Kate is an Associate & Solicitor in Tozers’ Clinical Negligence and Injury team. She combines focus, organisation and tenacity with a friendly and approachable manner, recognising that when someone has lost a loved one or suffered a significant injury as a result of negligence then bringing a legal claim can seem like adding insult to injury.
Kate uses her breadth of experience to work in a supportive and systematic way and since qualifying as a solicitor in 1998 has been very successful in securing compensation for her clients in a wide variety of clinical negligence claims including:-
- Failure to diagnose
- Surgical error
- Inappropriate or over prescription of medication
- Missed cancer
- Hospital infection.
She currently specialises in high value and complex obstetric claims for children and young adults who have suffered brachial plexus injuries at birth (Erb’s Palsy).
Kate also brings to the team a wealth of experience in dealing with a wide variety of personal injury claims including road traffic accidents, accidents at work, public liability and industrial disease including industrial asthma and asbestos related conditions. She continues to undertake some high value/complex personal injury claims.
Kate has successfully taken a claim to the Court of Appeal. In this reported case the court for the first time provided in clear and comprehensive terms the answer in English Law to the question of when a person suffering from a mental disability owes a duty of care to others.
Notable cases
- Securing damages of circa £900,000 for a child with a brachial plexus injury (Erb’s Palsy) – 2019
- Securing a settlement on the issue of liability in a child’s Erb’s Palsy claim. Previous solicitors had abandoned this claim due to unsupportive medical evidence. Kate was able to instruct the very best of medical experts whose evidence was that there had been clear breaches of duty which had caused the child’s injury – 2019.
- Securing damages for a client who had suffered injury as a result of over prescription of painkillers by his GP.
- Successfully bringing a claim against a nurse at a GP surgery, a walk-in centre and a hospital for failing to diagnose and appropriately treat acute appendicitis such that the client’s appendix burst and she had to undergo open rather than keyhole surgery resulting in a slower recovery, a significant scar and compromised fertility.
- Securing damages for a patient due to inappropriate prescription of statins and a failure to recognise and treat significant side effects
- Securing damages for a client for a failure to identify and treat nerve damage caused during a total knee replacement leading the client to suffer significant and unnecessary pain over a number of years.
- Securing damages for a client whose brain injury was misdiagnosed at hospital causing a delay in him receiving appropriate treatment.
Kate is a committee member of the Devon and Exeter Medico-Legal Association.
