Processed meat and colorectal cancer claims – Yes, No, How Big? Summary It has been proposed that processed meat consumption causes colorectal cancer. Since there have been no UK insurance claims for this, and the proposal has not been put to proof at common law, it is described as a potential liability ENID[1], or, emerging liability risk. The background is briefly described below. As part of the necessary[2] evaluation response, a software model of the potential UK personal injury liability exposure has been developed. The model allows the user to test various technical and legal “what ifs” and to perform sensitivity analyses. A generic causation assessment tool is included in the software and is based on UK legal precedents. The normal medical response to colorectal cancer includes surgery. Such surgery entails a risk of serious infection and the consequential need for antibiotics. Given the increased rates of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) some bowel surgery cases will die as a res

De minimis – a practical step In a nut shell I propose that the explicit recognition of a two stage test of de minimis may lead to clarity of fact finding in difficult cases such as marginal noise induced hearing loss, and minor neck sprain. Further, by focusing on the first stage test, the significance of marginal exposures to risk can be resolved objectively. The conventional two-stage test The concept of de minimis is fairly straightforward to assess in cases of broken limbs, burns and other ‘impact’ events. Indeed it is so straightforward that the assessor and opposing parties may not make explicit that they are using a two stage test. In general when assessing injury: The first stage is to assess whether the state of the claimant after the event was/is ‘probably different’ to their state immediately prior to the event. Has anything changed? ‘Probably different’, is properly assessed on the balance of probabilities. If yes, the second stage is to assess whether the difference is su