman, which had prevented such claims on the basis that young children would not yet have dependants.
The case concerned a child who suffered a severe hypoxic brain injury at birth, reducing her life expectancy to 29. Liability was admitted. The Supreme Court confirmed that lost years damages compensate the claimant’s own pecuniary loss and are not dependent on how the damages might have been used.
In a dissenting judgment, Lady Rose expressed concern about the speculative nature of projecting lifetime earnings in very young children where there may be limited evidence of individual characteristics. The majority, however, held that difficulty of assessment is not a reason to deny recovery where substantial loss has been suffered.
Matthew Best, Director of ATE Partnerships at Temple Legal Protection, said the ruling would have clear implications for high-value clinical negligence claims. “This is an important clarification of compensatory principle. Claims involving life-shortening injuries to infants will now require detailed modelling of likely education, career path and lifetime earnings.”
He further commented: “For those underwriting and funding these cases, the decision increases the need for careful evidential scrutiny at an early stage. Quantum assessments may become more complex, and in some cases larger, but courts will still expect robust, evidence-based projections rather than broad assumptions.”