Simon Gash

Year called:

1977

Email:

simongash@ropewalk.co.uk

Qualifications:

LLB, University of Birmingham.

Practice areas:

Personal Injury, Clinical Negligence, Disease, Fraudulent Claims

Simon Gash was called to the Bar in 1977.

His specialist areas of practice are personal injury, clinical negligence, disease and fraudulent claims.

Personal Injury

He is regularly instructed in catastrophic injury, fatal accident and other high value claims for both Claimants and Defendants.  He has frequently dealt with test cases or claims by multiple claimants where many others may be waiting in the wings.

He has a sound grasp of the practical and procedural aspects of litigation including, in particular, limitation issues.

He has a special interest in claims under the Animals Act 1971.  These have included horse riding accidents, attacks by dogs, injuries to stable staff and agricultural workers, and collisions caused by livestock straying onto the highway.

Examples of substantial cases include successful claims under the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations by a number of bus drivers against their employer for failure to take suitable steps to protect them from attacks by passengers, which involved persuading the court to distinguish the decision of the Court of Appeal in Searby v Yorkshire Traction; the trial of liability in a 6-figure claim by a groom who suffered serious facial injuries when she was kicked by a horse being led out to pasture by a fellow-employee; settlements achieved of £1m for a construction worker who had suffered a below-knee amputation and £650k for a maintenance electrician who, following a minor cut to his finger, had developed chronic regional pain syndrome; and defending a claim by a brain injury victim and protected party which was negotiated down from £1.6m to £600k;

Clinical Negligence

Over the years, he has dealt with a wide variety of claims for Claimants and Defendants.

Examples include claims against an SHO in A&E whose failure promptly to diagnose a subarachnoid haemorrhage led the Claimant to suffer severe brain damage; an obstetrician who exerted excessive traction during a forceps delivery causing shoulder distocia and damage to the brachial plexus of the infant Claimant; a histopathologist for failing correctly to interpret an abnormal cervical smear leading to the development of an inoperable tumour; an ophthalmology department which failed to arrange regular monitoring of intra-occular pressures in a child for whom steroids had been prescribed to treat an infection and who subsequently developed steroid-induced glaucoma; a GP who failed to detect that the concentration in the Claimant’s blood of the lithium carbonate with which she was treated for manic depression had reached toxic levels causing her to suffer brain damage; and a rogue cosmetic surgeon who agreed to carry out wholly inappropriate gender reassignment surgery on a female to male transsexual and then performed the procedure incompetently, leaving the Claimant grossly disfigured.

Disease

Much of his work arises out of occupational or insidious diseases such as noise-induced hearing loss, asbestos-related illness, asthma, Legionnaires’ disease, workplace stress, hand/arm vibration syndrome and work-related upper limb disorders.

Substantial examples have included the successful defence of an action against a major port operator by a representative group of stevedores who had allegedly suffered noise induced hearing loss.  These claims were discontinued after cross examination of the Claimants when their engineering and medical experts indicated that they could no longer support their cases.  He has also defended claims against a government agency by multiple Claimants who had allegedly developed work-related upper limb disorders through overuse of display screen equipment. These claims were all ultimately withdrawn.